TOTAL LICENSING
Market Round-Up With 30 years of history, WildBrain CPLG Italy utilises its robust local market knowledge and expertise to connect the best brands with topclass partners. Previously known as The Copyright Promotions Licensing Group (now part of WildBrain), WildBrain CPLG Italy is one of 16 offices worldwide. The local team, which is led by Pau Pascual, VP Southern Europe, MENA & South Asia, continues to grow and has recently welcomed a new Commercial Director, Laurent
Fourcine, who brings a wealth of licensing industry experience to drive growth for the agency’s licensors in the region and continue the strategic evolution of the Italian office. WildBrain CPLG Italy has become home to a robust slate of classic brands, with an increasingly strong line-up of properties with rich heritage, as well as on-trend propositions. Many of these brands have become engrained in pop culture, including Peanuts and WildBrain’s Teletubbies, as well as Pink Panther, Mafalda, SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog among others. The Italian team continues to expand the licensing program for emoji® – The Iconic Brand and, in addition to the core brand, is working on the consumer productions extension of emoji® with new IP emojitown® – the digital-first YouTube series developed by WildBrain Spark. The series has achieved more than 100 million views and garnered 400 thousand subscribers globally in only eight months. Another important local focus is on
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the beloved WildBrain-owned brand and international phenomenon Strawberry Shortcake, which has brought joy to generations of kids for the last 40 years. Strawberry Shortcake is back with a cool new look and confident, savvy attitude for today’s kids in new animated series Berry in the Big City, alongside a master toy range from Moose Toys and an extensive franchise programme spanning apparel, games, publishing and more. The Italian team is also busy working on a cross-category programme for the iconic arcade gaming brand Tetris®, which has recently become part of the WildBrain CPLG Italy portfolio. Tetris is one of the most purchased video games of all time, with over 500 million games sold worldwide. In 2022, the first dedicated movie for the brand will be released on Apple TV+, which will tell the story of the game’s creation and star Taron Egerton. Tetris is also gearing up to celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2024. Another gaming IP in WildBrain CPLG’s local portfolio is Brawl Stars, for which the agency has already rolled out licensing programmes in key product categories, such as toys, personal care, back-to-school, accessories, gifts and loyalty promotions among others. Also in the entertainment space,WildBrain CPLG’s Italy team represents a range of popular shows originated from streaming platforms Amazon Prime Video and Netflix, such as Vikings Valhalla, Cobra Kai and The Boys, and is extending these offscreen through engaging licensing programmes for fans. Within its growing Corporate & Lifestyle property lineup, WildBrain CPLG Italy has had significant success with Harvard and Yale university brands, with the University of Southern California also recently
joining the portfolio. The agency’s Lifestyle portfolio continues to welcome brands, including renowned artist Romero Britto, fashion designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, automotive brand Motul and internationally renowned Swiss motorsport company, Sauber, which owns and operates the Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen. Business International Company (B.I.C.), founded in 1972 by Oscar Massari and led nowadays by Claudio Massari, is one of the top independent licensing Agency in Italy. Through all these decades, B.I.C. achieved many successes, adapting and renovating its structure and business strategies in order to best satisfy the requests of a growing and challenging market. Currently B.I.C. manages the Italian rights for classic and editorial icons to lifestyle brands. With regard to classics, the French brand Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) is a famous icon of literature, with important values and well recognized all around the world. In 2021 the book written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was the fourth most read volume in Italy, its story and images are evergreen and very loved. 2023 will see the 80th anniversary of the first edition in the USA and many events will be expected all over the world. In Italy the next few months will see a lot of new collaborations, that will join the already existing partnerships with Montblanc, Moleskine, Adriano Salani Editore, Trucco Tessile (for
