Passionate Products - Anecdotes & Ideation from a “Girl Dad” / Brand Manager

Introductions and “Passionate Products” Overview

Before I get into it I thought I’d dive into who I am and what this article series for People of Play is supposed to be. 

My name is Dekan Wheeler, I have been in the Game and Toy industry for just about a decade; before that I worked in Hollywood as an Editor and Consultant. My wife and I are also part of that “Millennial Kidult” demographic that's popping up for everyone to watch out for. Our house is full of books, box games, collectibles and RPGs. Not only do I play Dungeons & Dragons weekly with the same group I have for five years straight, I am also lucky enough to be the Senior Product Manager at Ultra PRO International in charge of our licensed products with Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast including D&D and Magic: The Gathering. While I have worked hard to be here, I also fully recognize how lucky I am to have a “Jobby” that I am passionate about. The only people more passionate than I am, are the passionate fans that buy what I make. I do what I do for them.

The most passionate consumer of what I make is my 8 year old daughter, for her privacy I will refer to her as “L”. When she was about four or five years old, L understood that after I dropped her off at school I went to work to make toys. For a very long time she was convinced that I went to work SOLELY to make toys for her. This made L my harshest critic, as when I brought home something that was for any other real world demographic of “not just a toy my daughter wants” she would be blunt about needing me to fix it. Now that she understands other people also buy the toys and games I make too she’s still a critic, but clearly loves what I do. At the end of the day, if I can make a product she is passionate about too, then everything is right in my world. 

She has now even begun to pitch toys and experiences that I should make and the level of Blue Sky dreaming L has is beautiful. The goal of these columns really is to record the anecdotes of her pitches and plans, to not only save them for my future self but to digest them and ideate what I can from them and present thoughts here for anyone’s benefit. My goal is to take new stories every month and find actionable items from them to muse on while writing to grow myself in the game and toy industry.

This Month’s Story: The Two Year Tooth

We’ve recently started to show L Studio Ghibli films. While she loves the classics of Ponyo and My Neighbor Totoro, she has fallen in love with a deep cut: The Cat Returns. This is one of those, “always on films”; if we have screen time we are watching it. If you are unaware of the film’s premise, the heroine, Haru, saves the prince of the Kingdom of Cats. Quickly she finds herself drawn into the said kingdom to be rewarded. These are rewards in name only as a young woman does not need or want presents of mice, catnip or, in a dramatic escalation, a betrothal.

The title callout a Cat Returning, refers to one Baron Humbert von Gikkingen, an anthropomorphic orange cat that is also a statue in the real world. Voiced by Cary Elwes in the english translations; he helps Haru help herself to escape the Kingdom of Cats and return to the real world a more well rounded and confident person. This has resonated with my slighter to her souls and leads us to a statement L made to me earlier this year.

“Daddy, I’m going to make a machine to bring Haru and Baron to life and I need your help”

Ok, this is going to be a big lift for a toy maker. We talked it through and started planning, sketching out what this machine would look like, building prototypes of the machine with tin foil, sculpting a body for Baron to inhabit out of clay and finally going to Home Depot to get metal and cardboard to build the thing. While we still have big plans for this machine; we also realized we needed something else to “create an experiment” to bring the characters to life. Of course she settled on the missing ingredient being Pixie Dust, so of course we hard shifted from machine building into reaching out to the Tooth Fairy.

L’s Mom and I know we are on the verge of losing the magic that is the Tooth Fairy and all of her overnight magical compatriots, so when L started writing letters to the Tooth Fairy (without a lost tooth for over a year mind you) we encouraged it. Being a pen pal with the Tooth Fairy is easy enough, and doubles the duty of getting her to want to read and write legibly, something we already are trying for. So, after a solid week of writing systematically to the Tooth Fairy, we all discovered that the Pixie Dust is only magic if it is made from a tooth of the kid that wants to make a wish with it.

I have never seen a kid so happy to go to the Dentist to ask when her next tooth would be loose. The answer: Two years.

