Classics Lead the Way

ITALY

By Roberta Nebbia Licensing Italia Licensing International Italy Office www.licensingitalia.it

Classics leading the way

The first national lockdown in Italy started exactly one year ago in March 2020 and we are now aware that there’s still a long way to go before we can return to a “normal” situation. As everywhere in the world, we are facing both the worst global health emergency of the last 100 years and a phase of economic recession. This situation of uncertainty affects all sectors of the economy including of course the licensing industry where it has significant consequences on the decisions of licensees who tend to be very conservative in their selection of a new license and very prudent when discussing the terms and the conditions of new licensing agreements. The renegotiation of existing licensing agreements has been really helpful for all the licensees who suffered from the effects of the pandemic. If we analyse the Italian licensing market from the licensors’side we see that most of them are trying to tighten up the relationship with their licensees offering a wider range of services such as creative services, market research, social media support, etc. Webinars, virtual licensing meetings, videocalls are also another way to maintain these relationships between licensors and licensees during the pandemic though everyone is missing face-to-face meetings and the international tradeshows. Regarding Entertainment Licensing in Italy, we see that the major licensors are now investing essentially in classic characters rather than taking the risk of launching brand new characters. Rainbow, for example, has recently announced the upcoming animated TV series based on the evergreen classic character Pinocchio. Warner Media is strongly promoting Space Jam: a New Legacy, 25 years after the first release. A further confirmation of the above trend can also be seen in the massive exploitation of anniversaries such as, for instance, in 2021 the 25th Pokémon anniversary and the 80th Wonder Woman anniversary. There are of course also few original new characters such as MeteoHeroes, an animated series produced by Mondo TV and Meteo Expert, which is focused on climate change issues and was first broadcast in Italy on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22nd 2020). Another trend is the increasing growth of the properties coming from the world of videogames: from SuperMario to Fortnite and Minecraft. Last February Infovalue, a leading research institute, presented the results of the multiclient quantitative survey Licensing Talks. The field work took place in December 2020 in Italy. The research has confirmed the consolidation of the main pre-school characters (Bing, P J Mask, Masha and the Bear, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol), the relevance of classic characters both amongst boys and girls 6-9 years and the strong appeal of influencers and lifestyle brands amongst the target age groups of 10-13 and 14-17 years.