ZAG grows its global team ahead of the launch of Miraculous movie and Ghostforce TV series

ZAG is growing its global licensing operations this year in the build up to the release of the Miraculous movie and the launch of its action-comedy series, Ghostforce, with the appointment of Hyde Schram as its first vice president of global promotions, and Betsabe Luna as its retail and licensing director for Mexico and Central America.

A ViacomCBS and Walt Disney Company alumn, Schram will report directly to Julian Zag, executive vice president, global operations, while Luna will report to the recently appointed VP consumer products, Latin America, Angela Cortez.

Based in the US, Schram will helm the strategic planning, development and execution of partnerships for global and regional promotions and sponsorships for ZAG’s portfolio of brands. She will be tasked with expanding current partnerships and leveraging key initiatives to create synergistic opportunities across partner promotional campaigns.

Schram will work closely alongside Kirk Bloomgarden, ZAG’s SVP of Global Licensing, and his rapidly growing team of licensing and retail executives.

Meanwhile, Luna will be based in Mexico City, overseeing retail across Mexico and Central America territories.  She will work in partnership with local agents to develop and implement a retail strategy that will increase market share visibility and shelf space for the company’s brands and establish cross-campaigns with all partners in the region.

In Mexico, the new toy line from Playmates and ZAG Labs, distributed by Bandai Mexico, launched in fall 2020.  In 2021, product sales have increased 266 per cent compared with 2020 numbers.

“Hyde and Betsabe are joining ZAG at a significant time of growth at the company,” said Zag. “Both of these executives bring a wealth of industry experience and skills that will be invaluable as we prepare for the upcoming release of our theatrical US$100MM movie, Miraculous Ladybug and Cat Noir ‘The Awakening’ premiering starting holiday 2021, season four of the series just starting to roll out around the world, and the upcoming launch of Ghostforce.”

During her eight-year tenure at ViacomCBS, serving most recently as Vice President of Worldwide Promotions, Sponsorships and Licensing, Schram secured multi-million-dollar promotional programs and built relationships with global brands such as Ferrero, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Danone, Zaini Confections, CPW, and Unilever.

She joined ViacomCBS following a career at The Walt Disney Company, where she served as Executive Director of Global Promotions and Sponsorships, securing promotional opportunities with Fortune 500 companies for  Disney, Pixar and Touchstone theatrical/DVD releases and premiere events.  Schram currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Generation Genius Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to inspiring kids in STEM.

Prior to joining ZAG, Luna spent five years with MTV Networks, Viacom. In her most recent role with the company, she served as Franchise Manager for Mexico and Latin America, Consumer Products, responsible for the planning, development, and execution of all marketing strategies related to VIACOM franchises.

She also served a four-year term with the company as the Retail Manager for Mexico, responsible for establishing a strategy to increase Nickelodeon consumer products footprint at point of sale. Prior, Luna worked for Spin Master Mexico as Brand Manager Categories: Boys and Girls.

The Point. 1888 nets Farshore for CoComelon book publishing in the UK, Eire and Poland

The hit preschool property and leading children’s series, CoComelon has bolstered its portfolio of international licensees once more, this time tapping Farshore for children’s book publishing across the UK, Eire, and Poland. The deal was brokered by Moonbug’s European licensing agent, The Point. 1888.

CoComelon is a preschool phenomenon currently dominating the digital space and, according to the firm, is set to become one of the biggest global preschool brands across all categories. It is the number one children’s and educational channel on YouTube worldwide, seeing more than 100 billion views globally.

The Moonbug series has spent the most consecutive days in Netflix’s top ten programs across both adult and children’s shows, and in 2021 it has been the most streamed Netflix show beating Bridgerton to the top spot.

Launching with two titles in October 2021, Farshore will publish CoComelon’s most watched and popular songs in bright, bold board book format for preschoolers to sing along with, followed by further publishing in 2022.

CoComelon Bath Song Board Book includes the main character JJ and his brother TomTom from the hugely popular and catchy Bath Song episode. Children can sing along to another much-loved classic with CoComelon Wheels on the Bus Board Book.

Zoe Masters, brands and licensing publisher at Farshore, said: “We are delighted to be publishing CoComelon in this joint deal with HarperCollins Poland. We are incredibly proud to bring Moonbug’s hugely successful entertaining educational content to life in our book publishing.

“At Farshore we are committed to ensuring a love of reading from an early age, and our CoComelon titles will provide fun and engaging books for children to share and enjoy time and time again. The books are launching in 2021 and we couldn’t be happier with the response from retail we have received so far.”

