TOTAL LICENSING
Welcome...
to the world of the Zoonicorns! Zoonicorn recently hit a further milestone in its brand development by partnering with Toonz Animation for production of new TV episodes and global distribution and to seek out licensing partners on a global scale.The first season of episodes – with the animation completely reimagined and stories and music from top people in the industry – are now completed. Toonz is now actively signing and seeking deals with television networks and streaming services worldwide. Zoonicorn is a character-based preschool entertainment property for kids ages 2-6, created by Mark Lubratt. J’net Smith of All Art Licensing (Brand Manager/Director) and Bruno Zarka, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for Toonz sat down with Becky Ash at Total Licensing to outline the detailed strategy for the licensing program. It sounds like the Zoonicorns have a great team working to bring them to kids around the globe. Can you tell us how you came together? J’net: You know Bruno and I have been going to same shows, such as Licensing Expo, for years. But we never actually met until recently. We are just getting to know each other, and this is the first time we’ve collaborated. A little bit of background to the Zoonicorns – I connected with Mark Lubratt, the creator in 2015 at Licensing Expo. I really loved the idea of the concept and optimism and resilience being the theme, the umbrella, you never give up, and look forward to the future. The universal appeal of the unicorn is fantastic, but we have a difference – we started working together on music videos, online books, creating content
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that would help people understand the concept, and to build towards licenses. It was not until we had our music video out for a couple of years that we met Toonz, at Kidscreen. I pitched Toonz at Kidscreen – they understood the story so well, the characters and the concept behind these zebra-unicorns that fuel imagination and adventure. We started working together in 2020, and we’ve brought together a great team – Mark Lubratt always says it’s entertainment first, education, social emotional learning etc next. First and foremost is content and connecting to kids. We have fantastic people working on the music and the storylines, led by the award-winning Mark Zaslov, who serves as show runner and lead
writer/editor for the series. The music is by Emmy Award winning composer Rich Dickerson. We are looking at having all 52 x 7 minutes episodes done by spring 2022, and we are well on our way! Toonz is doing a great job. Every episode has the same format for the pre-schooler audience. When our characters fall asleep, they have a challenge. They enter the Zooniverse, the dreamworld of the Zoonicorns. They go on the adventure and at the end they see and learn something they didn’t know before. Each episodes is bookended – they go from real life to dreamland and then back to reality. So that’s the background in a nutshell! In terms of building the licensing program, we are talking right now with publishers and toy companies of course, and we have seen phenomenal