By Allison Watkinson
TLL Reporter
ZAG has appointed veteran retail expert Gaye Dean as the company’s new VP of North America retail development.
In her new position at Zag, Dean will manage strategic relationships across all tiers of retail throughout North America for the ZAG Heroez brand franchise. Her initial focus will be to work with retailers on this year’s product rollout for ZAG’s Miraculous brand.
“With the outstanding success of their flagship brand, Miraculous, the ZAG name has become synonymous with providing empowering, engaging, and high-quality content and products to fans across the globe,” said Dean.
“I am naturally delighted to join ZAG’s team, working closely with Lisa to ensure that we have retail placement with strong visibility for ZAG’s brands across mass-market, mid-tier, specialty, online, and independents.”
Before joining ZAG, Gaye served for over three years at Pocket.Watch as VP of retail development. Dean also previously worked at Target Corporation for more than thirty years.
During her time at Target, Dean was responsible for the creative development and execution of integrated marketing strategies, leading cross-functional teams, driving new business, and implementing media plans.
“Gaye is an accomplished retail marketing leader and relationship builder with expertise in the entertainment brand marketing and licensing sector, and she brings those skills to her role at ZAG,” said Zag SVP, Lisa Foster. “We now have over 100 licensing partners on board in the U.S. for Miraculous, with the lion’s share of new products launching in 2023 and 2024, and we can’t wait to make them available for our fans!
“We are also currently presenting Ghostforce to our licensees and retailers with toys from ZAG Play and Playmates launching in 2024. ZAG has a strong pipeline of programming in the works including Melody, which is in pre-production, that we want to share news about with our partners.”
Numerous licensed Miraculous products are rolling out this year alongside the spring 2023 toy line from ZAG Play and Playmates.The new licensed products cover a broad range of retail categories including costumes, apparel, accessories, crafts, publishing, games, electronics, home goods, and more.
Zag’s new licensing partners for the upcoming product lines include Bentex, Handcraft, Inkology, Kangaru, Crayola, Kid Designs, Ferrara, and many more.
A broad roster of additional licensing partners will soon be announced by the company.