Lola & Virginia

TV Kids Weekly,
November 28, 2006

NAME: Lola & Virginia

ORIGIN: This series is based on an original
concept by Myriam Ballesteros, the creative director and founding partner of
Icon Animation.

CREATORS: The concept of Lola & Virginia is by Myriam Ballesteros; the graphic
design is by Pepo Salazar; and the head writer of the series is Xema Ocio.

TV SHOW: Lola & Virginia is a Flash animated series consisting
of 52 12-minute episodes. It focuses on Lola, a 12-year-old girl who lives in a
rundown neighborhood, always wears cheap clothes, has a couple of bratty
brothers to look after, and what’s more, has to put up with some crazy kids at
school. But if that weren’t enough, her life gets much worse when Virginia hits
the scene. She’s a stuck up rich girl who has everything: beauty, good grades,
all the boyfriends she could possibly want and incredibly wealthy parents who
never refuse her anything. How will Lola survive all of this?

EXECUTIVE
PRODUCERS: Sergi Reitg
and Roch Lener.

COMMISSIONING
BROADCASTER: The show
was commissioned by TV3 and ETB in Spain, in collaboration with France 3. It
was pre-acquired by Disney Channel in Spain, Nickelodeon Channel in Latin
America and RCTV in Venezuela.

TV SALES: Lola & Virginia has been sold by Icon Animation to
Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, the U.S., Israel, Romania, Venezuela, Brazil,
Latin America, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
Hong Kong and Indonesia.

MAJOR TOY
LICENSEES: Back to
school supplies have been in stores in Spain and Portugal since fall 2006, and
the licenses for these products are managed by Icon Animation in collaboration
with Comercial Nim. A collection of Manga style comic books has already been
published in collaboration with Spain’s leading kids publisher Grupo Edebe. The
10 titles are inspired by stories from the animated series. Icon Animation,
together with Alvento, Spain’s leading mobile content producer, will offer ring
tones, games, images, wallpapers, screen savers and short episodes for 2007. A
collection of three DVDs of the series has already been released, with episodes
grouped by themes.

OTHER
PRODUCTS: Other
products in the making include cosmetics, perfumes, towels, T-shirts and
pajamas, dolls, puzzles, playing cards, sticker albums, footwear and
accessories, including glasses, watches, etcetera.

STRATEGY
FOR ROLLOUT: Lola
& Virginia is a
comedy targeting 6- to 12-year-olds and focuses on issues that are important to
that age group, such as self-affirmation and conflict resolution. “Lola is a
girl who has very strong convictions,” says Christophe Goldberger, the head of
distribution and marketing at Icon Animation. “She wants to do things the right
way, she has strong values and she sees the world in her own way, but she finds
out very quickly that she cannot always have things the way she wants them to
be. One of the reasons is that she is faced with her rival Virginia, a school
companion, and this creates a very strong dynamic.”

As Goldberger
explains the series’ pace is very fast, its graphic design is quite innovative
and the show really focuses on Lola’s strong emotions in fun way. “Lola has a
lot of imagination, and in a similar fashion to the series Ally McBeal, when Lola has strong reactions, they
really appear on the screen. You see what’s the worse that could happen to Virginia
or how good it would be to end up with Charlie the boy of her dreams. Lola
& Virginia is
character driven and this helps that kids that age can identify with the show.”

The series
lends itself to numerous consumer products and also to other media. “We
launched a website at the end of October,” says Goldberger. “It offers
information about the series and the characters and online games. This is
important because kids watch TV but they also spend a lot of time on the web
and they use their cell phones—they enjoy the same property but on
different media.”

Icon Animation
launched mobile phone content in Spain. “We have ring tones using the voices of
the characters of the series; we have screen savers and we have two mobile
games that will launch early in 2007,” continues Goldberger. “We are now
working on short episodes for mobile taken from the series.”

Lola &
Virginia has sold well
internationally and the ratings Icon is receiving from broadcasters are very
promising. “The pace is so good – it’s a roller coaster ride when you
start to watch,” says Goldberger. “It’s very fast and very imaginative—you
get glued to it.