Objective:
In today’s fast-moving environment, toy companies face a uniquely sensitive set of risks. Concerns involving product safety, age grading, compliance, online commentary, retailer action, regulatory scrutiny, or parent backlash can escalate quickly and impact a company’s reputation long before all the facts are known.
This one-hour webinar will provide toy industry leaders with a practical framework for understanding how operational issues become reputational events; how to distinguish an issue from a true crisis; and how to respond in ways that protect trust, brand credibility, and business continuity. The session will explore how legal, communications, product, and business leaders can work together to navigate high-pressure moments with greater speed, clarity, and confidence.
Who Should Attend:
All toy professionals are welcome to join. This session is especially relevant for executives and team members responsible for communications, brand management, marketing, product safety, legal, regulatory affairs, operations, quality, and enterprise leadership.
What You Will Learn:
This webinar will help participants better understand how reputation risk develops in the toy industry and why trust is shaped not only by what a company says, but by what it does, how quickly it acts, and how consistently it responds across stakeholders.
Participants will learn how to distinguish between an issue, a crisis, and a reputational crisis; how to identify the signals that suggest escalation; and how to make stronger response decisions when safety, scrutiny, and stakeholder expectations collide. The session will also examine the core drivers of reputation in the toy industry, the audiences that matter most in moments of concern, and the practical communications and leadership disciplines that help organizations maintain credibility under pressure.
Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of how to prepare for the types of events most likely to affect toy companies, including recalls, viral safety allegations, retailer pullback, regulatory scrutiny, licensing controversy, connected-toy privacy issues, and broader stakeholder backlash.
Themes and Discussion Topics Include:
- Where reputational risk shows up in the toy industry
- Why product safety, compliance, and perception are inseparable
- The difference between an issue, a crisis, and a reputational crisis, and why that distinction matters
- The most common flashpoints facing toy companies, including recalls, safety concerns, privacy issues, viral parent backlash, retailer action, and regulatory scrutiny
- How quickly a contained operational issue can become a broader trust event
- The role of legal, communications, product, and operational leaders in high-pressure moments
- The questions leaders should ask when evaluating legal, business, and reputational risk
- How to communicate with clarity, empathy, and discipline in the first hours of an event
- Common response mistakes that can intensify scrutiny or erode trust
- The role of reputation management as an ongoing discipline, not just a crisis response function
- How to identify early warning signs of reputational risk across parents, retailers, employees, regulators, partners, and the media
- What reputation recovery requires after a high-profile event, beyond issuing a statement
Moderator:
Anne McConnell, senior director, market research & educational initiatives, The Toy Association
Presenters:
Robert Gemmill, chief commercial officer, ChangeMakers
Robert Gemmill is chief commercial officer at ChangeMakers, leading a portfolio of corporate and consumer clients seeking business outcomes through corporate advisory, reputation management, and marketing. Gemmill is a trained lawyer with an extensive background in strategic communications, stakeholder engagement, and specialty services. His expertise ranges from implementing resilience and readiness programs that proactively address reputational risk, to implementing strategies to help ensure the survival of an organization in the midst of a crisis, to enhancing a company’s reputation after an issue arises. His work has involved high-profile commercial lawsuits, data and privacy matters, sensitive workplace issues, class action lawsuits, intellectual property disputes, government investigations, and civil enforcement actions. His clients have included prominent law firms, publicly traded companies, academic institutions, CEOs, high-net-worth individuals, and professional sports franchises.
Jorge Ortega, executive vice president, ChangeMakers
Jorge Ortega is executive vice president at ChangeMakers, where he advises on reputation management, crisis response, brand marketing, and stakeholder engagement, and co-leads ChangeMakers Academy, which delivers leadership and communications training. With more than three decades of experience, Ortega has held senior positions at global agencies Edelman and Burson, directing cross-border initiatives throughout the Americas that helped organizations navigate complex crises, build stakeholder trust, and strengthen enterprise visibility. He also served as interim chief communications officer for three publicly traded companies, where he counseled C-suite executives through transformation and high-stakes challenges while building stronger teams and culture. He serves on the Corporate Advisory Board of ALPFA, the nation’s largest Latino student and professional organization, and on the national board of Amigos de las Américas, a nonprofit youth leadership organization.
About ChangeMakers:
ChangeMakers is a strategy and communications firm that helps leaders turn complexity into momentum. We partner with organizations to protect reputation, build trust, and deliver impact when the stakes are highest. By combining strategic advisory, communications expertise, and data intelligence, we help leaders spot signals early, make better decisions faster, and respond with confidence in both everyday operations and high-pressure moments.