Katie Wilkinson, senior commercial manager at ThePoint.1888, added: “Farshore’s purpose is to make every child a proud reader so I am absolutely thrilled that we are working with them on this epic brand. Cocomelon has joined the digital kid’s entertainment space and achieved growth like no one has seen before, currently it is the most viewed You Tube channel in the world and second most subscribed.

“This lends itself to publishing perfectly and I’m excited to see the first titles later this year and then the ever growing title list rollout in 2022 and beyond.”

CoComelon Bath Song Board Book and CoComelon Wheels on the Bus Board Book publishes on 30th September 2021, for children aged one to four.

Flowhaven bolsters is US sales team with a suit of licensing expert new hires

The licensing relationship management platform, Flowhaven, has strengthened its US sales team with a raft of new leadership hires, including the appointment of Adam Christensen as the US sales director, and Chris Davlin and Rebecca Dennis as US sales managers.

The new additions to the growing Flowhaven team will report directly to Jessica Trinca, the firm’s US general manager.

This suite of new hires is just the latest in a series of developments to sustain the company’s accelerated growth. Flowhaven had a record-breaking first quarter in 2021 with a number of customer acquisitions across new verticals including universities, record labels and more.

In the last year, Flowhaven raised $16M in funding led by Sapphire Sport, and more than doubled its team in Helsinki, Finland, Los Angeles and London. The company also has plans to open offices this year in New York, Berlin and Tokyo to support customers locally.

“Hiring the best and brightest leaders has always been core to our company’s success, and Adam, Chris, and Rebecca are the perfect example,” said Kalle Torma, Flowhaven.

“Not only do they have proven expertise leading teams at companies like Electronic Arts, Disney, and Lucasfilm; they also embody Flowhaven’s values of collaboration, community and trust. Their contributions will be key for us as we continue to innovate and expand globally.”

Christensen brings more than 15 years of sales and operations experience to Flowhaven. As US sales director, he will be responsible for the company’s national sales strategy and execution. Most recently, he served as Director of Alliances and Partner Sales at Claravine, where he led the company’s strategic channel efforts. Previously, he was senior licensing business development manager at Electronic Arts managing the company’s strategic brand licensing initiatives.

There, Christensen closed seven-figure partnerships with household brands such as Walmart, Toys-R-Us, Barnes & Noble, GameStop, Target, Liverpool and many more. Previous roles included Disney Interactive, among others.

As US sales manager, Dennis will be responsible for scaling revenue operations across the Western United States. Prior to joining Flowhaven, she held several positions at Global Licensing Group, a division of Informa, with a focus on Licensing Global Magazine.

She also worked on the company’s Licensing Expo and Brand Licensing Europe events. Prior to joining Flowhaven, Rebecca spent nearly a decade in sales and revenue operations positions within the fashion industry.

Chris Davlin joins Flowhaven as US sales manager and will oversee the brand’s continued growth across the Eastern United States, with a focus on New York City where Flowhaven plans to open offices by end of year. Her responsibilities will include synergizing the company’s sales efforts with centralized marketing support to deliver curated content to experts in the licensing space.

Previously, Davlin held a number of sales roles at such companies as Hint, and ran her own licensing and business development consultancy. She also held licensing roles at prominent brands, including Lucasfilm for Disney Consumer Products, where she acted as Project Manager for Star Wars Day 2014. There, she successfully executed Maythe4th campaign, performed all preparation for Disney Consumer Products division, and doubled Star Wars Day social media presence by exceeding 2.1B impressions and 1.1M global posts.

Toei Animation celebrates Goku Day with new Dragon Ball Super movie announcement

Fans worldwide received a special surprise this Goku Day –  the annual Dragon Ball celebration – when Toei Animation revealed that a new Dragon Ball Super film will be released in 2022, marking the second film based on the Dragon Ball Super manga title and anime series launched in 2015.

The Dragon Ball phenomena began in 1984 when Japan’s well-known manga from Akira Toriyama premiered in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, becoming a top ranked title throughout its 10 and a half years of publication. Since then, the manga’s popularity has continued to grow with a record of 260 million copies sold worldwide and counting.

Dragon Ball’s ever-increasing popularity has seen it has expand beyond manga to include TV animation, movies, games and merchandising. Now, 37 years after the launch of the original manga, Dragon Ball continues to evolve.

The 2022 film follows the success of its first movie release in 2018, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, which achieved over $120 million at the worldwide box office.

Planning for the new film project was kicked-off in 2018, before the release of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, with the goal of telling a large-scale story that would build on the enthusiastic response for the previous theatrical series and the current global fervor for Broly.

