From Roman ruins to local toy stores: World Alive’s Amy Holden talks all things Freak Marbles

Great to see you, Amy! We’re here to chat about Freak Marbles – a product I absolutely love! For those that haven’t seen it, how do you describe them?
Thanks, Deej! I always start by telling people we’ve made an innovation to what is, essentially, one of the world’s oldest toys! Because – as you may know – marbles have been found in Egyptian tombs, Roman ruins, Mayan ruins… Ancient sites all over the world. So this is a real evergreen concept! It’s also a concept that continues to sell well in a base format that nobody’s really done anything innovative to for a long time.

Well, this is it – and must say this… I love a marble run! I find a simple one appealing – and a more complicated one absolutely mesmerising! But there are a couple of key differences with your marbles in themselves, are there not?
Yes! When our designer said he had an idea to do with marbles, I immediately felt it had amazing potential… Just because of their intergenerational, evergreen nature. Your great-grandparents, grandparents and parents all played marble games! So there were a couple of innovations we added to that play pattern. First of all, we decorated the marbles with characters! They have a face, and they’re decorated 360 degrees… They’ve also got a power on the back, which helps as part of the gameplay – which is epic.

And I’ll put some photos in here because I don’t know how to do the next part justice verbally! The marbles are collectible – how do you display them?
We gave them a skin – like a little body! You pop the marble into it, and the skin turns your marble into a complete little figurine. It may have arms, legs or wheels – whatever it is – so you can have imaginative play with it. That way, it’s not only the marble play – which is active play and can be outdoor play – but it’s imaginative as well. Then you can mix and match the different marbles with different skins, making crazy character combinations.

Love it! Tell me about some of the characters…
I really love the alien! There’s also a little pink pig, which is cute. And there’s one called the Night Watchman, which is like a grim-reaper type thing. It’s hard to choose! Peapod is actually a favourite of mine too… It’s a pea in a pod – a lot of other people say they really love that one! The marble is the pea, the skin is the pod. And then the jelly eye is the one that’s on the TV ad… That’s like a monster type octopus with tentacles. You pop one big, cyclops-type eye into the skin. It just looks scary and friendly at the same time – do you know what I mean?

Yes, of course – Adam Butler is like that. Ha! The only other thing I could’ve mentioned to help people picture this is the size… Because you’ve upscaled the marbles somewhat. Was that predominantly a style choice? Or a safety choice?
The original concept was a standard-size marble. We changed that up to a three-centimetre diameter – principally for safety. I figured some of them could look a bit jellybean-like to small children. But they’re still recommended for age four and up – which is the right age for marbles, I think. Two or three is a bit young. But after we scaled them up, we did some product research. I took samples to birthday parties and to my son’s school – and the kids absolutely loved them. We’d get to the point when we’d say, “Alright, we’re going! Put them back in the box…” And there’d ALWAYS be one or two missing!

Ha! Nothing says ‘promising product’ like a little larceny! And how are they packaged, Amy? Are they blind bags?
There’re three different formats. One is a blind bag. If you get a duplicate, you can trade with your friends – so kids can take them to school and swap them. We also have a set of three in a see-through mesh bag. The bag is the packaging, so there’s no throwing away plastic or cardboard. Plus you can use the bag to collect and keep your Freaks! Then we have what we call the totem packs – sets of six in a try-me-style pack. The marbles protrude so you can swivel them round and see how they’re decorated. If you get the three different sets, you have the whole Wave One collection.

Oh, brilliant! And you mentioned earlier that your first conversation with the designer got you thinking… Tell me more about that.
Well, quite often we work with designers at Creattak. We’ve worked with them for about 15 years! Normally, I call them and brief them on a job. They then give me what I want! But with this, one of the designers – Carlos Garcia – rang me up to suggest this after having the idea himself. As it happens, I was actually at the end of my third month of sick leave with pneumonia due to Covid.

No way?!
Yes! And I’d been working very little – like, from the couch with the mobile; delegating stuff and just making sure things went along… But really not able to do a proper job. And Carlos rang me up and asked if I could have a look at this. So I explained I really wasn’t feeling good, and that maybe I had Long Covid… And he said, “Listen, Amy: it’s five minutes. Just give me five minutes.” And I said: ‘Alright. Give me a minute to wash my face – we’ll get on a Zoom; you can show me your screen. And what he showed me was the small-size marble decorated with the skin.

Which still looked amazing, presumably?
Absolutely! I looked at it, and I had this really strong, intuitive sense that my whole life was going to change because of this product. Because it’s evergreen. It’s beautiful. It’s got an epic gameplay around it… But it’s recognisable AND innovative! So that means the effort in communicating the idea is not going to be that hard. Everybody sees a marble and knows many ways to play with marbles. So I just thought: this could be the product of my career! I was so motivated: I finished up my sick leave, and got straight on to developing it!

And did it have the name at that point?
No. At that point, it was called Ultra Marbles. But I immediately said I wanted to do it. We renamed it later. And you know, for quite awhile, we truly believed that the concept would be so big that it needed to go to one of the top five companies… So I went through the pitching process – at the Mojo Pitch, as it happens – to talk to these organisations. There was a LOT of interest, but I didn’t get an answer in a reasonable period…

Oh! Is that right?
Well, I understand that; I get it! They’re getting literally thousands of submissions every year and there’s only so many projects that can come through. But we didn’t feel we could wait so – even though we don’t have the biggest distribution platform – we decided it’d be better for us to come to market ourselves. We launched in Spain first, with a campaign in October 2023. In 2024, we rolled out in another five territories covering about a dozen countries. We have another three territories slated to launch for 2025, and we’re in negotiations on multiple other territories to roll out in 2025 and 2026.

Great! And I mentioned the marble-run element earlier. That is also innovative to me because it’s a really substantial track, and malleable. I think that’s the word I want! Is that a good word?
Absolutely, yes. The track is malleable – so you can make it different every time. The track is made a bit like a foam roller, so they’re mouldable to some degree. We also have Wave Two designs coming out. And a big campaign running in Spain, starting from the 18th October, in conjunction with a major grocer that has 2,800 stores. We also just launched in Cyprus and Greece this week…

Ah! Greek Freak Marbles…
You might also be interested to know we did a collaboration with a TV show called Marble Mania. It’s in different countries, but it started in Holland. They have these crazy marble runs… Maybe the marbles come in on a drone and get dropped and then – you know – they go through a course! Up ramps, over bridges, through water… Maybe they drop into buckets that fill up and tip over. Whatever! Large, incredibly decorated marble runs. And we had mentions in a product placement within the Spanish version of this show. That was really fun as I was on set during filming!

That sounds amazing! Honestly, I daren’t look it up on YouTube – I’d never leave the house! You know, I think you’ve done one other Mojo Nation interview – which people can read here. That was with Billy, though, so there’s no reason that he would’ve asked you my last question… What’s the most interesting object on your desk?
Ha! Well… It’s probably this little Buddha figure. If things get a little stressful, I can rub the Buddha belly for luck. And it’s funny, actually, because the Buddha used to have a little stand – but one of the legs broke. I didn’t want to throw it out, so I kept it and told myself Buddha was giving me a sign about living in balance.

Ha! Funny! Course, I prefer margarine to Buddha, but there it is… Alright!
Let’s wrap it up there… That was fun – thanks, Amy!

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