Fanjoy, a merch leader in the social influencer sphere that works with everyone from David Dobrik to Addison Rae to Colleen Ballinger to Chase Hudson, has forged a new partnership with its sights set on physical retail.
Fanjoy has entered into an exclusive agreement with Mad Engine, a 33-year-old apparel and accessories company that vends products to myriad distributors, including mass retailers, department stores, independent boutiques, ecommerce, and more. Mad Engine also manufactures products across four corporate divisions: licensed goods (Disney, Pokemon), private label (in which it creates clothing and accessories for retailers Target and Walmart), its own in-house brands (Neff Headwear), and influencer merch (Emma Chamberlain, Liza Koshy).
As per the new joint venture, Fanjoy — which predominantly transacts in ecommerce — has appointed Mad Engine to exclusively manufacture and distribute influencer-branded products for brick-and-mortar distribution. Mad Engine operates retail partnerships with the likes of Hot Topic, Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Zumiez, and many others.
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The first products will hit retail in spring 2021. Fanjoy founder and CEO Chris Vaccarino tells Tubefilter that the company is still securing which top-tier creators and retailers will be involved at launch. In addition to apparel and accessories, he says that the partnership with Mad Engine “could also open the door to products outside of these categories for some of our clients.”
In recent years, Fanjoy has toyed with physical retail distribution via pop-up shops. Last summer, for instance, the company rented out a space at a mall in Los Angeles where it hosted pop-up shops for a rotating cast of influencer partners, including Sam and Colby, David Dobrik, Adelaine Morin, Jeff Wittek, Jason Nash, and Bryant Eslava.
“We are always looking for ways to create buzz and increase foot traffic for our retail partners,” Mad Engine CEO Danish Gajiani said in a statement. “Fanjoy’s roster of creators have hundreds of millions of fans across various platforms, which has translated to strong ecommerce sales of their products. We are confident that we can take what Fanjoy has accomplished and translate that into huge buzz at retail, allowing fans to interact with these social media giants instantaneously, creating more foot traffic at retail and also growing the creators’ individual brands.”
