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LICENSING 2011 GUIDE
Key movie releases: ■ Transformers: Dark of the Moon Hasbro/Paramount - July
■ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Warner Bros - July
■ Cars 2 Disney-Pixar - July
will be debuting Raa Raa The Noisy Lion on Cbeebies in the summer months, while later on in the quarter Aardman will begin to roll out new episodes from series three of Timmy Time. This forms a key part of Aardman’s growth ambitions for the year, as licensing manager Rob
■ Captain America: The First Avenger Marvel - July
■ The Smurfs Sony Pictures - August
■ Horrid Henry: The Movie Vertigo/Novel - August
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Key event: ■ The Licensing Awards The Great Room, Grosvenor Hotel - September 13th
Key anniversaries during Q3 will include 30 years of Classic Media’s Postman Pat, while PG Tips TV ad star Monkey is celebrating a decade. Bulldog Licensing will be launching a range of product including greetings cards, apparel, plush and gift lines. Other highlights: New Hit property Mike the Knight debuts on Cbeebies in the autumn; ZingZillas live events return in the summer; JCB launches a new range of boys toys including the JCB Multi-construct, vehicles and key DIY role play lines.
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Busy Chorion is also planning a major refresh for its Noddy brand in the autumn following the success of Noddy in Toyland. Bandai will be rolling out a range of characters and story-based play-sets including airport play-sets to introduce consumers to the Noddy Takes to the Air theme. Fellow classic brand Hornby Hobbies will begin to branch out into new merchandise categories, with Rocket Licensing busy signing up partners in various sectors for Airfix, Scalextric, Hornby and Corgi.
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Goodchild explains: “Despite a tough marketplace, we continue to target further growth across our core properties both in the UK and internationally in 2011. The addition of new properties to our Rights portfolio – namely Canimals and Bloodhound SSC – will further strengthen our position, and see us developing further business across both traditional and new merchandise categories.” August will see Chorion’s global master toy partner Fisher-Price
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launch its Octonauts range. Backed by a heavyweight marketing push, the line will include figures, vehicles and play-sets. Highlights will be posable bath characters and colour change creatures, plus interactive GUP vehicles which propel in water or land, squirt water and chomp.
It’s looking likely to be a busy summer at the box office - among the big movies arriving are Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean 4 Green Lantern and Kung Fu Panda 2.
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JULY TO SEPTEMBER July is a big month for two of Warner Bros Consumer Products pillar franchises. First up, Batman Live begins its tour of arenas in Manchester, before going on to take in Europe and, eventually, the US. Meanwhile, the final part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens at cinemas and, with huge levels of interest across the world a certainty, WBCP is looking to ramp up the licensing programme even further. “Part 1 has performed fantastically well at the UK box office and we are thrilled with the success of our licensing partners, especially Tomy and Lego,” says Paul Bufton, general manager of WBCP UK. “Although the final film has been presented in two parts, we have treated it as one campaign. We have fantastic partners on board and we’ll soon be entering phase two of our long-term retail partnerships. This will bring even bigger and better things.” It’s looking likely to be a busy summer at the box office – as well as Harry Potter, Cars 2 (Disney-Pixar) and the third Transformers movie should also pull in the audiences. Meanwhile, in TV terms, Chapman