“A crystal ball to the future” is what LIMA promised Licensing International 2006 would be. And what does the ball forecast? After a quick sweep through the floor at Javits during the show (June 20-22), it seems that celebrities, polar bears, positive pre-teens, and, of course, fairy dust, are on the horizon.
With a trumpet fanfare and smiling ballerinas by his side, Andy Mooney, Chairman of Disney Consumer Products opened the 26th show with a morning press conference revealing Brittany Murphy as the voice of Peter Pan‘s fairy friend in Tinker Bell, the movie coming out in 2007. From there, the press trooped over to the Warner Brothers stand where Nicky Hilton draped herself across a motorcycle to promote her collaboration on the high-end Tweety Bird fashion line.
The biggest celebrity, however, was the gigantic armored taxidermy polar bear posed in attack mode with a tiny parka-clad girl clutching on to his back. The protagonists of Philip Pullman‘s The Golden Compass (Random House) stood guard over the New Line stand, overseeing the promotion of the movie which is slated for a fall 2007 release. The movie trilogy of the Whitbread-winning, ten million copy-selling books will combine “the magical fantasy of Harry Potter and the epic grandeur of The Lord of the Rings according to the glossy press release. Indeed, Harry Potter sat this year out while another huge polar bear took main stage at Scholastic Media’s post just a few aisles away. Maya and Miguel, Clifford, and Mrs. Frizzle with her Magic School Bus enjoyed prominent displays there along with Goosebumps which we’re told “is back from the dead!”
Silver Lining Productions chose the Show to introduce the Mr. Men and Little Miss brand to the US market (published by Penguin in the US). The old workhorses, Eric Carle and Olivia, along with relative newcomers, Gaspard & Lisa and Groovy Girls, were on hand too. The latter, a multi-cultural group of spunky friends with high self-esteem whose books are published by Simon & Schuster and Scholastic, would get along well with the Beacon Street Girls, another group of multi-cultural buddies with a positive message. Their “parent-approved literature for ‘tweens’” published by B*tween Productions supports the decidedly anti-Bratz sentiment found in the Show’s daily circulars.
In a retro incarnation of the positive girl movement, Moxie & Company asked us to “Get a clue with Nancy Drew!” as they promoted Simon & Schuster’s now 76-year-old Nancy and her contemporary series Girl Detective and Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew.
Kathleen Spinelli of Brands-To-Books, Inc. hosted a panel on, what else, but turning your brand into a book. The panel told a crestfallen audience not to look to books as a significant source of revenue, but rather as a way to leverage an already strong character into other products or to re-purpose existing content. Barbara Lalicki, SVP and Editorial Director at HarperCollins Children’s, put it this way: “It’s the book that will get you on the Today Show.” After all, Russell the Sheep began as a quirky drawing in the author’s booth when he was discovered by Sue Miller at Mixed Media and the dozing animal transferred beautifully into the instant bestselling children’s classic. She also used the licensing phenomenon Mary Engelbreit (who was signing copies of her “Queen of Everything” image at the United Media stand) as an example of the successful ripples that can come from putting a brand on the page. From her first children’s book, The Night Before Christmas, came a flood of new products: Christmas ornaments, afghans, cookie tins, etc., all relating to the narrative. Steve Scebelo, SVP of TV Guide Licensing & Merchandising, spoke to the re-purposing of content aspect of branded books, citing the success of the TV Guide crossword, word-search, and classic TV encyclopedias at getting the brand into new channels like dollar stores and the big bookstores. Despite all the helpful information and advice to present your brand to publishers through an agent, the license-hungry audience stormed the panelists with pitches of their own. After all, the deal is what this business is all about.
