“Licensors don’t have the luxury of looking ahead or ‘blowing off’ 2009 and concentrating on the future,” Darren Kyman, executive director of marketing and retail development at Paramount Licensing asserts. “[This year] is a great opportunity for new properties to create noise among some of the more mature brands at retail, if they can find a way onto shelves.”

For Paramount, not ‘blowing off’ 2009 has involved looking to monetise its key catalogue of titles. In particular, The Godfather and The Warriors licensing programmes have grown strongly in the US since the last Licensing International expo, while overseas, Top Gun, Grease and The Godfather have performed well.

At this year’s show, Kyman says Paramount will be highlighting “some exciting upcoming theatrical releases, both live action and animated, a soon to be announced co-branded holiday program, and new and innovative ways to look at some of our retro properties”.

Major focuses going forward for Paramount Licensing – which handles licensing rights worldwide for properties of Paramount Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Paramount Classics, MTV Films, Nickelodeon Movies and DW Studios - will include Footloose (TBD), Rango (March 2011) and Tintin (Holiday 2011).

While Kyman acknowledges that this year is particularly challenging, he’s still confident in how Paramount has set itself up to cope with it.

“Retail shelf space for licensed properties has become more competitive than ever and a few uber-properties dominate retail space in trying times like this year,” he says. “It’s definitely a challenging time for the licensing industry, which has forced us to both really focus on our core business and creatively explore new ways of conducting business.

“There’s definitely a growing trend of international properties having success at specialty retailers and then slowly rolling out into big box retailers.”

Over the next six to 12 months, Kyman believes it is going to pay to be as flexible as possible: “Private label brands are a safer option for big box retailers in a struggling economy, so now we’re not only competing with each other but in-house brands as well. There’s less money out there in general right now, so flexibility is key when working with licensing partners and retailers.”

Paramount Licensing can be found on booth 817 at Licensing International expo, which runs from June 2nd to 4th at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas.