LEGO’s Stephen Wanigesekera looks at the positives which lie ahead for the rest of 2019.
2019 has already been an eventful year, but arguably there’s more drama to come.
Source catches up with a selection of licensees to ask what they feel are both the positives and the challenges that lie ahead for the remainder of the year.
Today: Stephen Wanigesekera, senior manager licensing – retail marketing, LEGO
“As someone who generally likes to be optimistic about the future, I’m choosing to see the opportunities that might be possible towards the end of this year.
The biggest topic to address on the horizon is obviously Brexit. From a licensor point of view, this will mean licensing contracts will no longer be bound by EU laws (such as the Treaty of Rome). This will give licensors greater flexibility to make contracts specific to individual countries, meaning no more cross-border sales, which sometimes impacts licensees appointed in different EU countries for the same IP. Taking this one step further, if licensors choose to, they will be able to appoint different licensees for different channels or different retailers, for example in instances where there is a near duopoly in one category and each of those licensees category manages a different set of retailers. The total impact of this will also be good for licensees too, as their MGs should then reflect what their contract carves out for them.
Finally, in the event that Sterling falls against the Euro after Brexit, those licensees with European rights might see an uptick in orders from the continent, due to their export prices being lower in Euroland countries. And to be clear, these are my own thoughts and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
From a purely LEGO perspective, I am very excited that the new, character-based, LEGO City Adventures TV show [is on] Nick Toons. LEGO City has been a perennial top ten toy property for many years but the addition of key characters and strong, funny animated content should help further drive demand for the toy range as well as for licensed products.”
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