In an era of stiff e-commerce competition, tariff uncertainty and major price hikes in its bread-and-butter category, Toys”R”Us is somehow coming back into the market stronger than ever.

Since filing for bankruptcy in the US eight years ago, the relaunched company is on track to be operating 2,000 stores around the world within the next two years. (Most recently, its owner WHP Global, which acquired the Toys”R”Us brand in 2021, closed a deal last month with Go! Retail Group to open seven new year-round stores and 11 seasonal holiday pop-ups in the US.) If it hits the 2,000-store mark, there will be more Toys”R”Us locations open than there have ever been before, notes Kim Miller Olko, who has been a driving force behind the brand’s turnaround since coming on board as global CMO and president of Toys”R”Us Studios in 2021.

Miller Olko has been slowly expanding the company’s content production activity beyond marketing to also encompass standalone programming that reflects the company’s focus on play. She’s building a content strategy around the motto: “Same magic, new method,” and experimenting with fresh ways to tap into nostalgia while attracting new kids and families. (Remember that partnership with Sora that caused a stir last year with its AI-made ad spot? That came together in two weeks. “I always welcome something that comes up last-minute, or that is unusual. I really am the lady to call,” says Miller Olko.)

Today, there are a variety of opportunities for kids producers to work with the retailer’s content arm. And Miller Olko recently sat down with Kidscreen‘s Ryan Tuchow to talk about how Toys”R”Us Studios is looking to co-develop and co-produce projects that tie into play and align with the brand’s core pillars of joy, mental health and togetherness.

RT: How does Toys”R”Us go from a company that shut down in the US a few years ago to one that’s on the rise around the world? 

KMO: It’s said that every Millennial was a Toys”R”Us kid, and we’re very lucky that they are now also Toys”R”Us parents. That helps greatly. 

The other thing is that the [toy store] white space never got filled. We’ve got that big A-word [Amazon] out there, letting you search for anything and it arrives at your door the next day, which is super. But what’s missing is an authority on toys that can empower parents and gift-givers, and that really understands play. 

We’re not just selling to customers—we’re solving a challenge. When I joined this company, I thought I’d be selling to kids all the time. And the truth of the matter is, kids know what they want. It’s parents and family members with the money who sometimes don’t, and who need our help. We arrange our stores around hobbies, so if you know a kid is a builder or likes to play solo, you can feel supported when you’re buying toys for him. 

RT: What are some examples of the “same magic, new method” philosophy in practice? 

KMO: We took the Toys”R”Us song, with the same lyrics, but now it’s a little more R&B. And we’re using Geoffrey the Giraffe as a kind of a celebrity. Right away, Geoffrey became a TikTok star with 1.1 million followers. He posts every single day. He’s the brand ambassador, and he resonates with all ages. 

RT: What are Toys”R”Us Studios’ content plans? 

KMO: Toys”R”Us Studios is a content arm, and its focus is separate from making marketing that directly sells a toy. It’s more about the brand and our beliefs. In a world where there’s a Barbie movie, for example, it makes a lot of sense to look in the theatrical movie space. So we are in the process of developing a live-action movie with parts that are coming together nicely. 

RT: Where are the opportunities for other kids content producers to work with you? 

KMO: What we’re about is co-production. We can co-develop, co-invest and co-produce projects together, and then go out and shop them. 

A lot of what we do starts out as tests, and we don’t put very high budgets into them, but we try to invest a lot of sweat equity. With Geoffrey Vision [a collection of 48 short videos in which Geoffrey plays games or goes to new places], it would be great to work with a distributor and start making more. 

And now that we’re growing, I think an expansion of Geoffrey’s World Tour [in which Geoffrey visits different countries and learns about cultures from kids] would be really powerful. When we did it the first year, we didn’t have many countries, but it was super-cool. Everybody ended up at a Toys”R”Us again—it was that kind of marketing spin—but I feel strongly that if we took the marketing part off, there’s a series there that doesn’t have to be complex. It could be really pure and beautiful, and all about how excited kids are to show off their worlds.

RT: What are you most excited about in the future?

KMO: Something I really get excited about is when we launch Toys”R”Us stores where there were none before. For example, Mexico now has five in Mexico City, and we’re opening up in South America for the first time. And there’s also a Toys”R”Us in Lebanon. 

I also like it when we do something different. In the UK, they’re starting to add Toys”R”Us kiosks to highway rest stops so when families make a stop, kids can get something they can play in the car, or that the family can all play together. And [there’s a similar opportunity to grow our presence] in airports. 

What thrills me is [that the stores] can all be different sizes, but they’re bringing play to people around the world.