Start Licensing’s Ian Downes is impressed by the M&S and Paddington partnership this week.
Retail wise, Christmas is well and truly here. The majority of retailers have activated their Christmas campaigns and displays with Christmas stock now in-store. Maybe as you get older Christmas arrives earlier, but it does seem to me that Christmas at retail has started earlier this year. Maybe this is in part due to retailers’ desire to stimulate sales in a relatively flat market.
Against this backdrop I popped into my local Marks & Spencer in Kingston – to be accurate I popped into two shops as it has two outlets in Kingston, one of which focuses on ‘Home’ but includes toys and books. I wanted to see how the retailer is using Paddington in-store on the back of its television commercial which features the character.
I was very impressed by how M&S has activated the partnership in-store. Within the branch that sells toys it had a dedicated Paddington shop in shop which included a photo opportunity for the obligatory selfie – a point to note here is the ever increasing importance of social media marketing to sell products and events.
M&S had pulled together a really good range of products including some delightful children’s wear – the highlight for me in this range were duffle coats. As far as I know the duffle coats were only available in children’s sizes – otherwise I could imagine a lot of adults going duffle this winter.
The range included gift items and seasonal items coupled with a special edition picture book: Paddington & the Christmas Visitor. The book was selling for £3 with £2 going directly to the NSPCC helping to fund Childline. I believe M&S has committed to raise £250,000 for the charity.
It is great to see licensing ‘doing good’ in this way and the power of Paddington being deployed in such a way. M&S had invested well in signage, POS and window displays including golden Paddington statues. It has really embraced the opportunity well.
However Paddington’s pawprint stretched beyond the children’s section. In the other M&S branch in Kingston there were Paddington products in a number of departments including a celebration cake, men’s apparel, men’s accessories and confectionery including a tin suitcase tapping into the Christmas confectionery gift market.
Packaging was consistent drawing on the film, but with a classic character feel to it. Great attention to detail had been used in product terms with a highlight in this regard being a Paddington-branded marmalade jar.
The golden Paddington theme continued in-store with a range of golden Paddington Christmas tree decorations nicely presented in a Paddington style suitcase.
Overall it was a most impressive piece of retail activation and licensing – great to see an example of licensing in action like this with product coordinated across departments and products including men’s, women’s and children’s. No mean feat. Product was well designed and included some nice individual touches.
In a wider context it is also encouraging for the wider licensing community to see a classic character like Paddington being used in such a way by a major retailer in a key retailing season. It is a great (suit)case study. Hopefully it will encourage retailers to look beyond the ‘big’ properties and seek out bespoke partnerships.
M&S’ Christmas product ranges weren’t confined to Paddington with other characters featuring in-store, most notably from Disney with Star Wars product featuring throughout the store including toiletries, apparel and gift items such as novelty lights. Other Disney products included some well designed toiletry gift sets featuring classic properties such as Beauty & the Beast plus a range of Marvel Comic Hero shower gels/bubble baths selling at around £ 3 as ‘pick up’ gifts presented in contemporary ‘collectable vinyl’ style design. These products were ranged together featuring Spider-Man, Hulk and Thor – making a great display, but also encouraging multiple purchase across the range. This is a good example of a product that could be bought equally for adults or children.
Outside of the high street I managed to watch the excellent ITV4 documentary Stuck on You. This well crafted documentary told the story of the launch of sticker company Merlin and the challenges it faced as a start up business when ranged against the then Robert Maxwell-owned Panini. The documentary featured contributions from Merlin’s team including Peter Warsop, Kelvyn Gardner and Mark Hillier – all three are still involved in licensing today. The programme gives a great insight into the challenges of launching a business, taking on the market leader and the benefits of licensing.
Part of Merlin’s success was attributed to the acquisition of the World Wrestling Federation licence – interestingly it took on this licence when it was still a bit underground and had been ignored by other companies like Panini. A good reminder that sometimes taking a calculated risk on a new property from outside the mainstream is a good call. The Merlin story is a really good story and is well told in the documentary – well worth a watch.
Ian Downes runs Start Licensing, an independent brand licensing agency. His Twitter handle is @startlicensing – he would welcome your suggestions for what to look out for.
