Including Natural History Museum appointing TSBA as its new international licensing agent and BLE closing applications for its popular Retail Mentoring Programme.
Source rounds up more news from the licensing industry across the globe from the week.
Natural History Museum has appointed TSBA as its international licensing agent, enabling it to expand its successful licensing programme around the world. The Museum will continue to run the UK licensing programme directly.
Brand Licensing Europe has officially closed applications for its Retail Mentoring Programme for the first time in its 12-year history, following a record uptake with 82 buyers from 19 different retailers. The annual programme kicked off last week when 78 RMP delegates attended Licensing International’s Licensing Essentials course in Central London. First time retailers signed up to the programme include Next, Pets at Home, DFS and New Look. They join George @ Asda, Character.com, FatFace, John Lewis, M&Co, Marks & Spencer, Matalan, Moonpig, Morrisons, Paultons Park, Pep & Co, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, The Entertainer and TruffleShuffle.
Macmillan Children’s Books has acquired the publishing rights for preschool animated series, Odo following a deal negotiated by Bulldog Licensing. The latest acquisition is a key new property for the company, strengthening its list of preschool licensed brands and follows the deal with LEGO for preschool novelty publishing, which launched in August 2021. The company has the world rights in all languages for six books, with an option to acquire further formats and titles. The first wave of picture books will launch in the UK in March 2023.
Matt Bailey, the tattoo artist with a serious fanbase and social media following, is getting into coffee – and like his artwork, the new Bone Head Coffee is not for the faint hearted. The first roast is called Rocket Fuel and is single origin from Guatemala with notes of milk chocolate, blueberry and digestive biscuit. There will also be a ‘big gulp cup’ – an enamel tin mug which holds more than a pint of coffee. Each pack of the coffee comes with a limited edition framable post card of the artwork on the coffee label. The deal with The Galactic Empire was negotiated by Reemsborko, the worldwide agent for Matt Bailey.
WildBrain CPLG has further expanded its entertainment portfolio with the signing of worldwide licensing and merchandising rights for a trio of HarperCollins Productions‘ properties: Carmen Sandiego, The Oregon Trail and Pretzel and the Puppies. Under the deal secured by the agency’s North America office, it will build strategic licensing programmes for each of the properties across multiple new categories including apparel, footwear, fashion accessories, electronics, toys and games, health and beauty, back to school and homewares.
Silvergate Media has confirmed that Warner Bros. Discovery’s preschool channel, Cartoonito and streaming platform HBO Max have secured the rights for Octonauts in Latin America. Series one to three will be available to watch in neutral Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese later in the year. Silvergate will also launch local language Octonauts YouTube channels in the Latin American region, building on the success of the Spanish language channel, which is consistently a top three Octonauts channel worldwide.
Banijay Brands has revealed further growth of its successful MasterChef licensing programme. The company is building on its existing partnership with European housewares company Arovo – a kitchen and tabletop range will be launching in the US in May, alongside a new US MasterChef Amazon store. Meanwhile, across Europe, interior design retail chain CASA has developed the Elite collection with Arovo consisting of stylish kitchen must-haves and appliances. In addition, Banijay’s Endemol Shine North America has partnered with Creative Concepts for a collection of silver-ion and 18k gold coated cookware sets, while the partnership with Wilder Toys has also been furthered on a bite-sized edition of the MasterChef Family Cooking Game. Elsewhere, Endemol Shine Brasil has confirmed the arrival of three Spanish MasterChef wines available in the region exclusively with local wine online retailer, Grande Adega.
Paramount Consumer Products has confirmed the appointment of Dan Cook as svp of global ecommerce. Dan will lead the strategy and execution for the company’s ecommerce growth through pure play ecommerce retailers, omni-channel retailers and third party marketplace accounts.
Stan Lee Universe – Genius Brands‘ controlled venture with Pow Entertainment – has signed a 20-year deal to licence the name and likeness of Stan Lee to Marvel Studios for future feature films and TV productions, as well as use in Disney theme parks and experiences worldwide.
American steakhouse, Black Angus has appointed Evolution USA as its global licensing and brand management agency in key categories. The agency will be developing and managing a retail, direct to consumer and online licensed CP programme for the brand.
Boat Rocker has confirmed a raft of activity in Latin America for Dino Ranch as the preschool animation continues to experience rapid global growth. Three licensing agents and selection of licensees have come on board across the territory, with more actively being sought. Doce will be handling licensing for Chile and Peru; IMC has signed for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia; while Tycoon Enterprises is on board for Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean and Central America. When it comes to licensees across the region, Wabro, Comercial TBC, Glam, Meily and J&M SRL are on board.
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