Akira Toriyama himself has picked up his pen to deliver a story ‘for the fans.’ From the story composition to character design to the lines of the script, Toriyama has ‘worked with the greatest attention to detail and highest quality standards’ to create what Toei has billed as a ‘Dragon Ball movie unlike any other in its history and one that will surely be a blockbuster with fans.’

Akira Toriyama, creator of the original story, screenplay, and character design, wrote a special message to Dragon Ball fans. A signed copy of this message is available here.

Antstream Arcade strengthens exec team in move to be at the forefront of video game streaming

Antstream Arcade has made a new move to ‘put itself at the forefront of video game streaming’, welcoming the games industry veteran, Mike Rouse to lead its production team and help build out its internal studio.

The move comes during a period of record user growth for the company following its establishment as the world’s first free-to-play game streaming platform.

With over 20 years’ experience in the games industry, Rouse joins Antstream from 2K’s Brighton based Hangar 13, where he was head of production and responsible for developing and co-ordinating strategy across the studio’s four global locations and 400 employees. His career has seen him work in key roles at Microsoft where he oversaw the development of Microsoft Hololens, and at Sony.

With extensive experience in pushing the boundaries of how players interact with games, Rouse will be looking to put Antsream Arcade at the forefront of video game streaming, helping the company to build upon the slate of licensing partnerships it has already secured with the likes of Disney and Bandai as it eyes growth in the market.

Rouse said: “As a lifelong fan of what we now have to call “vintage” games, working at Antstream Arcade represents the perfect combination of my passion for retro gaming and changing how players interact with games themselves. I think it is very likely that we are nearing the end of physical consoles – with physical media losing relevance to the rise of cloud-based gaming, it is all but inevitable.

“As the first company to successfully launch a free-to-play platform with thousands of games, Antstream is well placed to be at the forefront of this change.”

Steve Cottam, CEO of Antstream, said: “Between our new licensing partnerships with the likes of Disney and Bandai, and our decision to adopt a free-to-play model, we’re in a period of immense change here at Antstream. Bringing on someone with Mike’s expertise and experience in altering how people play games is a huge boost for us as video game streaming continues to drive the game industry forward as a whole.

“We look forward to working with him in taking our library of iconic video games to the biggest audience possible.”

Mike’s love of retro gaming is on full display on his Retro Gamer Boy YouTube channel, where he posts weekly unique videos delving into his own extensive retro gaming collection, and discussing the best retro games and consoles ever made.

His retro gaming goal is to collect every SEGA Megadrive game, with only a few notable holdouts like Pirates of Darkwater standing between him and the holy grail of completionism.

The Emoji Company and WildBrain launch new 2D series Emojitown in major brand extension

The Emoji Company and WildBrain have forged a far-reaching content and licensing partnership to launch Emojitown, a new, digital first, animated series based on the emoji brand, as well as a new consumer product extension programme around it.

Under the partnership, WildBrain’s AVOD network and digital studio, WildBrain Spark, has teamed with the Emoji Company to co-develop and co-produce Emojitown, a new 2D series targeting teens and young adults.

WildBrain Spark, which holds exclusive global distribution rights to the new series, will premiere Emojitown on YouTube with a dedicated channel launching at the end of May, when viewers will be able to enjoy the first four episodes of the fast-paced, language-agnostic show, followed by additional episodes rolling out weekly.

Meanwhile, WildBrain’s global licensing agency, WildBrain CPLG, will handle worldwide licensing and merchandising rights for Emojitown, building on the agency’s extensive and already successful program for the Emoji brand across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and other territories. WildBrain CPLG will work with Emoji Company and licensees to develop Emojitown products across key categories for teens and young adults.

Marco Huesges, founder and CEO of Emoji Company, said: “This is a significant development for the Emoji brand, bringing our globally recognizable icons into the digital-content space. With their preeminent reputation on digital platforms, including YouTube, and their deep understanding of licensing and brand amplification, WildBrain Spark and WildBrain CPLG are the ideal collaborators for our push into new content creation and consumer products for the teen and young-adult audience. Together we will take this hugely exciting step in the evolution of Emoji.”

Maarten Weck, EVP and MD of WildBrain CPLG, added: “Building on our strong relationship with the emoji company, this expanded partnership combines the strengths of the much-loved emoji brand with our creative and collaborative capabilities across consumer products licensing, digital-content production, and AVOD management.”

Rachel Taylor, commercial director of WildBrain Spark, said: “With its universal appeal, the Emoji brand is ideal for the creation of an animated digital-first content offering, and our creative team has produced a funny, wry and edgy series, underpinned by bespoke data and insights drawn from our premium YouTube network.

