Maurizio Distefano Licensing (MDL), which manages licensing for the Masha and the Bear brand in Italy, has brokered a major agreement that brings together the enormously popular children’s characters Masha and the Bear and Samsung, one of the world leaders in consumer electronics.

This innovative new deal is seeing Masha and Samsung team up for a massive promotion in the Italian market.

With the purchase of any model of the Samsung tablet, the consumer will be able to access and download – completely free – a wide range of Masha and the Bear digital assets, including full-length episodes of Season 1, 2 and 3, games, e-books and more. The promotion started in November and runs until February 2019.

Samsung offers more than 20 models in its Galaxy tablet range and all will offer the option to download these amazing assets in the lead-up to Christmas and beyond. The special offer will be available in large specialist electronics stores online and offline across Italy.

To support this initiative, Samsung is planning a massive marketing campaign, including online and television advertising, as well as in-store and POS material.

This promotion builds on high consumer awareness of Masha and the Bear and its success, both as a licensed brand and a series, with Italian families. Now in its third season, repeat showings and new episodes of Masha and the Bear are greeted with enormous enthusiasm by big audiences on both DeA Junior and Rai YoYo.

So popular is the brand that two spin-off series – Masha's Tales and Masha's Spooky Stories – have been created. Episodes of these three shows are also available to mobiles, PCs and tablets, and streaming on Infinity, a dedicated YouTube channel and the official Masha and the Bear Facebook page.

Maurizio Distefano, President, MDL, said: “Needless to say, we are enormously excited about this promotion and our role in making it happen. It’s a one-of-a-kind promotional activity for the Italian market with a global leader in consumer products that will not only be enormously popular with Masha fans but will introduce many more people to these delightful characters.”