Guru Studio’s Jonathan Abraham talks True and the Rainbow Kingdom, Pikwik Pack and launching new IP.
From Belgium to the US, LicensingSource chats to a selection of licensors and agents based outside of the UK to find out their takeaways from 2021, what they see as the biggest opportunities and challenges for licensing moving through 2022, their aims and what word they would use to describe business in both the year just gone and the current one.
Today – Canada: Jonathan Abraham, vp sales and business development, Guru Studio.
“2021 was a year for finding creative solutions to difficult problems. The world was faced with plenty of challenges with regards to logistics and supply, but Guru was able to navigate through and deliver on our initiatives.
We launched the True and the Rainbow Kingdom toy line with our master toy partner United Smile in Q4 during the height of the shipping challenges out of China. The line features a collection of figures, play-sets, vehicles, plush and musical dolls based on the series, and we’re excited to see it on shelves.
There is a lot to be excited about in 2022. Pikwik Pack’s toy line will launch this year with our partner Playmates Toys, along with a line of books from Scholastic based on the series. We have multiple strong licensees newly on board for True and the Rainbow Kingdom that are gearing up for product launches. We will also be announcing some new IP this year that we are very excited about.
Like everyone else in the licensing industry, challenges will continue with supply and shipping. Those challenges do provide plenty of new opportunities to look for product production partners outside of China which a lot of our partners are doing. The pandemic caused a lot of retailers to take fewer risks on new properties.
‘Action’ is my word from 2021 and ‘innovation’ for 2022.”
This feature originally appeared in the spring 2022 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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