Boat Rocker Studios has detailed a raft of new licensees for its popular new pre-school series, Love Monster spanning nightwear, bedding, daywear, and dress-up and accessories.
Love Monster launched on CBeebies in January this year and already it has proved a hit among young audiences. Support for the series has now been highlighted through the signing of some of the licensing industry’s leading names across apparel, home textiles, and dress-up products.
Cooneen has signed for nightwear and underwear, Dreamtex for bedding and home textiles, Blues for daywear and swimwear, and Amscan International for dress up clothing and accessories. This A list roster of renowned partners are launching Love Monster ranges from autumn/winter 2020 and spring/summer 2021.
Kate Schlomann, executive vice president of brand management and content marketing, Boat Rocker Studios, said: “Children have taken Love Monster and his menagerie of cute furry friends to their hearts, and soon they will be able to get even closer to their Fluffytown heroes, with these delightful new ranges.
“We are thrilled to be partnering with these best-in-class companies to build Love Monster into a strong brand franchise.”
Love Monster, a quirky, 2D animated 54 x 7’ pre-school series which shares little life learnings from a unique monster with a huge heart, is based on the bestselling pre-school books by Rachel Bright, published by HarperCollins Children’s Books. The show is the result of a collaboration between BBC Children’s In-House Productions, Boat Rocker Studios and the Chinese production company UYoung.
Within the series, Love Monster searches for the right thing to do in a world in which he is one of a kind. Full of heart and helping pre-schoolers understand different emotions, Love Monster showcases the importance of kindness, empathy, connection and instinct. It currently airs weekdays in the UK on CBeebies and has reached over 4 million iPlayer requests since launch in January.
Boat Rocker Studios is managing the global content distribution and consumer products program for the franchise, excluding China and South East Asia which is managed by UYoung.
Kelvyn Gardner is an individual who really does know licensing. It’s by no accident of course, and only to be expected of a man who has spent over 40 years working in or around the industry, and certainly the trait of a one who has spent the last 13 as the managing director of Licensing International UK – both in its incarnation as LIMA UK and its rebranded moniker.
But if the global response to COVID-19 or the uprising of the Black Lives Matter campaign has taught us anything, it’s that 2020 is the year for change. And with it, Gardner too has found opportunities presented as the result of evolution and coming out of the other side of his role with the industry body.
Some 22 years on from the establishment of his own company, Asgard Media – a licensing agency-meets-consultancy business operating predominantly in the collectables, food, and beverage spaces – Gardner is preparing for a relaunch. Or perhaps more accurate, a reacquaintance, with the business that he had always had ticking over in the background, even throughout his LIMA UK/Licensing International years.
Whatever you want to call it, it is Gardner’s moment to put Asgard Media back on the radar for this multi-billion dollar industry, with one very clear message. And it’s one that he suggests works for the licensing industry in its entirety.
“It’s an appeal to the thousands of manufacturers out there who do not use brand licensing as part of their marketing mix,” Gardner tells Licensing.biz.
“Our message is ‘Connect with the world’s biggest brands’, because that is what all of us are about, surely?”
It’s become an industry-wide headline, that the opportunity now for the licensing industry, is that retailers and consumers will retreat to the brand names while it negotiates the ongoing pandemic situation within an uncertain retail environment. It’s a school of thought that Gardner subscribes to, and one that he is ready to take to the next level, all, he says, to the benefit of the industry he loves.
“I am a lifelong believer in the power of brand licensing, and although we are a private company and not a trade body, to a certain extent, what Asgard Media is trying to do is bring new companies into the licensing world, by focussing on the companies or the manufacturers with great product, but for whatever reason, not already in the licensing space, and that should be for the benefit of everybody in licensing,” Gardner continues.
“It’s clear from discussions in the licensing press, and some of the sessions from Virtual Licensing Week, that right now, co-operation and flexibility are required more than ever if we are to make licensing work for existing players.
“This is even more important if we are to attract new licensees, and to persuade reluctant brand owners to open up their IP to the many excellent licensees that we already have.”
The advantage from which Gardner implements his mission plan is that he comes back to the scene without affiliations. He is now what he calls, an honest broker.
