Interview

PANINI

PANINI BRAND INSIGHTS

Licensing Magazine made an exclusive interview with Tony

Verdini, Senior Manager within the Business Development and Partnerships Division of Panini SpA.

Tony Verdini, head of Business Development and Partnerships Office

Panini S.p.A. has implemented an important brand extension program to support its core business. The historical sticker company based in Modena has signed relevant agreements with licensees and licensing agencies to create even stronger connections with its fans. The Company, moreover, will blow out sixty candles in 2021 and is ready to celebrate this achievement with its most loyal fans. Licensing Magazine met with Tony Verdini,

Senior Manager Business Development and Partnerships of Panini S.p.A.

You have recently assigned Vertical Licensing agency to represent Panini brand for the Brazilian territory, which extends your licensing plan to a very important territory for your company.

Together with our colleagues in Panini Brazil, we are very happy that an agreement has been reached with Vertical Licensing agency for the next two years. Brazil is one of the main territories for Panini, where no brand program has been developed yet. We therefore decided to invest on this important territory, and we are excited to work with Vertical Licensing team, who immediately stood out for its seriousness, passion, enthusiasm and commitment. The official kick-off of the project took place in mid-September, with a licensing summit, a meeting on a virtual platform with hundreds of licensees to whom we have introduced the Panini brand together with VL. Although we are just at the beginning, we have felt great enthusiasm around the project and this is very encouraging and motivating. We have already been working for some years with Kopa Licensing in Colombia, WildbrainCplg in Iberia and Bavaria Sonor Licensing, a division of Bavaria Media, which is active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Benelux region. Despite the difficulties related to the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been

Alexandre Volpi, CEO of Vertical Licensing

working together with Kopa and Cplg on some important agreements. In addition, Bavaria has identified two important partners such as E.M.P. Merchandising, which will develop a sui-generis clothing collection available only at its online store, and Leonine Distribution, with whom we have developed a series of audio-plays called PANINI SPORTS ACADEMY.

About PANINI SPORTS ACADEMY, would you like to tell us more about this particular project launched in Summer 2020?

PANINI SPORTS ACADEMY is a singular project that differs significantly from other PANINI branded products released on the market over the years by our licensees. As already mentioned, PANINI SPORTS ACADEMY (PSA in short) is a series of audio-plays, i.e. performed audio stories, for boys and girls aged 7-12 years, in which PANINI has played an important role on the creative side. In addition to being the title of the series, PSA is the name of the prestigious sports academy that hosts some of the key characters of the story. Together with Bavaria and Leonine we have created a teenage world populated by very interesting talents. The plotrevolves around themes such as enthusiasm for sports, friendship and ambition, as well as dreams, mistakes and first love stories, typical of this age. The editorial and audio contents have been developed in Germany by Leonine, while PANINI took care of the graphic side thanks to the creativity of an exceptional team composed by Giuseppe Camuncoli, Lorenzo Fornaciari and Fabio Roversi. They gave life to the world of PSA creating the main characters, the team badges and uniforms, the academy, the logo of the series and the covers of each single episode so far. The first three audioplayswere released in July, while episodes 4 and 5 came out in mid-September. They can be found both in digital form on the main platforms (Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify) and as CDs in selected retailers, only in Germanspeaking countries (Austria, Germany and Switzerland).

2021 marks an important time for Panini, the sixtieth anniversary of the company as well as the first sticker collection of your flagship football title CALCIATORI. Would you tell us something about the projects you are working on for the year to come?

Sixty years of activity represent a significant milestone for any company. It’s been a long time since the first collections of CALCIATORI, when stickers would be glued. Thousands and more collections of self-adhesive stickers and trading cards and card games such as ADRENALYN XL have marked the past decades so far. Today PANINI is a global company that reaches sports as well as entertainment enthusiasts across and over 150 territories through its editorial products. We are proud to see appreciation for the efforts and the investments made over the years and to entertain an increasing number of fans and customers around the world with new, interactive and engaging products. It is important to highlight this event and celebrate it with exclusive products. Several projects are in the pipeline, which I cannot reveal, but I would like to talk to you about one in particular. It condenses the DNA and values of PANINI and it’s a great celebrative tool to meet our anniversary with different references to PANINI’s past. I am referring to a book that will be publishedin 2021. The book retraces the entire history of PANINI through its main collections worldwide and tells about peculiar aspects and curiosities of the PANINI world such as the joy of collecting and exchanging, or the creation of albums and stickers. It is a book for PANINI collectors of all ages, but also for soccer fans to retrace their recent history.

Beyond collaborations, the list of your licensees is increasing as well. Could you announce any new partners for us in preview?

We have just launched a new line of apparel, which we are very proud of, both for the status of our partner and the quality of its products. Among the new licensees that will join us in 2021, I can definitely announce that ICAM, one of the main chocolate producers in Italy, is going to become our new partner for chocolate Easter eggs and Christmas stockings. After the good results obtained in recent years with the previous partner, we have decided to give new strength to our commitment in this niche market. Their first selling season will be Easter 2021. We are very excited to start this new collaboration. A preview of the new PANINI Easter chocolate eggs by ICAM will be available soon.