Now what does she do? She starts planning for two years from today when she will have this Pixie Dust. The idea of bringing Haru and Baron to life has only grown alongside the cast of characters that will be made alive. Now they will also need to have a school, which L will teach at, so they can acclimate to the real world. This kid has pivoted so much better than I can and I love it.

Ideating on the Anecdote - Plan to Pivot & Plan for the Further Future

Planning for something 10 to 14 months from now is second hand to anyone in the Toy Industry: By February 2025 holiday plans are on lock and layout for the end of the year and I’m currently thinking about shifting a pressing project up to start a bit earlier to account for Lunar New year in 2026. This is of course all happening during another round of “uncertain times” where many people, myself included, are trying to figure out updated pricing in the wake of tariff announcements. 

I don’t deal with surprises well. I find myself thinking about how I can learn from L’s tooth pivot to plan more broadly in my career’s Product and Brand Management.  I find myself wanting to explore two directions that range from dealing with immediate changes and using that for planning for things much further in the future than I have before.

I’m settling into the mindset that uncertain times are now a part of day to day life. This is not only from a political landscape but changes in work and home spaces too. How can I prepare for my new puppies chewing apart a vital cord before a work call? How can I prepare for something as wild as a border closure? How can I do this without dwelling on it? 

How can I start building a Plan to Pivot?

• Layoffs and Leavings. People leave companies, that's just a fact; but it's always such a weird moment when it happens. As I write this I realize I need to personally making a list of people/groups that I rely on in my day to day. I want to cross train on the touch points we have to help if those moments happen. Because in the end, I want to keep products moving toward their published release dates so that the people that are passionately awaiting them, get them. 
• Travel Restrictions. I travel for work and need to be able to continue to do so. While I can't plan for any changing Visa or work authorization needs for international travel, I can make sure my ID’s are up to date which is where all of those processes will start. Real ID is also set to come in effect (again) on May 7th. Just a note, if you don't have Global Entry by now here’s a reminder to get it set up.
• Production Centers and Locations. Tariffs just happened for goods entering from Mexico, Canada and China. Or did they? Or will they again? Will they be higher? I don’t know. What I can do today is look back over all of my overhead for my key products and play around with numbers. Maybe I can check again on parts of the products that might be able recosted with different materials. All of our key products will still get made, but I need to stay ready to remind executives what the financial and social cost will be if we do or don’t change costs with a real, and frequently, updated plan to pivot quickly if a bigger shoe drops.

Pivoting is all well and good, but what groundwork can I also start now that I’d love to bear fruit in a further future? The goal here isn't to have answers or directions today, that's impossible. However, I did just set aside a focus time in my weekly calendar to exclusively Plan for the Further Future on these specific musings which I personally want to focus on. 

• Augmented Reality. Even though nothing has clicked in the market, more and more things are being viewed through a camera and screen with AR markers, the only question is when it will be ubiquitous. I’m no longer waiting for the tech to catch up to my dreams and it's time to start designing; What do I want my product to use this for? How will it enhance play? How will it be safe? And, overall, what do I want it to be that I can be passionate about? These are all questions that can be planned for now. So, when this Sci-Fi product is everywhere, I am ready to go hit the market running with the next best play experience.  
• New Product Placement Opportunities. Did you know that The Lego Group has storefronts on Cruise Ships? The news is a few years old but it's new to me and the Cruise Industry is only getting bigger. While this is a captive audience that the toy industry should be watching, I want to sink my teeth into discovering even newer spaces. Where are families going to be that will need a moment together with a new favorite game or toy?
• Renewables. It’s clear that current US politics may actually make renewable products harder to lean into, I want to find ways to stay the course. A few years back I found a company called Sway that was planning to make Seaweed Bio Plastics in the US. Looking at them again today it looks like they are approaching a pilot program and I have signed up for a waitlist to get more details so that when we have another possible policy change in 2 or 4 years we can be more ready, if not before. 

If you’re still here, great. I am not a writer by trade at all; but enjoyed putting my daughter’s story to paper and using it to grow ideas for her to see in future. Thank you for reading the first Passionate Products