“If I find somebody in a category, I am able to approach any brand or any licensor as an agent, rather than someone who has a portfolio to promote,” he explains. “To some degree, I hope not to be bringing in licensees just for me, but licensees and businesses for the wider licensing community.”
It’s the role of guide, then that Kelvyn is looking to adopt through his Asgard Media outfit, braced with the knowledge accumulated over a 40 year career (to date) in the licensing business and the laser-like knowledge of its intricacies (Gardner asked me if I’d spent much time reading licensing contracts – it turns out he has read through a few). In his former role with Licensing International, Gardner was a man passionate about educating the next generation of licensing executives, and opening up the boundaries for new product sectors. It’s a mission statement he has carried on with him.
“I have come across it so many times over the years,” he says. “It’s easy for those inside of licensing to know how it works, but I think it is so misunderstood, or not understood at all, outside of the industry; and we don’t go out of our way to make it easier. But there are ways to explain it to people in simple terms if we take the time to do it, and if, as as part of my world, that brings in business for the whole of the licensing industry, that has got to be a positive thing.”
To that end, he suggests, simplicity is key. Look at the work he has done for the Asgard Media client Harrogate Tipple, helping to broker Universal Studios’ first licensing partnership down the spirits aisle, or the longstanding relationship he has with Topps, the ever-expanding Finsbury Foods licensing roster, or Yoplait – the company who famously stood vehemently against licensing until it recognised the perks it was offering its competitors in the food sector.
“The other strand to it all is that – having been a licensee for ten to 15 years myself – there is a tendency to think ‘we don’t need anymore licensees.’,” Gardner says. “Now, I’ve never believed in the Barbie dollar – the idea that there is a dollar to be spent on Barbie merchandise, which subsequently has to be split between all of its licensees. I still think the market can expand, providing that everybody is sensible, withou having to go down the route of ‘splicensing’ as it is known.
“It is also true to say that there not that many manufacturers and marketing companies who regularly buy licenses. The last time I did an analysis of this, there were only about 700 UK companies listed as working with a license. How many manufacturers are there in the UK? There’s got to be tens of thousands. Licensing is a big business, but most companies aren’t in it. The holy grail for us all in licensing is to find somebody in sectors that aren’t currently doing licensing; and by all accounts there are those people out there.”
Gardner’s approach from here on can be likened to the old ‘the man who built it’ brainteaser. The clients he is looking for don’t know they want Asgard Media as a service provider; in fact, they probably don’t even know they want to be in licensing. Asgard Media has to fill in all of the gaps for them.
It’s a point Agard Media certainly looks to address in its new marketing material, kicking off with the newly launched company video that highlights the message ‘Licensing is our world, let us bring you into it.’ It’s the metaphorical hand that Gardner is extending to all of those businesses currently not in licensing, to help them along the way.
How does marketing today compare to that of 1998, the last time Gardner actively promoted the Asgard Media name? It’s fewer marketing mailshots, and more video content for a start, suggests Gardner. So we can expect a lot more of that in the coming months.
Perpetual earworm, Baby Shark – the global property that began life as a viral YouTube music video – has landed its own animated pre-school series to broadcast on Nickelodeon this December.
With a working title of Baby Shark’s Big Show, the series will make its debut with a half-hour Christmas special this December. This will be followed up with a 26 episode series that will run across Nickelodeon platforms in 2021.
The new series will be the work of Nickelodeon Animation Studio and SmartStudy, and will follow the adventures of Baby Shark and his best friend as they explore their community of Carnivore Cove. Launched five years ago to YouTube, Baby Shark has amassed some 5.7 billion views worldwide and has become the second most watched video in YouTube history.
Baby Shark’s Big Show is executive produced by Gary DiRafflaele and Tommy Sica, both of Breadwinners, with Whitney Ralls (My Little Pony: Equestria Girls) serving as co-executive producer. The series is produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, with production overseen by Eryk Casemiro, SVP at Nickelodeon Preschool.
It joins a roster of popular pre-school series on Nickelodeon, including Ryan’s Mystery PLaydat, Bubble Guppies, and Blaze and the Monster Machines.
Glance to the right. Not too far, because that’s probably your kitchen, but just to the right of these words. There you go. Is that a face familiar to you? In fact, it very well could be yours.