“We’re delighted that the emoji company saw us as the right partner to co-develop and launch this extension of its brand for today’s digital-savvy audience of modern teens.”

Coolabi’s Warrior Cats leaps onto Roblox with the new Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition game

The independent media group, Coolabi Group, has partnered with the Roblox specialists, Aldrich-Callen Studios to develop a new 3D role play game for the global online Roblox platform, all based on its fantasy brand, Warrior Cats.

The new Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition game will be set in the Forest Territory from the successful book series and will invite players to create and customise their own cat character, explore the world of Warriors, join a Clan and interact with other players to make their own Warrior Cats story.

Warrior Cats is a feline fantasy book series about five clans of wild cats: ShadowClan, RiverClan, ThunderClan, WindClan and StarClan. The series was created by Working Partners, a Coolabi Group company, and has become a publishing hit with the release of over 80 titles, spanning 38 languages, and selling over 41 million books to date.

The most recent book, Warriors: The Broken Code: The Place of No Stars, is also a New York Times bestseller, debuting at number eight.

The news of the interactive game comes two years after the launch of the award-winning WarriorCats.com, an official digital destination for Warriors’ growing global fan community. The site attracted over 1.3 million visitors in 2020.

Since the book series launched fans across the globe have created fan art, animation and fiction, with user-generated content receiving over 42 million monthly views collectively on YouTube. There are also over 1000 dedicated Warriors YouTube channels with a new fan video uploaded every 30 mins on average.

Last year Coolabi Group conducted a survey with over 10,000 members of its Warrior Cats fanbase established that not only do they love gaming, but Roblox was one of the most popular online platforms.

Naomi Dare, director of digital at Coolabi Group, said: “We’re excited to be launching a Warriors game on Roblox as we know that so many nine to 12 year olds are on the platform, with over half of this age group in the USA playing on Roblox at least once a week.

“This tends to be the age that people start reading Warriors, so not only does it serve our existing fan base who are desperate to role play in a Warriors world, but it should also attract new fans to the brand too.”

The ‘Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition’ Roblox game is free to play on Roblox and out now.

Antstream Arcade strengthens exec team in move to be at the forefront of video game streaming

The video game streaming platform, Antstream Arcade is continuing on its path to alter the way people play games, with the appointment of the games industry veteran Mike Rouse to lead its production team and build its internal studio. The move comes amid a period of record user growth for the company and its world’s first free-to-play game streaming platform.

Rouse joins Anstream from 2K’s Brighton based Hangar 13 where he was head of production and responsible for developing and co-ordinating strategy across the studio’s four global locations and 400 employees.

He brings with him over 20 years’ experience in the games industry, having worked with major companies including Microsoft, where he worked on projects including Hololens, and Sony. He brings his experience in pushing the boundaries of how players interact with games to his new role at Antstream Arcade, as it continues to expand its offering.

Rouse said: “As a lifelong fan of what we now have to call “vintage” games, working at Antstream Arcade represents the perfect combination of my passion for retro gaming and changing how players interact with games themselves. I think it is very likely that we are nearing the end of physical consoles – with physical media losing relevance to the rise of cloud-based gaming, it is all but inevitable.

“As the first company to successfully launch a free-to-play platform with thousands of games, Antstream is well placed to be at the forefront of this change.”

Steve Cottam, CEO of Antstream, added: “Between our new licensing partnerships with the likes of Disney and Bandai, and our decision to adopt a free-to-play model, we’re in a period of immense change here at Antstream. Bringing on someone with Mike’s expertise and experience in altering how people play games is a huge boost for us as video game streaming continues to drive the game industry forward as a whole.

“We look forward to working with him in taking our library of iconic video games to the biggest audience possible.”

Mike’s love of retro gaming is on full display on his Retro Gamer Boy YouTube channel, where he posts weekly unique videos delving into his own extensive retro gaming collection, and discussing the best retro games and consoles ever made. His retro gaming goal is to collect every SEGA Megadrive game, with only a few notable holdouts like Pirates of Darkwater standing between him and the holy grail of completionism.

Coolabi’s Warrior Cats leaps onto Roblox with the new Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition game

The independent international media group, Coolabi  has partnered with Roblox specialists, Aldrich-Callen Studios to develop a new 3D role-play game for global online platform Roblox. The game will be based on its best-selling fantasy brand, Warrior Cats.

The new ‘Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition’ game will be set within the Forest Territory from the hit book series and will invite players to create and customise their own cat character, explore the vast world of Warriors, join a Clan, and interact with other players to make their own Warrior Cats story.

