TOTAL LICENSING
Denmark, Norway, Finland Sweden order quantity (MoQ) in the UK for sociate themselves with than a lot of
and Iceland. The total population of such products might be 100,000 or other countries.
these countries is about 27 million 200,000 – and that’s just an opening But we do have a number of promo-
people. The populations range from order. But MoQ pan-Nordic for a lot tions of course. The finance sector,
five to nine million with the exception of products is anywhere between 10 strangely enough, has been a leader
of Iceland which has a population of and 20,000 tops. For one country it in this field. Kidz has done well with
300,000. Everybody looks at the Nor- can be a lot less. So when you have to bank promotions using characters like
dic region as one territory. It’s not. We do dubbing in four different versions Franklin the Turtle and Junglo.
are five countries, five languages, five of the same toy it’s often too expen- With Thomas and Friends in Denmark
different monetary systems, five dif- sive to be worthwhile. we won an award for a promotion at
ferent governments and five different But at least that’s a reasonable need: the train museum. We’ve also signed
types of people. However, for licensing people want to hear programmes and a couple of deals in Finland for soda,
purposes we do act as one territory read packaging notes in their own integrating a band’s trademark colour
because it’s the only way we can make language. What’s hard to understand into the drink: green for the Ninja Tur-
money; it’s almost impossible to have a is why there are so few pan-Nordic tles and pink soda for Bratz. We’re try-
business just doing licens- retailers. For example the Co-op has ing to focus more on the promotions
ing in one of the five chains in Denmark, Norway and Swe- area, although in this market good fi-
countries. den but different buyers for apparel in nancial returns tend to be longer term
We rely on our each country. So a licensee has to go than in others. We tend to work with
partners being pan- to all three different retailers and sell ad agencies who are already working
Nordic and working into all three countries as opposed to with some of the major partners to
and operating in five going to one person who can buy for get the promotions up and running. It’s
different countries. three countries. We tend to hold up usually easier than going out and doing
But it isn’t easy. TV, for Top Toy as a shining example of a big it yourself.
example, is a big challenge. pan-Nordic retailer. However, most So from a licensing and merchandising
Compare, say, France: one other retailers work on a country-by- perspective there’s a lot of pan-Nor-
language, one country, 50 mil- country basis. dic thinking going on; KidzEntertain-
lion people and channels that Promotions is another category that ment / EEMC is an obvious example.
cover all of them. It’s true that really needs to be developed – al- However, from a promotions and re-
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian though not for language reasons. It’s tail perspective there’s less attempt to
are similar enough for many people simply that people in this region are take advantage of the economies of
from different countries to be able to resistant to using their budgets. Even scale offered by being pan-Nordic. It’s
converse socially. Finnish, however, is Eastern Europe is further ahead. They hard to say why. As a region we’re a
completely different. But even Danish, see the opportunity for a quick win very modern society. However, as in-
Swedish and Norwegian are not close while Nordic is much more long term. dividual countries we fiercely protect
enough to be completely understand- They want to know “How can you our language and culture.
able by everyone, especially in the pre- guarantee this brand is going to be big As the largest agency in the region
school market which, of course, is also in five years?” “How can you guaran- Kidz Entertainment has a number of
too young to understand English. tee our brand isn’t going to ruin my key properties including Bratz, Trans-
In practice, this means that in the Nor- brand?” They’re a lot more careful formers, Bob the Builder, Simpsons,
dic region we have 27 million people about what they do and what they as- Ice Age, Roary The Racecar, Fifi, Miffy,
and you have to pay five different Thomas and Friends, Postman Pat,
prices for dubbing and placing prop- and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
erties on five linguistically separate New properties looking interesting
sets of TV channels. So TV is ex- are Terminator, My Little Pony and
tremely expensive. With time and the Littlest Pet Shop.
experience we’ve been able to get Our key licensors are MGA Enter-
things on TV and make sure both tainment, Hasbro, Sony, Entertain-
we and all our partners make mon- ment Rights, Lego, Dreamworks, Fox,
ey, but it isn’t easy. Chapman Entertainment, BBC, Mer-
Packaging offers similar problems. cis, 4Kids and HIT Entertainment”.
We do try to do pan-Nordic pack- The Kidz Entertainment attitude to
aging and pan-Nordic products: usu- licensing is, perhaps, different from
ally four languages on each box (we others. As Anna Lisa McBridge ex-
don’t always include Icelandic). That’s plained, “Kidz Kidz has has been been around ound for or
affordable. However, when there’s a seven years. A lot of agents in our
talking toy involved you have to do early years were just working on
some careful calculations: minimum merchandise rights. We built our
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