When one thinks of pop culture collectibles, Funko Pops are often the first figure to spring to mind. Over the last twenty-five years, fans have seen Funkos celebrating every kind of important fannish moment imaginable spring up. And at conventions and the like, it’s not unusual for attendees to be carrying huge bags of Funkos around and sometimes even cosplaying as the Funko version of a character.
At Nerdist, we’re big Funko fans ourselves, so we were delighted to chat with Dave Bere, Vice President of POP! Yourself & Retail at Funko at C2E2 this year. Bere gave us some insights on one of Funko’s coolest new releases, Funko Pop! Yourself figures, and chatted up everything from the circumstances under which Funko considers re-releasing figures to how Funko works to keep fans at center. Check out our conversation below.
Nerdist: Our readers are very excited to see the Funko Pop! Yourself figures come online and become available to more people. What was it like to bring that from just a few locations to a mass online market?
Dave Bere: We’re really excited about it because the response was so strong in their stores. It’s an idea, it really came from fans. But there’s a lot of work that went into bringing it to Funko.com. You think about the complexity of the scale of how many units compared to the store and on the fulfillment side. It’s really important for me and the team that if someone has a birthday party that they need to do or have a gift that they need to give next week, that we could give it to them on time. So that’s been a big deal. So it’s been really great, and I think we figured it out. We still have a lot to learn. We’re off to a good start.
Nerdist: We recently saw new duo sets released for Pop Yourself. Is there anything else people can expect on that front? More IP for the Funkos, more items you can mix and match? Anything like that?
Bere: Yeah, really all of it. We do have, so we’re in the middle of our Mother’s Day push right now. We have Father’s Day right behind it. Then we’re not far off from dropping several new items to our evergreen assortment, all of which came from fans. So we’re looking forward to that. Then, from a license standpoint, it’s something that we are definitely going to be getting into. I can’t go into the specifics now, but we’re not far off. We did the DunKing promotion, and that’s just the start of the types of things that we’re going to be doing going forward.
Nerdist: Funko figures are obviously a staple for pop culture lovers as far as collectibles go. How do you work to keep your offerings fresh?
Bere: Absolutely. I think we hold a thousand different active licenses. I think we look very closely at what’s happening in culture and what conversations are going on. I think the beauty of our form factors in most cases, we’re able to go out and bring whatever that conversation is into Funko Pop form. We know that pop culture is ever-evolving, so we always have something new to talk about, in addition to going back and mining nostalgia and keep finding those things. So, I think it’s that combination that has made the Pop brand and Funko so strong over the last decade.
Nerdist: These days, you can get a bunch of different Pops in addition to the main Funko figures. Are there any new kinds of arms in the works for that?
Bere: Yeah. We’re always looking at that. We’re always looking at different scales, different ways to collect. We obviously just launched Bitty Pop, and there are a lot of plans, fun plans for that in the future. So we’re constantly looking at that. I think it really just starts with the fan, who we really listen to is the fan. What do they want to collect? How do they collect? So we’re always going to be innovating within the Pop brand.
Nerdist: I know from my experience as a fan that sometimes you discover a show that aired a long time ago and then trying to find a Funko for that property can be like the holy grail. Do you ever consider re-releasing designs or, via a mechanism like the Pop Yourself, allowing fans to create that kind of thing?
Bere: Yeah, it’s a great question. I think that we want to… People collect a lot of Pops, so we want to preserve and protect that. So if items have not been in the market for a while, I think how, if we chose to go back to them, like we’ve done with our classic series last year, I think we have to be very intentional about why and what we’re doing with that. But I think the beauty is if you do discover that show and it is still resonating with consumers, there’s an opportunity to bring new products to the market to meet that demand.
Nerdist: What do you think your most successful Funko release has been overall?
Bere: There’s been so many. I mean, what I like is here we’re in Funko Airways, we have Freddy, and we just introduced Franny, who Freddy’s sister. But Freddy is one that has been around since the beginning. So that’s just a staple of success that we continue to release and continues to resonate with fans. I’ll say, Freddy.
Nerdist: And what is your favorite Funko of all time?
Bere: That’s a great question. My favorite is, I think it was in 2020, maybe. I’m a big Ninja Turtle fan, and we did… Michelangelo is my favorite character. He’s why I love pizza today and all the things. We did a Surfing Michelangelo, and it was pretty epic. That’s probably my favorite.
Nerdist: Then, just to finish off, is there anything else you’d like to share about the brand’s future direction? What can fans really get excited about?
Bere: Yeah, I think it’s that we keep the fans at the center point. This experience here (at C2E2), we’re going to continue to push the boundary of our fan engagement and our fan experiences. Because ultimately everyone loves the product, but it’s really a byproduct of the experience and community we’re trying to create and build. I think that that’s where the focus is going to stay, and remain, and will help us be successful in the future.