Warriors is a feline fantasy book series about five clans of wild cats – ShadowClan, RiverClan, ThunderClan, WindClan and StarClan. The series was created by Working Partners, a Coolabi Group company, and has become a publishing hit following the release of over 80 titles, spanning 38 languages and sold over 41 million copies to date. The most recent book, Warriors: The Broken Code: The Place of No Stars, is also a New York Times bestseller, debuting at number eight.

The news of the interactive game comes two years after the launch of the award-winning WarriorCats.com, an official digital destination for Warriors’ ever-growing global fan community, which attracted over 1.3 million visitors in 2020. Since the book series launched, legions of passionate fans across the globe have created fan art, animation and fiction, with user-generated content receiving over 42 million monthly views collectively on YouTube.

There are also over 1000 dedicated Warriors YouTube channels with a new fan video uploaded every 30 mins on average.

Last year Coolabi Group conducted a survey with over 10,000 members of its Warrior Cats fanbase established that not only do they love gaming, but Roblox was one of the most popular online platforms.

Naomi Dare, director of digital at Coolabi Group, said: “We’re excited to be launching a Warriors game on Roblox as we know that so many nine to 12 year olds are on the platform, with over half of this age group in the USA playing on Roblox at least once a week. This tends to be the age that people start reading Warriors, so not only does it serve our existing fan base who are desperate to role play in a Warriors world, but it should also attract new fans to the brand too.”

The ‘Warrior Cats: Ultimate Edition’ Roblox game is free to play on Roblox and out now.

The Emoji Company and WildBrain launch new 2D series Emojitown in major brand extension

The Emoji Company and WildBrain have forged a new, far-reaching content and licensing partnership to launch Emojitown, a new digital first series and consumer products extension of Emoji.

Under the partnership, WildBrain’s AVOD network and digital studio, WildBrain Spark has teamed up with Emoji to develop and co-produce Emojitown, a new 2D series targeting teens and young adults.

WildBrain Spark holds exclusive global distribution rights to the new series and will premiere Emojitown on YouTube with a dedicated channel launching at the end of May, when viewers will be able to enjoy the first four episodes of the fast-paced, language-agnostic show, followed by additional episodes rolling out weekly.

Tapping into its expertise in brand management on YouTube, WildBrain Spark and the Emoji Company have created the series for AVOD audiences and is supporting the launch with extensive digital-marketing, paid-media campaigns and dedicated social-media strategies.

WildBrain Spark will also exclusively handle branded content opportunities and advertising sales for Emojitown on YouTube.

Meanwhile, WildBrain CPLG will handle the worldwide licensing and merchandising rights for Emojitown, building on the agency’s successful programme for the Emoji brand across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and other territories.

Marco Huesges, founder and CEO of emoji company, said: “This is a significant development for the Emoji brand, bringing our globally recognizable icons into the digital-content space. With their preeminent reputation on digital platforms, including YouTube, and their deep understanding of licensing and brand amplification, WildBrain Spark and WildBrain CPLG are the ideal collaborators for our push into new content creation and consumer products for the teen and young-adult audience. Together we will take this hugely exciting step in the evolution of Emoji.”

Maarten Weck, EVP and MD of WildBrain CPLG, said: “Building on our strong relationship with the emoji company, this expanded partnership combines the strengths of the much-loved emoji brand with our creative and collaborative capabilities across consumer products licensing, digital-content production, and AVOD management.”

Rachel Taylor, commercial director of WildBrain Spark, added: “With its universal appeal, the Emoji brand is ideal for the creation of an animated digital-first content offering, and our creative team has produced a funny, wry and edgy series, underpinned by bespoke data and insights drawn from our premium YouTube network.

“We’re delighted that the emoji company saw us as the right partner to co-develop and launch this extension of its brand for today’s digital-savvy audience of modern teens.”

In Emojitown we see daily struggles and nightmares ranging from the mundane to the absurd. The perils of dating apps, the instant regret of a DIY haircut, the cringe of a poolside bikini fail and more, are all played out in 2D-animated color. The story will focus on Jo, a girl in her late teens who, despite trying to “live her best life” with a cheery, optimistic outlook, simply cannot stop encountering the everyday “horrors” of modern life. Throughout it all, Jo is the relatable underdog, as she, along with her emojitown pals, navigate the pitfalls of life.

Joining Jo in Emojitown are Jaya, Jon, Jess, Jay, Julia and Joanie, plus the bizarre duo of Poophead and Unicorn Man. The cast has been develop to represent not just characters to sympathise with, but for viewers to actively see themselves or someone they know in. They have been developed to represent “real people” – the kind encountered every day, reflecting attitudes, style, ethnicity, gender, ability and sexuality as diverse and representative as real life.