Founder of Fuzzballs, Marc Sach has been awarded Rising Star award at the annual Stationery Awards, championed for delivering a business that, according to judges, boasts “great branding, great story, and great products within a tough market.”
On course to achieve significant stand out in a highly competitive market, Fuzzballs is the cute and humorous pop culture brand starring an adorable cat named Whisky, silly tiger named Timmy, mischievous bunny named Ollie and their friends, as they go on the hunt for adventure, food and friendship.
The brand, which is managed worldwide by Rocket Licensing, began life as a Tumblr web comic and has since quickly grown in popularity to now have over 300 products available to its loyal fanbase of millennials, students and pop culture enthusiasts.
Since partnering with Fuzzballs in late 2019, Rocket Licensing has been growing the consumer products offering with carefully selected leading licensees. Recent additions include Pinfinity, with a range of augmented reality pin badges; Indiego is on board to create a collection of adult T-shirts, sweatshirts and hoodies; while Pyramid will be introducing posters, wall art and stationery for the cute characters, thereby building upon the brand’s success in the stationery sector.
UK gift and card retailer, Scribbler, features Fuzzballs prominently throughout its stores and online, while the official site – www.fuzzballs.co.uk – also sells a wide range of products directly to fans. Fuzzballs has experienced a stellar year in 2020, with sales in September already four times higher than total sales in 2019. Despite the pandemic, Fuzzballs also experienced a huge 430 per cent increase in sales in April 2020, compared to April 2019, and the relatable, funny property continues to grow in popularity.
The Fuzzballs characters are also incredibly popular as social media stickers on platforms including Instagram, Facebook, the App Store and many more. Since launch, over 115 million stickers have been downloaded, with 17 million in the UK, while over 100,000 people have uploaded a Fuzzballs frame to their Facebook profile picture, clearly demonstrating the consumer affection for the brand.
Rob Wijeratna, joint MD, Rocket Licensing, said: “We’re delighted for Marc and would like to congratulate him for his recent award, which honours the incredible journey that Fuzzballs has been on so far. The property has a place in the hearts of consumers worldwide and Marc has worked tirelessly to create the relatable, popular world of Fuzzballs.
“At Rocket, we’re really excited to help grow the Fuzzballs brand, building on the great work that Marc has already achieved and bringing on board more ‘best in class’ licensees, who’ll deliver exciting new products for retailers and their customers.”
