You know what really winds us up? Making you look good. Really good.

The principles of Misfit Toys worked in fall/winter 2020 to launch Celebration Home, a transportable culinary experience developed by two of the most renowned names in event and culinary design: event planner to the stars, Jennifer Zabinski, and celeb and A-list event caterer, Olivier Cheng. The idea was born in the Hamptons during the pandemic summer of 2020 as a series of destination themed dinners that could be delivered and serve as a substitute for missed summer vacations in hot spots such as Mykonos and Capri. This was a pivot for these two creative entrepreneurs who found their core business slow down considerably during lockdown. The new offering was so successful that it evolved to Celebration Home, a multi-sensory experience using regional and international cuisines as a centerpiece, featuring locations such as Jackson Hole, St. Barth’s, distinct NYC boroughs, and Paris, to name a few. A one-of-a-kind dinner experience with a high price point, Misfit Toys’ strategy centered on securing quality placements to reach the core audience for Celebration Home. The team’s first break piece was a feature with main photo in the New York Times “Front Burner” column of the Food section that showcased the service tied to a Christmas Eve experience, which boosted sales dramatically. Celebration Home was also included in Conde Nast Traveler’s “Holiday Gift Guide” as well as features in Forbes, Departures, Du Jour, Architectural Digest’s AD PRO, and more.

Randi Shinder, serial beauty entrepreneur, tapped Misfit Toys to help take her brand, SBLA, “to the next level.” Initial focus was on securing holiday gift guide inclusion for all of SBLA’s products, promoting SBLA as the “Neck’s Best Thing” and building the foundation for a full re-branding and new product launches. In the first quarter of 2021, we announced Christie Brinkley as a new partner for SBLA and generated tremendous excitement for the brand, including a break feature in WWD, coverage in People Magazine, New Beauty, Extra! and more. Additional press highlights for the brand include Reader’s Digest proclaiming the XL Sculpting Wand as a must-have product “that will dramatically improve your life” and Zoe Report including it in their “30 New Beauty Products To Make You Feel Beautiful Inside & Out.” Influencer fans include @adaatude, Laura Pizzuti and Confessions of a Superager.

Echelon Fitness, the young, fast growing, more-affordable connected fitness brand, with Misfit Toys’ media and social program execution, has gone from “the other Peloton” to a household name in it’s own right. After being thrust into the spotlight, through unfounded patent lawsuits, the investors behind Echelon tapped Misfit Toys, having worked together on past brands, to bring some positive consumer spin to the fast growing company.  Having never had consumer, earned media coverage or a social media and influencer strategy the Misfit Toys PR and Social Team sprung into action leveraging alleged patent battle to introduce the Echelon difference; an equally tech savvy, brilliantly designed connected cycling, fitness mirror, rower, and other fitness equipment brand with incredible trainers, a robust streaming class schedule and vibrant community--- all for less than the competitor.

From priming and positioning CEO, Lou Lentine as a leader in more accessible and affordable connected fitness on CNBC, MSNBC, FOX Business, CNN to generating billions of impressions with feature stories and reviews in Wall Street Journal, PC Mag, Apartment Therapy, Wirecutter to competitive set stories that put them at the top of the “bargain bike” game and video features with the likes of Popsugar, Bloomberg Businessweek, CNET, Buzzfeed, as well as winning awards and honorable mentions for fitness technology with Engadget to Women’s Health, Misfit Toys has rapidly moved the dial for Echelon.

Misfit Toys has been tapped by this 20 year old brand, headquartered in Amsterdam, to generate higher awareness within the United States where they have had a limited retail presence for only four years.  The team will focus on new product launches and expanded store-within-store presence to generate interest from beauty and lifestyle media, as well as key influencers, to showcase why this company is one of the most popular bath, body and home cosmetic companies in Europe.

The principals of Misfit Toys worked to relaunch The Watergate Hotel in June 2016 creating a drumbeat of collaborations reestablishing its relevance while paying homage to the hotel’s rich history. Highlights include partnering with Mad Men costume designer, Janie Bryant, to create staff uniforms, and hosting a black-tie grand opening homage to the original 1968 event. The reimagined hotel fetched robust amounts of feature coverage in Departures, The New York Times, Travel & Leisure, The Washington Post, and more. Recent initiatives include the Break-In Turkey, a twist on Thanksgiving dinner, Presidential Pooches in partnership with Museum of the Dog and featuring presidential pets through the ages, and Glamping with the Stars, an opulent overnight stay within an opaque igloo situated on the hotel’s popular rooftop, which marked it’s summer re-opening.

Misfit Toys was retained by Chef John Doherty’s Black Barn Restaurant in NYC’s NoMad neighborhood to increase overall awareness of the popular farm-to-table American Restaurant, its offerings and practices. As part of its scope Misfit Toys was also retained to handle publicity for Chef Doherty’s impressive background—30 years as The Waldorf Astoria’s executive chef—and to launch his nonprofit, the Heavenly Harvst Foundation.

