Hi all!
It’s been a while! The Hippo Team have been hard at work since we last spoke listening to feedback, working on new designs, and fulfilling lots of orders…
- Stock Update: Some Designs are Running Low, and some are Back in Stock!
- First look at 10 New Hippo Mat™ design
- Reg’s Pledge Recipient: St Laurence Church Infants
- 50% off any 1 item (first 5 people only)
You don’t want to miss it!
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Finally the time has come to ship out over 250 pre-orders which have been placed from as far back as June 2021! We’re SO excited for everyone to see, feel, and play with their new toy.
For the first time ever, Reg the Hippo has been fabricated as he hides out somewhere in a unique outfit on every single design (almost in a homage to Where’s Wally?).
We’re also including a handful of freebies with every single order to enhance your unpackaging experience even more.
Make sure you let us know/see where your new toy calls home by sharing your thoughts and photos with us – it really means the world!
⚠️ Pre-Order Stock Levels
Because we’re a new company, we can’t really afford to buy tons and tons of stock. Some other companies will purposefully restrict available stock in order to hike up the demand (and therefore price).
We’ll we’re not creating low quantities because we want to – it’s more because we have to! Start-up life is hard, as life is hard for everyone across the country.
We will print more, of course, so as many homes/schools/hospitals can have their own car play mat themed to where the live as possible – it’s a cool product which we (the team behind hippo mat) all think would have been awesome when we were kids.
Anyway, all of this typing is just to tell you that unfortunately due to multiple circumstances, we’re only able to make TEN pieces of each Hippo Mat™ design, and that we fully anticipate them to sell out rather quickly as that’s what we’ve learnt from last year!
Aberdeen: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Barnsley: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Bedford: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Bournemouth: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Bradford: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Bristol: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Cambridge: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Canterbury: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Cardiff: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Chester: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Colchester: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Derby: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Doncaster: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Dublin: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Dundee: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Edinburgh: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Hull: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Ipswich: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Leeds: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Leicester: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Middlesbrough: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Milton Keynes: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Newport: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Northampton: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Nottingham: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Oxford: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Peterborough: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Plymouth: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Poole: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Portsmouth: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Sheffield: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Southampton: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Southend: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
Stoke: 6/10pcs left – pre-order now
Swansea: 5/10pcs left – pre-order now
🔥 Norwich = BACK IN STOCK
Grab yourself one whilst they're around.
Order Norwich Hippo Mat™ with Free Shipping (use code 'freeship')
🔥 Liverpool = BACK IN STOCK
Grab yourself one whilst they're around.
Order Liverpool Hippo Mat™ with Free Shipping (use code 'freeship')
We really listened to your feedback regarding the grid-system some of our new designs this year featured and scrapped it. It makes total sense. Now, each design even has the road names of their real-life counterparts.
Thank you so much to everyone and anyone who submits their feedback to us – it’s truly helping us create something epic here 😄
So without further ado, we present to you ten new Hippo Mat™ designs (their first ever versions). We hope you like them!
Bradford
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough Fire Station, James Cook Hospital, Ormesby Hall, Stewart Park
Suggested by Kathryn, Morag, DeborahClick here to pre-order your Middlesbrough Hippo Mat™ 
Middlesbrough Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Middlesbrough Hippo Mat™ 
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Newport
Caerlon Roman Fortress Baths (Caerleon Roman Fortress Baths) and Celtic Manor Resort
Suggested by Amanda and KathrynClick here to pre-order your Newport Hippo Mat™ 
Belle Vue Park, Friars Walk Shopping Centre, Royal Gwent Hospital
Suggested by Suzy, Craig, AimeeClick here to pre-order your Newport Hippo Mat™ 
Newport Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Newport Hippo Mat™ 
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Northampton
Grosvenor, Guildhall, General Hospital
Suggested by Nikki, Lloyd, RebeccaClick here to pre-order your Northampton Hippo Mat™ 
Northampton Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Northampton Hippo Mat™ 
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Peterborough
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Poole
Dorset Police and Poole Hospital
Suggested by Jonjo and LauraClick here to pre-order your Poole Hippo Mat™ 
Poole Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Poole Hippo Mat™ 
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Sheffield
Sheffield Town Hall, Green Police Box, The Crucible Theatre
Suggested by Anekka, Bryony, StephenClick here to pre-order your Sheffield Hippo Mat™ 
Sheffield Children's Hospital, Kelham Island Museum
Suggested by Vanessa and MitchClick here to pre-order your Sheffield Hippo Mat™ 
Sheffield Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Sheffield Hippo Mat™ 
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Southend-on-Sea
Stoke-on-Trent
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Swansea
Brangwyn Hall (Neuadd y Brangwyn)
Suggested by RachelClick here to pre-order your Swansea Hippo Mat™ 
Swansea Hippo Mat™ Design V1
Click here to pre-order your Swansea Hippo Mat™ 
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Help Design Your Hippo Mat™
What is Help Design Your Hippo Mat™?
