Licensing Show Preview: Flying Off the Shelf

With creativity, persistence and out-of-the-box strategies, independent kids’ companies are launching successful licensing-and-merchandising programs.

When a character from a book or TV show captures the imagination of a child, a remarkable bond takes hold. The child wants the beloved character to jump out of its two-dimensional form and take life in the real world, in the shape of an action figure, doll, plush toy or game.

Ken Faier, the president of Nerd Corps Entertainment, notes, “You want to deliver a 22-minute episodic experience that kids will sit and watch and say, ‘Wow, this is really cool,’ and then get off the couch and say, ‘I want to do that and I want to do it in a variety of ways. I want to do it in a very casual online game that I can spend five minutes with; I want to look online to see if there are any short videos that I can watch; I want to go to my iPod touch and download a simple casual game that will cost a dollar; I want to go to the toy store…and I want to buy the video game and play online in a much bigger video-game world.’” 

The resulting consumer products bring hours of fun and strengthen the connection with the brand, and, more important, the revenues derived from licensing and merchandising have become essential in financing shows.

“TV license fees do not allow you to recoup your investment for high-quality content via television or even home video only,” explains Hans Ulrich Stoef, the CEO of m4e. “If you have a high budget you need to make the consumer-products part work, otherwise you will lose money.”

To help limit some of the risk involved in bringing kids’ properties to market, a number of companies are reviving classic brands that have already been successful.

TRIED AND TRUE
“Power Rangers is now one of those properties that has transcended into an evergreen, and we’ve seen a tremendous interest in Power Rangers licensing,” says Elie Dekel, the president of Saban Brands. “I think it’s because of the longevity of the brand.”

Bandai America is the master toy licensee for Power Rangers. Action figures are core to the property’s play pattern, but more products will be coming throughout this year, including pajamas, school supplies, costumes, video games for the Wii and Xbox, mobile apps and digital products.

Another company that is reintroducing popular brands is Classic Media. “The beauty of working with a classic is that there is something that made it work the first time,” says Nicole Blake, the company’s executive VP of global marketing and consumer products. “So we identify the DNA of that property: Why did kids care about it when it first came out? Why did it have so many fans? We stay true to that but present it in a fun and fresh way. It’s about having visibility and creating an event and a way for fans to engage with the brand. That can be done with TV, gaming, publishing or film. For example, we brought back Where’s Wally? with new publishing and gaming. In the case of Voltron, the new TV series Voltron Force premieres this month on Nicktoons in the U.S., and that will be the first media event of the franchise in ten years.”

Mattel will develop toy lines based on classic Voltron and the new Voltron Force; they are scheduled to launch in 2011 and 2012, respectively. THQ is preparing video games; the first is scheduled for release this fall. Other products include T-shirts, tops, swimwear, sleepwear, costumes, graphic novels and comics.

“When you are reinventing a classic, the strategy is to reengage the people that grew up with that property and remember it,” says Blake. “Whereas when you are launching a new property, you have to establish awareness first and foremost.”

A LOYAL FOLLOWING
For many children’s properties, television is the most important launch vehicle. This was the case with the new version of The Jungle Book from DQ Entertainment.

“Our strategy is quite simple: the greater the TV audiences, the larger the followers it creates,” states Tapaas Chakravarti, DQE’s chairman, CEO and executive producer. “We have managed to generate very good traction on the L&M side. We have laid equal emphasis on both pay-TV and free-TV broadcasters so that the show reaches maximum audiences.

“With the first season of this series sold in over 160 countries, we had the perfect window of opportunity to drive licensing and merchandising around this property. Our merchandising program, which took wind with leading agents like Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (CPLG), Plus Licens, D&C, TF1, ZDF Enterprises and Empire [International Merchandising Corp.], is active in major parts of Europe, Asia and the Middle East. We will soon be focusing on other potential markets,” adds Chakravarti.

A number of partners are representing The Jungle Book for various products. “Most of the Jungle Book products are targeted at children between the ages of 3 to 12 and the categories so far have been back-to-school products, inflatables, apparel, board games, figurines, books, CDs, balls, slides, skateboards, bicycle and so many other products targeted at this age group,” says Chakravarti.

While the goal of any owner of a children’s property is to develop a successful licensing-and-merchandising program, the reality is that shelf space at retail is limited.

“Retailers are picking up fewer licenses because they have less shelf space to offer,” notes Saban’s Dekel. “And with less shelf space to offer there are only so many products within a license that they can absorb. That is not a new trend, that has been an ongoing challenge and so subsequently the strongest of the brands are able to survive and thrive in that environment. It becomes more difficult for emerging brands.”