As a result of Misfit Toys’s purposeful, ambitious approach, the team immediately began securing local and national media coverage for Chef Doherty, positioning him as veteran culinary and hospitality expert. Results of the campaign to date include a feature in the New York Times coveted Food section, launching Heavenly Harvst, numerous segments on local and national broadcast including Fox News, NBC’s “New York Live”, Fox 5 News and a radio segment on Sirius XM Radio. The team continuously focuses on areas of the restaurant that are unique to its concept to fuel storytelling. These include Black Barn’s “Chef’s Table” series, Souffle making classes and numerous menu offerings including lunch, dinner and brunch on weekends.

The serial green entrepreneurs behind Ando looked to Misft Toys to be their consumer marketing and media relations think tank for the green FinTech startup. Ando is the first, totally transparent, digital banking service that funds only clean energy, regenerative agriculture, and sustainable infrastructure redirecting the trillions of dollars already present in the system away from fossil fuels and into green projects and initiatives.With a small in-house team, Misfit Toys is a true extension of Ando, assisting to shape their go-to-market strategy; developing media and consumer facing messaging, setting up key media engagement with innovation, finance and climate journalists from TechCrunch, Cheddar, Quartz, Banking Dive, Insider and more, establishing the look and feel for their social channels and up-leveling C-suite on how to best leverage partnerships and new social platforms such as Clubhouse to expand their awareness base. Knowing that banking and climate change are very niche, often complex areas to garner widespread consumer attention for, Misfit Toys created and executed a virtual climate change roundtable putting Ando shoulder to shoulder with other formidable powers in environmental impact including Bill McKibben, Benji Backer, Kristy Drutman, Kathryn Kellogg and more. Attended by hundreds of media, sustainability industry notables and green influencers, the virtual event enabled us to open conversation with journalists for further coverage, jumpstart conversations with brands and non-profits for partnerships and solidify new banking clients.

Misfit Toys began working with The St. Gregory Hotel in Washington, DC to attract positive attention for the sophisticated boutique hotel which remained largely unnoticed by press and locals despite having undergone a recent, gorgeous renovation. Partnering  with the corporate marketing team and General Manager we identified the property’s distinctive pillars and designed press-worthy offerings to distinguish the property in a very competitive landscape. With emphasis on their high level of service, Misfit Toys devised programs to help dominate press coverage around the market’s biggest annual tourism drivers as well as unique pop culture calendar moments. Highlights include developing a novel package in partnership with TaskRabbit for the Cherry Blossom Festival with TaskRabbit staff holding a coveted spot along the Tidal Basin until you arrived, replete with a private picnic prepared by the hotel for guests. Amongst the flurry of press coverage the offering received was a feature in Travel + Leisure.

While dog-friendly, the property’s pet fee had met resistance from guests. In order to garner positive attention for the pet offerings, Misfit Toys suggested partnering with Paws of Honor, a national charity headquartered nearby, that could appeal to the hearts of potential guests with its mission of providing free healthcare for retired service dogs.  Every pet reservation fee for the next year would include a donation to Paws of Honor. We launched the program with a “Patio Pawty” on National Dog Day, which captured the attention of several media outlets including the top rated local news program which did a live segment about the event.

In February 2020 Misfit Toys was retained by Feroce Ristorante, an authentic Italian restaurant in NYC’s Chelsea Neighborhood, focusing on hyper regional cuisine with authentic imported ingredients. The team was hired to tell the story of food provenance through its menu, highlighting the various dishes showcased and demonstrating why the dishes are an identical, yet elevated, representation of those found in Italy. Helmed by Antica Pesa’s Francesco Panella, in partnership with TAO Group, Feroce is located at the Moxy Hotel in Chelsea, NYC.

Putting this startup, DTC cookware company on the map was a labor of love; the media relations and influencer kind. Launching Caraway Home cookware in an already cluttered field, without a high-profile partner was a challenge we were made for. We began aggressive media outreach and influencer engagement three months ahead of launch, honing in on their non-Teflon differentiation and focused on holiday gifting and product reviews with top home, lifestyle, food and sustainability reporters, outlets and macro influencers. Pre-launch activity culminated with a launch event, complete with a cooking demo by the brand’s under 30 CEO, which welcomed over 85 journalists and influencers. Misfit Toys jolted their instagram channel to life with over 300 pieces of content reaching over 40M in the first 4 months including live cooking features across major media outlet IG channels such as MyDomaine. Created and inducted over 30 influencers into our ambassador program and sent ripples through the social-sphere for what Popsugar called the “Instagram famous cookware”. Garnered stories and product round-ups in Domino, Refinery29, Food + Wine, Vogue, Glamour, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Elle, MindBodyGreen, The Kitchen, Buzzfeed, Apartment Therapy, Forbes, Yahoo - to name a few- amasseing nearly 150 pieces of coverage, 5 billion in readership, in 6 months.