What you may have noticed as you scroll through Licensing.biz’s daily content of news from across the industry, is a movement in your peripheral vision. If you currently have the sound on – and we strongly urge you to do so – on your home office set-up, you’ll no doubt already be aware that Licensing.biz is running a new sponsored video feature in its side-bar.
The reason being, is that we are counting down to World Emoji Day – taking place on July 17th this year – with a special campaign running in partnership with The Emoji Company, to celebrate the strength and appeal of this award-winning, world-spanning lifestyle brand with a special show reel of Emoji licensees walking us through their own experiences with the Emoji brand.
You might be watching Andrew Storey at IG Design Group, Lauren Madden at Lazer Built, Charlie Preece at Kokomo, or the Wow! Stuff family showing off their production and editing skills as well as their license with The Emoji Company for its own range of collectables. Over the next couple of weeks, and in in the build up to World Emoji Day on July 17th, you can expect to see more faces joining the roster, too.
There will be more sponsored content to come, too – expect more video content, exclusive interviews, and a site takeover as Licensing.biz prepares to celebrate this year’s World Emoji Day in true Emoji fashion.
MixMups, the new stop-motion animated pre-school series created by #ToyLikeMe’s own Rebecca Atkinson comes with one mantra: There is always another way.
Currently in production under the expertise at Raydar Media and an extended ‘dream team’ comprising some of the kids’ entertainment space’s most influential names, MixMups is the animated embodiment of actual change.
Put into development in the midst of strict lockdown measures across the UK, Atkinson’s project is one that has taken to life amid a challenge to the status quo. Meetings are held remotely, schooling is being conducted in the home, and the talent behind the production of the series has found a way to make the concept animatic, all while practising social distancing.
On top of this, MixMups is on the precipice of a moment of great change. By placing disability at the very centre of its narrative, and visible within a mainstream pre-school TV show, it’s in Atkinson’s own words that “changing the children’s industries to make them more inclusive is possible.”
Aimed at three to five year olds, MixMups follows three friends, Pockets, Giggle, and Spin and their magic mixable dress-up box. With a wooden spoon they mix up the magic inside the box, and are transported on dress-up adventures. During these adventures they meet the Lucky Loover Bird, their guide and philosophiser of the message that ‘There is always another way.’
“There is always another way is something of a metaphor for disabled living,” Atkinson, the show’s creator and founder of the #ToyLikeMe movement, tells Licensing.biz. “Disabled people, and I include myself here, are expert problem solvers. Much of the time, having a disability is about working out other ways to do things. But the show’s mantra is also a universal message for all children about resilience and problem solving.”
Key to the show is that two of its characters have physical disabilities. Pockets is partially sighted and has a lazy, but dutiful, guide dog called Yappette, and Giggle is a wheelchair user who has an assistance guinea pig on tiny roller skates. Together, the MixMups live in a Helter Skelter home constructed with integrated wheelchair access with a lift, walkways, and automatic doors.
In MixMups, Atkinson has created a world accessible to children living with disabilities; one starkly different to that she – being partially sighted and partially deaf herself – grew up in.
“I am very inspired by the British seaside, but most rides are off limits to children with wheelchairs because design has excluded them,” she says. “I wanted to create a world for the MixMups that was designed to include everyone.”
Another major inspiration for MixMups is the phenomena of wheelchair fancy dress, which sees children with wheelchairs and their parents create large cardboard structures to transform their chairs into whatever their imagination can create, be it an ice cream van, a digger, a rocket, the potential is boundless.
“Fancy dress allows children to be anything they dream of, while the concept of MixMups allows these disabled characters to break out of any stereotypes,” Atkinson says. “They can be literally anything they choose. It’s all about play, fun, and possibility.”
MixMups is the culmination of five years of hard graft. In 2015, Atkinson established the #ToyLikeMe movement, a campaign to bring about better representation and inclusivity of disability within the children’s industry. Over the years, Atkinson has been instrumental in much of the change the toy and entertainment space has seen to date. Today we are beginning to see Barbie dolls with wheelchairs, others with cochlear implants, and play-sets embracing accessibility. MixMups is now Atkinsons chance to truly bring the message to the mainstream.