Car play mats themed to where you live are a great idea. To do the idea justice, it only makes sense we all contribute to what the designs actually look like!
Now and always, we strive for every single Hippo Mat™ to be filled with love, creativity, magic, and authenticity. Part of our drive is to be community-driven: your Hippo Mat™ is based on where YOU live, therefore it makes sense YOU have a say in how it looks.
Across the country, hundreds of homes, schools, hospitals, nurseries already have their own Hippo Mat™, and this number is only going to grow! This hippo-verse is not just exclusive to some people behind the logos. We should create it, together. Collaboration, community, and creativity are things which perhaps we need now more than ever.
Cheers,
Reg
Hippo Mat™ is a new venture, as such we didn’t buy loads of stock. At the time of releasing this Hippo News, nearly half of remaining stock has already been pre-ordered, and we’re only just about to enter the proper festive season
If you want to secure the COOLEST gift of the year, it’s strongly advised you do so sooner rather than later. We offer a 100% refund if you change your mind at any point between now and your order arriving in next month, and it means you’re going to be one of the lucky 10 owners of a Hippo Mat™ this year where you live.
'PREBUG' 'PREBUG' 'PREBUG'
FREE Toy Bugatti Veyron with every pre-order - just use code "PREBUG" whilst the toy is in your basket
St Laurance Church Infants, based in Birmingham, applied for a free Hippo Mat™ through our Reg’s Pledge initiative. Here’s what they had to say:
“Year One have been learning about #roadsafety – we talked about rules to be safe by the road, made posters role-played and used the small world people and cars to practise crossing at pedestrian crossings.
Thank you to @hippomatuk who gifted the school this beautiful Birmingham play mat: the local landmarks gave a real purpose to the play as we took our pedestrians to visit New Street Station, the bronze bull and other attractions.”
organisations have received at least one free Hippo Mat™ (or it's en route to them!)
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/100
10% of profits go towards Reg's Pledge
Reg’s Pledge is only possible thanks to you not only purchasing your own Hippo Mat™, but also sharing the good word to your friends/families/co-workers. Let’s keep sharing the love of loving our local areas!
coupons redeemed
0
/5
50% off 1x Hippo Mat™ 50% off 1x Hippo Mat™
- Still receive free shipping (use code 'freeship')
- Still get a free Toy Bugatti as a thank you for pre-ordering (use code 'prebug' with the toy in your basket)
Use code Use code
'HIPPONEWS08' 'HIPPONEWS08'
How to Redeem:
- Add your chosen Hippo Mat™ to your basket
- You will now be able to use the code ‘HIPPONEWS08’ which will remove 50% of the price of the Hippo Mat™
- Don’t forget to also use code ‘FREESHIP’ to give you free shipping!
- As a thankyou for you taking a chance on us and placing a pre-order, you can add a toy Bugatti to your basket and then use code ‘PREBUG’ which will remove the cost of the Bugatti
- 1st November 2022 onwards: Pre-orders fulfilled with normal delivery ensuing of 16 new designs
- 1st April 2023 onwards: Pre-orders fulfilled with normal delivery ensuing of post-poned designs
End of Year Note from the Founder
2022 saw not only 32 new Hippo Mat™ designs completed (out of our goal of 35) all of which are completely unique to different towns and cities across the UK(!), we also introduced a new colour scheme/logo and of course THE Reg the Hippo!
The feedback has been AMAZING, and the continuing orders and pre-orders are a testament to this! We asked you for feedback on the first batch of new designs, and made a decision to make grid-style designs as it meant we could allocate more resources to the unique landmarks to each destination, however at the sacrifice of a unique road layout.
Since then, we’ve had a rising number of Hippo Mat Lovers telling us that some of you weren’t fans of the grid-style layouts we went for. Long story short, we listened and changed the second batch of designs (those ones will arrive in 2023). Community, customer-service, and authenticity are important factors of Hippo Mat™, so that’s why our designs are based on your feedback. I just hope these feelings are conveyed effectively to you! 🙂
The small team behind Hippo are excited every day about our cool product, and what we can try our hardest to make this company become. When you open up a Hippo Mat™ hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised not only with it’s superior quality, but also the secret freebies we’ve included too.
We’ve got so many more ideas for the future and hope to continue growing slowly and healthily in order to create a meaningful company which impacts our country and youth in a positive way!
To hear so many suggestions and positive feedback from people across the UK about this little company is humbling. I hope we are doing this cool idea justice and can continue to do so in the future. In fact, honestly, I hope more than that. I want to surpass your expectations as much as possible.
It’s a long process, however greatness takes time and effort. Thank you for being part of our journey so far.
I hope this year has been everything you wished. Life is tough sometimes. But what are the highs without the lows?
Have a great November and December, and will speak to you in the New Year (unless we’re connected via socials which you totes should be)!
All the best,
Marcos Millet (Head Hippo)
