Including JCB expanding its relationship with Specsavers for new kids frames.
The Source rounds up more news from the licensing industry across the globe from the week.
JCB is continuing to grow its relationship with Specsavers, launching an exclusive range of JCB Kids frames. Building on the agreement for JCB Safety Eyewear, six JCB Kids fashion frames launched last week in all 736 UK stores, as well as 51 outlets in Ireland. To support the launch, Specsavers has rolled out a heavyweight marketing campaign including national and local media advertising, printed promotional material and in-store merchandising, plus digital and social media activity. A special launch event was held at the Manchester Fort Specsavers store, with customers met by a real JCB machine with glasses, as well as a transforming JCB costume character and themed activities.
New research from NPD Group has found that British adults are powering the growth of the toy sector by buying toys for themselves. Last year, one in every 11 toys sold was bought by a grown-up for personal use – notably, the ‘kidult’ market has grown 65% in value terms since 2012, increasing by 21% in 2016 alone. The research found that Millennials (18-34) accounted for 50% of spend, Generation X-ers (35-54) accounted for around a third and Boomers (55+) accounted for 18%. Categories where the kidult trend was most prominent included games and puzzles (17% of sales), building sets (16%), action figures (16%) and vehicles (11%). Star Wars and LEGO were identified as key brand favourites.
BAFTA award winning children’s comedy duo Dick and Dom are to deliver the creative keynote at this summer’s Children’s Media Conference. The pair will take to the stage on Wednesday July 5. The conference runs from July 4-6 in Sheffield.
SolarActive Europe is set to launch UV colour change technology in the UK and Europe – and is looking to build partnerships with the licensing, toy, apparel and accessories sectors. The company says that it is bringing to market a ‘totally new concept’ in colour change that reacts to every day UV light and is so stable that the colour process immediately begins to revert into its original form once out of direct sunlight/UV, but also does not weaken over consistent use.
Nitro Circus has teamed up with FIST Handwear, with the company set to launch a signature series of Nitro Circus gloves.
The stars of Nickelodeon’s hit series, School of Rock – Breanna Yde and Ricardo Hurtardo – will appear live at Nickelodeon’s Slimefest. The event takes place at The Arena, Blackpool Pleasure Beach on October 21-23.
Roblox kicked off the Easter celebrations last week with the launch of one of its largest in-game events, The Egg Hunt. After three days, the game had been played over six million times by 1.5 million unique visitors – players spent over 750,000 hours searching for hidden eggs across the specially created holiday world. After six days, this had risen to more than 3.4 million unique players, spending over 2.6 million hours searching.
WildBrain has been appointed as the exclusive global manager of the TUBA n YouTube channel for its short-form slapstick comedy series, Larva.
Humour brand Kukuxumusu has appointed Lizenzwerft as its licensing agency in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, as it looks to expand its trademark designs.
GameCo has secured a deal with CBS Consumer Products to develop a new skill-based gambling video game on the Star Trek franchise. Due to debut in the autumn, Star Trek Deep Space Nine Adventure will allow players to take the lead of the USS Defiant and battle their way to victory through immersive ship to ship combat.
Finnish game studio RealityXpander has developed a new Moomin game, which is currently part of the Moomin Adventures Easter Festival at Kew Gardens. Moomin Move is a location-based game which lets players virtually collect and learn about real plants they spot on a designated trail at the Gardens. The game is the start of a new partnership between RealityXpander and Moomin Characters.
Sesame Workshop has introduced a new muppet in a special episode of Sesame Street. Julia is a muppet with autism and was introduced on Cartoonito with a global premiere episode called Meet Julia.
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