For many companies, the key to securing shelf space is to offer a property that is unique and has become very popular among kids.

“Right now, there is a trend in the market that toy companies require a longer TV presence for a property before they launch a toy program,” says m4e’s Stoef. “Toy partners want as much security as possible. In the past, the formula was always that a property had to be on air for six months before they ever launched a toy line. Now this has been extended to sometimes 16 months or more. For non-established and new properties we always first launch them on the Internet and on television. The earliest possible launch for the licensing program is six months later.”

Stoef says that m4e intends to let audiences build for the new series Mia and Me before the L&M strategy kicks off. Targeting mainly girls 6 to 11, the property will have a multi-territory launch. “Our co-production partners are Rainbow S.p.A. from Italy, ZDF in Germany, March Entertainment from Canada, and also RAI via Rainbow S.p.A. in Italy, Hahn Film and ourselves, but m4e [is managing] the brand and its rollout.” He adds, “The strategy is to launch the TV show by spring of 2012 and then introduce various product lines, starting with publishing and toys in fall of 2012 and with further products launched in spring 2013.”

Rainbow S.p.A. also believes in allowing a show to gain an audience before rolling out products, as it has done with the boy-skewing animated adventure series Huntik.

“Huntik has had extremely good TV ratings and we just finished producing the second season, which will air across Europe this fall, and, joined with it, we will launch Huntik products,” says Iginio Straffi, Rainbow’s founder and CEO. Giochi Preziosi is the European master toy partner, who is handling back-to-school, among other categories. “We also have several other licensees on board for apparel, shoes, food products, and we believe that Huntik, with the 52 episodes, and a proper marketing plan for the merchandising, will have a real chance for the last quarter of this year and next year.”

Securing that ever-diminishing shelf space can be easier for companies that have toy companies as partners in the TV shows, as is the case with Mondo TV S.p.A. Mondo’s animated show Puppy in My Pocket is based on the tiny collectable pets from MEG, and the series has sold in more than 150 territories. Giochi Preziosi is the master toy licensee across EMEA, and MEG is handing the rest of the world. For two years, the Italian producer and distributor has been collaborating with these two companies. “This represents a whole new business approach for us,” says Micheline Azoury, Mondo TV’s head of international sales and brand manager. “Our experience with them has opened us to a different way of seeing products for kids and of scheduling shows in a different manner.” Puppy in My Pocket will air daily on Cartoon Network and Boomerang across EMEA starting in July 2011 and on Cartoon Network across Asia in the fall.

MEG is also the worldwide master toy licensee for the preschool series Playtime Buddies. The series and products will launch in the fall of 2012 and key categories will include apparel, fashion, accessories, bedding, greetings, confectionery, toiletries, plush, home and gifts.

Mondo TV’s new property is Trash Pack, an animated comedy series targeting 4- to 9-year-olds, which launches this fall in Italy and Spain, followed by the U.S. in the spring of 2012 and worldwide in the fall of 2012. Key licensing opportunities range from publishing, interactive, apparel, accessories and bedding to back-to-school, stationery, confectionery, video games, and health and beauty aides.

Using media besides television to introduce properties to consumers or to bypass conventional routes to sell products is a strategy successfully employed by Toonzone Studios. It tapped the talent of David Feiss, of Cow and Chicken fame, to create the eco-adventure comedy series YooHoo & Friends, which features five cute, furry-tailed heroes. Toonzone executives made the decision to sell plush dolls of the characters online.

“We’re doing an online store to exploit our IP; we are also showcasing some clips of our show,” explains Konnie Kwak, Toonzone’s CEO. “The reason we are doing more digital is that we can control the distribution. Because of the success of the plush we did about $160 million worldwide, mostly in the U.K. and the U.S.”

While Toonzone will take YooHoo & Friends to regular brick and mortar retails stores, online provided a way of jump-starting sales. “Marketing a show is such a long process and this is something we can do quickly,” says Kwak, who adds that a game, e-book, and an iPhone app are in the works.

Whether it’s a classic brand or a new concept, introducing properties in the licensing and merchandising business is never easy.

“You need something with depth and longevity that can grow over time, and as it becomes huge, can keep coming back with more and more product, because if it’s huge one season and there’s nothing to follow it up, that creates potential problems,” says Nerd Corps’ Faier.

A longer version of this article appeared in the DISCOP 2011 edition of TV KIDS.