The Nashville headquartered, immersive escape room entertainment brand came to Misfit Toys to launch their concept to the NYC market, their 13th location in the US and first major metropolitan address. With no previous earned media exposure Misfit Toys honed in on the brand’s rich set design, advanced technology and customer service pillars which set it apart from anything (jaded) New Yorkers had yet to experience. Leveraging the media titles that spoke most to their target ticket audience, Misfit Toys secured grand opening press across every local media outlet -- segments with FOX Good Day New York, NY1, WCBS, WNBC New York Live; feature coverage with New York Post, Daily News, Time Out New York, Robb Report. Additionally, hosted decision maker editors and producers from Fast Company to The Today Show putting the entertainment entity on their radar for explorative behind the scenes features and top travel and regional outlets from Travel + Leisure to Untapped NYC for seasonal“best of” and “to do” lists.

Misfit Toys was retained by Complete Body Fitness and celebrity owner/trainer Alex Reznik to support the launch and takeover of its newest location: Complete Body Limelight. The gym, housed within an iconic NYC church/destination approaches health with a holistic perspective by delivering a specialized, full body approach combining six essential elements to health: strength, cardio, flexibility, nutrition, meditation and rest. To celebrate the gym opening, and showcase the facilities and introduce Complete Body to media and influencers, Misfit Toys hosted an event--in partnership with Inside Edition Lifestyle Expert, Valerie Greenberg. The event served as a preview of the soon-to-open gym and garnered attendance from top media and influencer personalities in NYC, many who were visiting the space for the first time. The party was widely covered in outlets including Us Weekly, OK! Magazine and Life & Style, among others. In addition to the event kick-off, Misfit Toys secured actor Kellan Lutz to shoot his La Palme Magazine cover at the gym location, focusing on the gym's sleek design and paying a nod to its celeb clientele. The team also secured buzz building coverage for this shoot in media outlets including Just Jared, The Daily Mail and OK! Magazine, among others, generating a spike in gym membership and overall inquiries.

Misfit Toys principals were tasked to renew cultural relevance for this 276-year old apothecary beauty brand. Leveraging a holiday pop-up shop, Tenth Generation, on The Bowery in New York City, and touting new partnerships with Yellowstone National Park and the New York Botanical Gardens Misfit Toys landed business and lifestyle features resonating their reemergence as the preeminent fragrance and personal care brand. From Fox Business, New York Post, Martha Stewart Living, CNTraveler, AskMen, FabFitFun, Forbes, Men's Health, and Southern Living- the brand has seen a direct correlation between media hits and increased online sales and awareness. In addition, to date, the team has also identified 40 lifestyle and beauty influencers with a combined reach of over 4 million, introduced them to this legendary brand and fostered engagement.

In November 2019, Misfit Toys began working with Capitol Hill Hotel, a boutique hotel located across from the Library of Congress in a mostly residential neighborhood in Washington DC, hidden from most tourism traffic. The hotel did well with business travel, but needed to boost occupancy on the weekends. The Misfit Toys team developed family-friendly programming that would bolster weekend business and incorporate search terms popular amongst weekend travel planners.

A dog-friendly property that had not been recognized as such, the team worked with the hotel to design a press-worthy offering for guests with furry friends in tow.  The “Pawlitical Landscape” was a low-cost and evergreen way to accomplish this.  It included a go-pro camera and dog harness along with a map of dog-friendly sites in the city. Travel writers were delighted by the opportunity to “see DC through your dog’s perspective” and resulting media coverage included Parade.com.

Right in time for the much anticipated reopening of the Smithsonian Natural History Museum’s dinosaur exhibit, the team developed Dinosaur DC, a package that designed to delight both parents and children with low cost dinosaur themed add-ons that highlighted the hotel’s existing perks: a daily wine hour in the library, a location central to museums and family-friendly offerings like free breakfast and parking.  The package was not only good for business but captured the attention of family travel writers including a feature in Washington Family Magazine.

The team at Misfit Toys, working with hotel ownership, oversaw the positioning, publicity and social media, including select paid media, for the recent opening of this dual -branded Hilton property in Chicago.  Featuring beautifully designed guest rooms and boasting a central location in one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods, the communications effort focused on strong media relations and creative promotions to reinforce they’re anything but a typical “focused service” hotel.  A complementary campaign was executed to tout the hotel’s unique signature restaurant – the beloved Mei’s – an offshoot of the original at The Whitehall Hotel, also part of ownership’s portfolio.  Leveraging the best vehicles to deliver exposure and prompt orders, the team guided the hotel team in implementing a digital advertising campaign for Mei’s new take-out menu options – resulting in 1800 promotional requests from newly targeted customers in only a three week period.