Including Paddington retail success and first The Simpsons store opens in Beijing.
Copyrights is celebrating a successful month for Paddington at retail during April. Hamleys on London’s Regent Street featured a Paddington window display themed with the Union Jack, Robertson’s marmalade jars and Rainbow Designs’ soft toys. The window was live for three weeks and saw a sales increase of over 40% during the period. Paddington also made a special appearance at the store to launch the window.
Staying with Paddington, and Steiff is celebrating strong sales of its limited edition large 60cm plush. Retailing at £499, all 500 sold out globally in 24 hours, with the US Steiff website selling their entire allocation in less than 45 minutes. The company also received enquiries from Germany, France and throughout Asia as fans clamoured to get their hands on the bear.
Egmont has revealed its annuals list for 2016. Titles include a new Minecraft annual, as well as Star Wars, LEGO Star Wars and LEGO Ninjago. The company will also be publishing annuals for Finding Dory, Frozen, Disney Princess, Disney Moana, Trolls, Thomas & Friends and Rupert the Bear.
The first ever The Simpsons store has been opened in Beijing, further extending the brand across the Asia Pacific region. The store – in Taikooli Sanlitun – features over 125 specially curated items, with never before available apparel, bags, head gear and accessories.
Character World is enjoying further success with Star Wars, having secured a European licence. The licensee is now producing Star Wars textiles for retailers in countries across the European region including the UK, Nordic countries, Benelux, Iberia, Italy, CEE, France, the Baltics, plus emerging markets of Greece, Turkey, Cyprus and Malta.
FC Bayern Munich and One Entertainment has joined forces to boost the club’s merchandising strategy in the US. This will mark the first time that club-branded merchandise will be available in the US retail market. One Entertainment is looking at a wide range of categories including apparel, accessories and housewares.
Sixteen South has confirmed that Disney Junior Europe, Middle East, Africa and Australia/New Zealand has picked up its new animation Claude. The series – based on the best selling books by Alex T Smith – has just gone into production and is due to air in 2017.
Hasbro Studios is celebrating winning an award at the 43rd Annual Daytime Emmy Awards. Jeff Bennett picked up the accolade for Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program for his role as Mayor Luskey in Transformers Rescue Bots.
Turner EMEA has promoted Cecilia Persson to vp of programming and content strategy kids EMEA, acquisitions and co-production international.
Fright-Rags has teamed up with Creative Licensing for a new range of products including apparel, art posters and hats based on the 1981 thriller, The Howling, and the 1980 indie film, The Fog.
E-Bop.tv – the new British digital children’s channel launching on May 31 – is teaming with Judy Murray as part of its ‘Jolly Jobs’ series. The segment sees 11 year old reporter Alex investigate various interesting and ‘jolly’ jobs including football club groundsman, a kitchen gardener and steam engine driver among others.
The exquisitely named Brazilian YouTube hit, Lottie Dottie Chicken will be heading to Licensing Expo next month. The property will be introducing the newest member of the family, Lottie Dottie Mini. It is the biggest channel on YouTube in Latin America, with over three billion views and five million subscribers in Portuguese, Spanish and English.