“I wanted to create a comical mainstream brand, bursting with fun and colour, which would be compelling to all children and which would translate with ease into consumer products,” she says.
“I wanted to move the aesthetics of disability on from tired stereotypes and create a playful brand which was unapologetic, and really welcomed and celebrated disabled children, while maintaining really strong mainstream commercial appeal.”
Atkinson makes no secret of the matter that MixMups was developed with toys, publishing, and consumer products in mind from the get-go. In fact, it’s something she wears with pride: the chance to bring a ground-breaking new brand that talks openly about disability – with it embedded in its DNA – to the mainstream, is exactly what her #ToyLikeMe campaign is all about.
“I wanted to truly fulfil the remit of the #ToyLikeMe campaign and see real consumer choice when it comes to disability representations,” she says. “The brand has play schemas embedded in the format and design. MixMups consumer products will be as innovative and creative as the show itself, so expect something quite extraordinary here too.”
Under the guidance of Valerie Fry, an expert in the field of licensing consumer products and the founder of FryDay Brands, MixMups is on a mission to find the kind of partners who understand and resonate the passion of MixMups and its goal of bringing change to the industry. Alongside this, Atkinson is looking to license the Loved By ToyLikeMe endorsement on all products, to help support awareness raising work of the campaign in schools.
Valerie Fry is one part of the ‘dream team’ that Atkinson has assembled around the MixMups brand and its mission statement. A cast of talented and experienced individuals, including Debbie MacDonald (former VP at Nickelodeon) as script editor, Alison Rayson (Raydar Media) as executive producer, Chris Bowden and Andy Burns at McKinnon and Saunder (who have worked on Postman Pat, Raa Raa, and Moon and Me) producing and directing, and with Karen Newell (formerly of Ragdoll) across children’s response testing, each have a first hand experience of living with disability. It’s given the team the ability to make that experience a central part of the series.
At the heart of it, MixMups comes with a real potential to not only change the lives of the some 150 million disabled children worldwide through better representation in the mainstream, but changing the face of the mainstream altogether.
“The little kid in me is hopping around on the ceiling to have reached this point,” says Atkinson. “I just love what I do. I’m very lucky to have the most incredible, creative problem-solving job I could wish for. I love the way that because disability is such uncharted waters in children’s industries, there is just so much creative potential to explore.”
Pocket.watch has detailed its plans to expand the hit children’s TV series Ryan’s Mystery Playdate to international markets, starting with Amazon FreeTime Unlimited in Germany, while Pocket.watch’s gaming division will launch a new Ryan’s Mystery Playdate mobile game called Blast.
On top of this, the studio has revealed that the show has been picked up for a fourth season by Nickelodeon amid strong ratings throughout the US, UK, Canada, and Australia.
These latest developments are the culmination of a strong couple of years for Pocket.watch and the Ryan brand that also saw the pre-school nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Preschool Children’s Series.
“We’re thrilled to be deepening our partnership with Amazon to bring Ryan’s Mystery Playdate to kids and families on a global level,” said Thanda Belker, senior vice president of distribution at Pocket.watch. “As we continue to further our mission to be everywhere kids and families are, Ryan’s Mystery Playdate has continued to prove the success of a creator-focused franchise, with unlimited viability across platforms including TV and games.”
Seasons one and two of Ryan’s Mystery Playdate will be available for the first time in Germany starting July 2020 in English and August 2020 in German on the Amazon FreeTime Unlimited streaming services, with Season three becoming available in October this year.
“We are excited to bring ‘Ryan’s Mystery Playdate’ to Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, our service that delivers premium, fun, and educational content for kids,” said Kurt Beidler, general manager of Amazon Kids & Family. “Kids around the world love following along on Ryan’s adventures, and we’re pleased to offer more of that content to families in Germany.”
Pocket.watch will also continue its focus on reaching audiences digitally via second screens, with the new free Ryan’s Mystery Playdate-themed mobile game Blast, which allows fans to join Ryan in discovering the next mystery playdate by solving fun puzzles.
Players will match colours, earn power-ups, and blast through each level to unlock new guests – like a firefighter, nurse, chef, martial artist, and more – and collect them in a guest book. The game will tie in familiar elements of the popular TV show, such as unlocking mystery boxes, spinning the mystery wheel, and dropping the “hintamajig,” and will launch this fall through Pocket.watch’s gaming division p.w Games.
