There’s a lot happening right now for Mood Bears, the lovable – and purposeful – plush brand, with new licensed consumer products from key partners lined up to launch from January 2025, Mood Bears’ animated content debuting on YouTube in Q4 this year, and the brand named a Top 10 Christmas Pick for 2024 by Dr Amanda Gummer’s Good Play Guide. LicensingSource.net sits down with founder Jo Proud and Sara Davies – entrepreneur, TV Dragon and Mood Bears investor – to find out more.
Fans of the BBC’s Dragons’ Den will undoubtedly remember Jo Proud’s appearance on the show in April 2023. Her range of eight cuddly Mood Bears, each a different colour and representing a different human emotion, caught the interest of Sara Davies, Peter Jones, Steven Bartlett, Touker Suleyman and Deborah Meadon, resulting in Jo becoming the first-ever recipient of funding from all five Dragons.
“I still can’t get my head around it,” admits Jo. “I thought I’d go in and they’d say, ‘It’s a teddy bear, off you go and good luck.’ The fact that they all believed in the brand was a huge boost and an indication that I was doing the right thing.”
What swayed the Dragons is that Mood Bears are no ordinary plush toys. The idea for the brand came to Jo in 2019 at a time when she was struggling with her mental wellbeing; she found the bright yellow Happy Bear she initially sketched out, and eventually had made, significantly lifted her spirits, and she realised it might have the same effect on others.
Happy was soon joined by seven other Bears – Sad, Silly, Calm, Nervous, Angry, Love and Hope – each accompanied by a poem about the feeling they represent. “The poem is there to help children and adults understand thoughts, feelings and emotions and know how to deal with them, and know that it’s normal to have all these emotions,” Jo explains. “It’s normal to feel happy and sad at the same time. It’s normal to have silly feelings in your body, normal to have those butterflies on a daily basis…”
Interest in the brand skyrocketed after Jo’s Dragons’ Den appearance, with parents seeking out particular Mood Bears for their kids, children requesting individual bears or trying to collect the full set, and educators using them in classroom settings to teach kids about their emotions and how to regulate them.
Sara Davies herself witnessed first-hand how much the brand resonates with its target audience. “To my younger kid, Mood Bears are just bonny colourful bears, but my eldest is old enough to understand what they’re about,” she says. “After he watched the Dragons’ Den episode he kept asking me to get him ‘the dark green one’, which is Nervous Bear. He’d never talked directly to me about his anxiety, but he’d seen the Bear, and he’d thought, This will help me.”
For Sara, the decision to invest in Mood Bears was made in a matter of minutes of Jo entering the Den. “When you’ve got a fantastic entrepreneur who’s really driven and beyond passionate about the mission they are on, and you couple that with a product that really fits a need in the market, that, for me, is the winning formula in Dragon’s Den, and that’s when we get into what I call a ‘five Dragon scrap’,” she says. “Every one of us felt like we could really add something to this business. The brand is so purpose driven. Ultimately, the more successful we make Mood Bears, the more kids we can help.”
A global manufacturing, sales and distribution partnership with TOMY, signed in 2023, has left Jo able to devote more time to building the licensing side of the business in conjunction with Lisle Licensing, with Sara and the other Dragons on hand to lend their expertise.
“I want to help Jo grow this business to reach more people, and licensing is the way to do it,” says Sara. “Mood Bears is doing really well, and we’re growing, and we are literally taking on the world with it. But you can’t be all things to all people; if you try to do everything, you’re not an expert at anything. I said to Jo, you’ve got a fantastic, powerful brand, and there are so many licensing partners who will bite your hand off to be a part of this business. Pick the one that’s best at doing stationery, pick the one who’s best at doing children’s books, and work with them, because that way you’ll achieve the biggest reach.”
“Licensing will help us engage with more people – not just kids, but everybody,” Jo agrees. “Crazy as it sounds, not everyone loves a teddy bear. But there are licensed products coming out next year that might suit someone who doesn’t necessary want to buy a soft toy much better.”
Kicking off the consumer products programme in early 2025 is a range of titles from Igloo Books, which has come on board as master publisher. The initial collection will include a soft touch cover storybook, a perfect-bound colouring book including line art of all the bears and areas for readers to note their thoughts, feelings and emotions, and a traditional activity book featuring puzzles and games, drawing on social and emotional learning.
Hunter Price International, meanwhile, will build on the Mood Bears story through impactful consumer products including stationery, arts and crafts products, hair accessories, jewellery, keyrings and charms, debuting from spring/summer 2025.
Lisle Licensing is actively pursuing other categories that align with Mood Bears’ key messages. Evidence-based research by Dr Amanda Gummer of the Good Play Guide, due to be published in 2025, points to Mood Bears having a positive influence on children’s sleep routines, making nightwear and home textiles both natural fits for the brand. Other licensing possibilities include daywear, encompassing inclusive and adaptable ranges, and consumer products inspired by the poems that every bear comes with, which help children understand their emotions and feelings.
With talks about US distribution currently ongoing, it’s clear that Mood Bears are going places. Redesigned bears, with a pocket for keepsakes and dialled-up emotion in their faces, will hit the market this November, while the run-up to Christmas will propel the brand further into the public eye, with the launch of animated Mood Bears content launching on YouTube.
Each episode will feature a particular scenario that will be familiar to most children. “It could be something simple like a little girl going to school and realising she’s forgotten her pencil case,” explains Jo. “My dream scenario would be for the Mood Bears to have a fully fledged TV show that’s on early in the mornings, when both kids and parents are caught up in that rat-race feeling and getting ready for work or school. Even if it was only two or three minutes long, it could be something that just helps to calm you down and leaves you feeling positive about the day.”
