Today at our “Brands Worth to Talk”: we have the fun Totes Emosh.
I came across the Totes Emosh online and thought it would be fun to talk to them and make an interview with the creator of Totes Emosh: David (with the help of Julius 😉 ).
Note: this article as you can see will include several Emojis (not very usual at Alejandra’s but… you will see 😉 )
The Interview 🤔
Who is and what is TotesEmosh? How did the idea started? 💁🏻♀️
I guess anyone under 25 knows it’s an abbreviation of Totally Emotional, not sure how we knew that. In short, it’s a card game that requires you to pull emoji faces.
The idea came about because I was using WAY TOO MANY in my texts and started to question whether they’re anything like real human expressions – I tried making some of the faces myself.
You’ve won the BBC 1 Award for the show “The Costumer is Always Right”! How was the experience and beside of a lovely trophy, how did it boost your brand? 🏆
A mixture of very exciting and extremely nerve-wracking. I may have had a cheeky beer before filming 😉 .
Overall though, it was incredibly good fun, the camera crew, presenter and fellow inventors were all so lovely, I’d recommend anyone with a new product to apply to be on the show. And, as soon as we appeared on the show sales went pretty crazy.
We went from selling to friends and friends of friends to selling over 1,000 packs in a day.
We were in the local paper where we’re from (The Eastern Daily Press), The Telegraph, and on BBC Radio Norfolk.
Here is the link to BBC iPlayer – BBC1 (from 28 mins 44secs) – and the featured article in the papers The Telegraph and in the Eastern Daily Press.
Talking about finances: As a family brand, what was the biggest obstacle to launch your brand, and do you have tips for new entrepreneurs that follow us? 💷
Finding the balance between prudence and ambition is a tricky line to walk.
We didn’t really know what impact the TV show would have, so we invested in an initial order of 1,000 packs. It was quite a large cost per unit, so we’re not making a huge profit, but I think slow and steady is the way to go unless you have money to burn.
The best advice I can give if you’re getting a product printed is to check and re-check the design.
We (I) made an error on a batch of key cards and had to resend 6,000 – one of the other contestants on TCIAR misspelled “Sportswear” on his packaging 🤣
Talking about fun with Totes Emosh, what is the best way to play? What would be a typical play day on Totes Emosh HQ. 💻
We definitely envisioned it being an intergenerational family game. It’s so simple that anyone from 5 to 105 can play.
But we’ve had feedback from students who think it would be an excellent freshers ice-breaker, feedback from parents of kids with autism who think it’s great for teaching expression recognition and feedback from a deaf customer who thanked us for making an inclusive game.
We didn’t set out to do that, but love that we have. On a personal note, I play with my niece (10) over video chat and I know Julius’s sister loves playing with her kids. The rule that the person with the roundest head starts is actually based on Julius, who has an unusually spherical head. 😂
Where can we find Totes Emosh and can it be shipped worldwide? 🌍
Our primary source for sales is our website TotesEmosh, we also sell on Ebay and Etsy too.
We do ship worldwide, and we’re currently in the process of researching how to reduce our overseas shipment costs as we want to be able to spread the LOLs around the globe.
We’re pretty active on social media too, our Facebook page, Twitter page, and Instagram page are often showcasing great face-pulling attempts from happy customers. Pinterest is another platform we’re also active on, although we really don’t understand how it works 🤣.
We love to see customers face-pulling attempts, and if they want to tag us we encourage them to do so!
They can also use the hashtag #totesemoshcardgame or simply #totesemosh and we’ll find it!
Thank you David and Julius for the roundhead for the interview 😂
What we at Alejandra’s think about Totes Emosh:
Fun! Fun and actually pretty motor working. Any teacher will love this as well as any parent or carer.
Imagine charades but with faces only. In our case, we have been playing Totes Emosh since we had our mittens 🐾 on them and our Richie (5 year old) has been adoring it.
Not only it works expressions (in a more didactic way) but it helps to think of emotions and how to transmit it to the next person.
We can ask Richie how he feels (think how children are feeling on lockdown… if we adults are climbing the walls… Imagine the little buds) or how to help kids having a more empathetic way of looking at people…
Unless kids go to bed and adults bring the game with some Prosecco! 🥳 Good laughs that always end rolling 🤣🙃
Another great thing is that we actually can play the game on Facetime/video call and have fun with friends and family.
As a family that loves games, Totes Emosh is definitely in our repertoire of game nights (afternoons, whatever we want) and will be great when we start going to the beach as well and play with a group of friends.
Thank you to Totes Emosh for sponsoring our Giveaway (check our social medias!) and for having the time to talk to roundhead us! 🖖