Finally, Nickelodeon has ordered a 10-episode fourth season of Ryan’s Mystery Playdate. This new season will feature a Playdate Command Centre which uses video teleconferencing technology, giving Playdate guests the ability to play a game or engage in an activity with Ryan remotely. Additionally, some season four Playdates will be animated, allowing viewers to travel with current and historic characters to unlimited locations, even in different time periods.
Since its launch in April 2019, Ryan’s Mystery Playdate has reached over 33 million total viewers across Nickelodeon and the Nick Jr. channel. The series also ranks number one in its time slot on Treehouse in Canada, across all 11 Canadian kids’ networks measured and saw a 45 per cent audience increase in April 2020.
Magic Light Pictures has tapped Wow! Stuff as its master toy partner for the company’s full catalogue of award-winning brands, including The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom, Zog, and The Snail and the Whale. The toy deal spans multiple territories, and products will be available across the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, the US and Canada.
Wow! Stuff is known for its own portfolio of award-winning innovations in tier one brands, and from January 2021 will launch a full line up of toy figures and play-sets based on Magic Light’ library of characters. Prices for The Gruffalo will range from £7.99 through to £39.99 and will include collectables, character action figures, play-sets, electronic animated plush, and more.
Wow! Stuff’s head of product development and licensing, Kenny McAndrew, said: “This is a fabulous way to show what we can do when we have a Master licence and are free to explore traditional key toy categories and add our innovative take. Partnering with Magic Light we’ll bring Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s characters to life with the physical figurines the children dearly love.
“Each character and the play-sets are part of a special universe and perfectly complement and pay homage to the books and films. The characters are hugely ‘toyetic’ and our tests showed the reaction from parents and grandparents and their propensity to purchase was at the very highest level – family awareness and parental approval on the brand is sky high.”
Daryl Shute, brand director at Magic Light, added: “A master toy partner is something we’ve long wanted for our Gruffalo family of brands. The toy category has grown massively for us over the past year and Wow! Stuff are joining us at just the right time. They have added the innovation they’re renowned for and brought the characters to life in a way that is full of the charm and wonder that our little fans know and love.
“This is the third new license announced in this category in the past month, which is something else we’re pretty chuffed about.”
The imaginative play range will complement Magic Light’s existing range of fantastic toy and games partners that have been carefully collated for the Gruffalo over the last 10 years.
Long term Gruffalo partners include high quality plush from Aurora; and puzzles and games from Ravensburger, Asmodee, Winning Moves and Schmidt Spiele.
The UK shopping centre owner, Intu has indicated it is on the verge of appointing administrators after discussions with its creditors were stalled.
The struggling business had been hamstrung by a $4.5bn debt over the past year, but in recent weeks and months has been hammered by the impact of COVID-19 and the significantly lower rent payments from retail tenants.
Sky News reports that should Intu fall into administration, it would arguably mark the biggest corporate casualty of the coronavirus pandemic. Intu is the owner of shopping centres across the country, including Manchester’s Trafford Centre and Lakeside in Essex.
The company directly employs nearly 3,000 people, with a further 102,000 people working in its 17 UK shopping centres. Another 30,000 people work in Intu’s broader supply chain.
The firm has said it had been in talks with creditors to try and seek standstill arrangements, but that “unfortunately, insufficient alignment and agreement has been achieved on such terms. The board is therefore considering the position of Intu with a view to protecting the interests of its stakeholders.”
WildBrain Spark has launched a new dedicated channel of subtitled premium content for kids on its YouTube network in support of the Turn on the Subtitles literacy campaign.
The initiative is part of a move to improve children’s literacy by meeting them where they spend their downtime. The TOTS initiative was set up by Oli Barrett MBE and Henry Warren and is now supported by over 30 government, business, charity and academic leaders.
It highlights the substantial benefits of Same Language Subtitling, which allows audiences to hear and read the same language, word for word, in real time. Research from academics in countries the world over has shown that turning on subtitles for children’s content improves their literacy significantly, particularly for kids between the ages of six and ten.
