We chat to brand director Daryl Shute about growing The Gruffalo ‘family’.
Whether you are used to reading about Gruffalo Crumble; Stick Man with his stick lady love and his stick children three; The Snail and the Whale or the animals clamouring for space in Room on the Broom; as a modern parent the works of children’s author Julia Donaldson and illustrator Axel Scheffler will have seen numerous young minds off to the land of nod night after night and parents breathing a sigh of relief.
Surprisingly The Gruffalo has only been around since 1999. Surprising how? Well the fact that there is barely a child’s bookshelf in the land that doesn’t boast a copy makes it feel that the character has been around for more than 17 years.
“That’s often people’s first response when they hear how old he is,” confirms Daryl Shute, brand director for Magic Light Pictures, which acquired the global rights to the brand back in 2009.
“People really love and cherish The Gruffalo so it’s always been our intention to try and build the brand into a classic property.”
Having acquired the global branding, licensing and AV rights to the property seven years ago, Magic Light Pictures then set out to develop a half hour film, which premiered on Christmas Day of the same year.
“Our challenge was to extend it without breaking the truthful journey of the characters,” recalls Daryl.
Buoyed by the success of the film, a licensing programme ensued (with TLC appointed as the licensing agent) anchored by a strategy to work with high quality licensors, which included Trunki and Shreds. “We were very mindful that we wanted to harness the universal appeal of the books without being gender specific so there were lots of oranges and greens in the designs,” he adds.
As the licensing programme evolved with a success that Daryl describes as being “beyond our wildest dreams” conversations began with Sainsbury’s and the DTR partnership is one that has flourished since that date with the supermarket really taking the brand to its heart and creating ranges with embellishments such as fur on the apparel.
However, the point when Daryl felt The Gruffalo brand had “really landed” was winning the Marketing Communications category in The UK Licensing Awards last year for its Forestry Commission Gruffalo trails.
Today there are some 27 licensees and several DTR deals in place in the UK. Daryl describes it as a seismic shift from when they were doing the marketing for the film to the press back in 2009. “Back then people would look quizzical, but a parent at the back of the office might pipe up that they knew it but today everyone is familiar with The Gruffalo,” he laughs.
The world of The Gruffalo has also expanded too both in terms of licensing and in reach. In 2011 The Gruffalo’s Child premiered as a film on Christmas Day signalling the start of a small licensing programme to complement it. Likewise in 2012 another Donaldson Scheffler creation, Room on The Broom premiered with similar success and licensing spin-offs. And this run of film success was followed up in 2015 when Stick Man premiered and was the fourth most watched programme on Christmas Day.
“Aurora created plush characters and Ravensburger produced puzzles and the demand was huge and amazingly that’s continued,” says Daryl.
There is another film in the pipeline for 2017, although Daryl isn’t at liberty to announce which of the Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler titles it will be yet.
“There are 15 books currently published and one to be launched from this successful writer/illustrator partnership so we have a lot to pull from in terms of material,” says Daryl. While he is keen to grow the ‘family’ “the focus is really on growing The Gruffalo both domestically and internationally.”
Unsurprisingly given that Axel Scheffler is German, one of the first international territories that Magic Light is keen to develop is Germany.
“We are going to this market, and others, with the confidence that we have an amazing book and film, as well as the new films, and we have to go with the mindset that these are classics and that children and consumers will naturally come to them.”
The US is another primary target and interestingly Room on the Broom has already established itself there as a Halloween hit. The book sells 200k+ copies in the six week period, and has been the top Halloween title for the last three years, Daryl confirms.
“I think we can build on this and introduce The Gruffalo as well as perhaps having a Holiday offering at Christmas time with Stick Man,” Daryl explains.
Like many licensors of classic properties, he feels a certain sense of responsibility to ensure The Gruffalo’s longevity and his main wish for the future is that people will continue to “love and engage with it”.
“In a few years time there really will be people who grew up reading these books as a child and that will be an interesting next stage in each property’s development.”
This feature originally appeared in the Summer 2016 edition of Licensing Source Book. Click here to read the full publication.
