Bulldog Brings Brands With Bite To BLE 2016

Bulldog Licensing, one of the UK’s leading licensing agencies, is presenting an exciting mixture of brands at BLE 2016 on stand F2.

Shopkins are fun little characters that live and play in Shopville! There are hundreds to collect, including a few Ultra-Rare and Limited Edition characters. The statistics surrounding the brand are staggering – more than 600 million characters have been produced around the globe, over a billion views have been recorded of Shopkins videos on YouTube, and Welcome to Shopkins World, the Shopkins app, has been downloaded nearly 10 million times, topping the iTunes charts in more than 11 countries to date. A rapidly growing licensing programme features over forty partners across a wide range of categories, including toy, stationery, apparel, publishing, games, party goods, posters and homewares.

Also from Shopkins-creator, Moose Toys, is Grossery Gang, which builds on the success of Shopkins with a brand new range of collectible characters. But this is one very different basket of shopping, as the Grossery Gang range are stale, foul and putrid! From rotten eggs, to dodgy donuts and fungus fries – all the characters in the range are ‘shoppin’ gone rotten’, which is sure to have huge appeal to its target audience of boys aged 5+. Season 1 is now on sale, supported by a website, upcoming app and regular YouTube content.

Twozies is also one of the latest offerings from Moose Toys. Aimed at girls aged 7-10, Twozies is a range of adorable babies and pets that do everything together, but first they need to be collected and matched together! In total there are over 140 characters to collect, including extra cute Super Rare and Limited Edition characters to make it even more fun. Everything is more fun Two-gether!

Miraculous™ Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, is another new brand in the Bulldog line up. Tapping the girl super-hero trend, Ladybug stands as the only girl super hero starring in her own “original” animated TV series, already ranking #1 on the Disney Channel UK. Miraculous™ brought to the world by ZAG/Zagtoon and Method, is critically-acclaimed, has #1 rankings in most key markets and global TV coverage with TF1 in France and Disney Channel throughout EMEA, LATAM, and Korea, overall reaching 80+ countries worldwide. In the USA, Nickelodeon has seen the show rise to #4 for all girls programming. Season 2 and 3 are in production now. The story centres on two Parisian teenagers, Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Adrien Agreste, who transform into Ladybug & Cat Noir respectively via their magical and always ready Kwamis. This inspiring series provides a relevant, modern day feel for girl superheroes, showing that the average girl is capable of great achievements. An action doll, role play and plush range from Bandai is set to launch exclusively in Toys R Us in Q3 2016, followed by a full market roll-out next year (2017).

Garfield is the instantly recognizable cartoon cat featured in over 2,100 newspapers across the globe. The portly feline holds the Guinness World Record for the most syndicated cartoon strip and is responsible for book sales in excess of 200 million copies to date, two feature-length live-action films, and three CGI animated movies – as well as thousands of lines of licensed merchandise. Current licensees include Sambro (bags and stationery), Misirli (kids, nightwear, socks and underwear), Ravette (publishing) and J Fox (accessories). Garfield apparel is also a major seller on the high street with Blues, Poetic Gem and BCI all on board.

Angry Birds is the mobile game that changed an industry and became a global phenomenon. The various games in the franchise, from the original through to Angry Birds Star Wars and Angry Birds 2, have been downloaded more than three billion times in total, and Angry Birds is now a massive property with a reach across generations. The hugely popular Angry Birds Movie, which reached No. 1 at the box office in 52 countries including the US, UK and China, has boosted the brand’s profile even further.

Yo-kai Watch is the hit anime that follows an average boy, Nate, who gets a special watch empowering him to discover mysterious beings called “Yo-kai.” Yo-kai are everywhere, causing little nuisances in our daily lives. Nate’s ongoing quest is to discover the reason for the Yo-kai’s mischievous behaviour, with hopes of talking them out of it. Each time Nate needs to solve a problem – a problem often caused by another troublesome Yo-kai – he uses his watch to call upon a friendly Yo-kai to aid him. Cartoon Network screens the show every weekend morning and evening - backed by major marketing support, including trailers and website competitions – and a host of licensees are on board across apparel, bedding, toy, video games, greetings, stationery and more.

”We’ve got a strong roster of brands at this year’s Brand Licensing Europe that all offer considerable commercial opportunities,” says Bulldog Licensing MD Rob Corney. “There’s huge potential in each one and we’re looking forward to speaking to a diverse range of potential licensing partners.”