Jon Gisby, EVP and managing director at WildBrain Spark, said: “We knew we wanted to support this valuable initiative from its inception and have now launched a dedicated 100 per cent subtitled WildBrain Literacy for Kids channel. TOTS has a simple message backed by compelling research and the benefits are significant and important, as well as aligning completely with our values. With kids spending so much time at home viewing content, and parents seeking to support home-learning, this initiative is also incredibly timely.”
Oli Barrett MBE, co-founder, TOTS added: “Alongside the support of parents and teachers, we believe that responsible businesses have a potential role to play in improving the literacy of young people around the world. The leadership shown by WildBrain Spark is hugely appreciated and we hope that others will be inspired by their example.”
WildBrain Spark’s Literacy for Kids channel features popular episodes from its library of premium kids’ shows, including Yo Gabba Gabba, In the Night Garden, and Rev & Roll. New episodes will be published weekly and are available globally in English with the channel promoted across the WildBrain Spark network.
Please visit the WildBrain Spark Literacy for Kids channel at:
Licensing International has elected six new members to its Board of Directors, each taking up their post from July 1st this year.
LMCA’s Alan Kravetz, Miller Kaplan’s Vincent Leoni, and Sesame Workshop’s Valerie Mitchell Johnston join Peanuts Worldwide’s Roz Nowicki, Encantos’ Steven Wolfe Pereira, and IMG’s Miki Yamamoto in taking up the new roles.
On top of this, Jay Asher, partner at Brandgenuity, was elected as Chairperson of the Board for a two-year term, while Steve Scebelo, vice president at the NFLPA was elected as Vice Chair for a one-year term.
“I’m pleased to welcome the six new members of our Board, whose diverse voices and experience will be invaluable as we look for new, agile ways to serve the members of the global licensing community in these challenging times,” said Licensing International president, Maura Regan.
“I’d also like to thank the outgoing members of our Board for their time and dedication – JJ Ahearn, Cindy Levitt, Marc Mostman, Celso Rafael and Jamie Stevens.”
As president and COO of Leveraged Marketing Corporation of America, Kravetz has spent more than 30 years growing brands and monetising IP across the globe. He is an active member of INTA and a frequent speaker on trademark licensing and strategy conferences, trade shows, and continuing legal education seminars.
Meanwhile, Vincent Leoni is a partner at Miller Kaplan with more than 30 years of experience in entertainment, media and technology. He provides royalty, contract compliance, profit participation, litigation support and consulting services on behalf of licensors, licensees, owners of intellectual property, film studios, production companies, recording artists, music publishers, profit participants and software developers.
Valerie Mitchell Johnston, vice president and deputy general counsel at boasts past experience which includes the role of deputy general counsel of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, as well as vice president, business and legal affairs for HIT Entertainment. During her tenure at HIT, the company was acquired by Mattel, Inc. and Valerie served as lead counsel for the Entertainment Distribution Group and head of the New York legal team.
Roz Nowicki, EVP at Peanuts Worldwide has extensive experience in licensing management in larger corporations. From her early formative years at Disney, and high growth years at Universal, to a longer stint with 4Kids Entertainment she has gained vast knowledge and global licensing contacts.
CEO and co-founder of Encantos, Steven Wolfe Pereira is an accomplished media, marketing and technology executive who established the current business to inspire kids to learn 21st Century skills through play. Focused on kids 12 and under, Encantos’ family brands include the Emmy-nominated and two time Kidscreen award-winning No. 1 bilingual preschool brand Canticos, the food-focused Issa’s Edible Adventures, the Day of the Dead-inspired resilience brand Skeletitos, and the adventure-based travel brand Tiny Travelers.
A female-owned B-Corp that puts diversity, equality, and inclusion at the heart of all it creates, Encantos brings its brands to life via digital and physical offerings including apps, books, consumer products, music, subscription services, videos and more.
Finally, Miki Yamamoto is senior vice president of IMG and is responsible for the development and management of various licensing programs and clients that IMG represents in Asia, including Sesame Street, MGM, Care Bears, Pepsi, NFL, Jeep, Volkswagen, and many other properties.
Prior to IMG, Yamamoto worked for Calvin Klein Japan, managing the local licensing program with more than 500 branded retail shops and related fashion and accessory items.
