Healthy Lifestyle, Eco Friendly Attitudes: Market seeks new messages from Characters & Brands

CANNES: Away with junk foods and plastics. Keeping in sync with new age sensibilities on health and environment, popular kids character brands will soon sport and endorse healthier lifestyles and environment friendly attitudes!

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(seated: Left to Right) Mindshare Entertainment (US) CEO David Lang, License! global editorial director Tony Lisanti, Spin Master (Canada) Director of Global licensing Matt Wexler, The Copyright Promotion Licensing Company (UK) CEO Kirk Bloomgarden and moderator (at podium) 20th century fox EVP Licensing & Merchandising Elie Dekel

Moderated by 20th Century Fox EVP for Licensing & Merchandising Elie Dekel, the panel discussion on licensing trends was an extremely healthy and enriching one, panelists included Kirk Bloomgarden (CEO, The Copyright Promotions Licensing Group Ltd, UK), Matt Wexler (Director, Global Licensing & Business Development, Spin Master Ltd. Canada), Tony Lisanti (Global Editorial Director, License!) and David Lang (Co Founder, Mindhsare Entertainment USA).

Starting the conversation, Dekel shared that the market for licensing was getting more competitive than ever. “There is a lot of content available across multiple platforms all vying for the same shelf space and consumer attention. Challenges also include age compression and film properties which tend to grab a lion‘s share of shelf space when launched.”

Opening up the hot topic of Food Licensing, Dekel invited the panelists views.

“The junk food advertising and endorsement issue has affected UK quite a lot with millions of advertising dollars going away from Children‘s Television. But the rest of Europe is still not that affected,” shared Kirk Bloomgarden. “Also we are now working on healtheir categories of products such as Organic Foods, Fruits & Vegetables, Smoothies, Sugar Free Yoghurts and so on. It is good in the long term that kids’ character brands that usually push junk food will now communicate healthier lifestyles.”

But it’s not as simple as that. Kids don’t like being preached, and though parents may want their kids to have healthier foods, the kids still love their candies. David Lang shared, “The brief from food brands is to make the products relevant to the kids, show healthy, yet make it cool.”

The panel shared with the audience that these issues and trends meant an opportunity in programming creation. Kirk Bloomgarden gave an example of Lazy Town, which is a rage in Northern Europe for the healthy fitness regimen and lifestyle that it promotes to kids. “If your shows can be cool and stand for positive, environment friendly attitudes and healthy lifestyle, it will resonate very well with today‘s times,” he added.

Need for a clear distinct voice that can communicate offscreen too

The panelists shared that as licensing executives, they are sent proposals for 1000s of kids programs and a lot of shows, character designs, visual styling seemed repititive. Shared Dekel, “For the show and characters it is very necessary to have a distinct clear voice. Only a voice that is unique and differentiated and can speak off screen, can translate into a succesfull licensing program.”

“Characters also have to be aspirational,” shared Matt Wexler. “Some shows are good as concepts and impress in a 2-minute pitch, but content creators need to think of how will their concepts play out in 30 minutes and across the arc of a series of 26 or 52 episodes.”

The exposure time that characters and series need to have to an audience before they become feasible for a Licensing & Merchandising program is at least 52 episodes. Earlier, a lot of shows were weekly, but with fresh shows being slot four times a week or even daily, 52 episodes get run through in weeks. “Though this does become a challenge from a budgetary point of view,” shared Bloomgarden.

The panel pointed out the impact of a licensing program, both in terms of revenue as well as exposure, has made broadcasters recognise the win win benefits of working in close collaboration. Showing a reel featuring Bakugan Battle Brawlers, Spin Master‘s Matt Wexler illustrated a case where the TV program was about discovering the play pattern of the toy which was part of its retail license. “The storyline is developed in a manner where the program teaches you how to play with the product and both the toy as well as TV series are doing very well,” he remarked.

Collaborate with retail early on
Offering a final piece of advice, the panel shared that content creators eyeing Licensing & Merchandising revenue need to approach potential partners in retail and distribution early on and collaborate with them. “You have to be relevant to the audience as a brand and an experience and collaboration is much more than just sharing a style guide. Talk to potential partners even while you are developing your character.”

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