TOTAL LICENSING Total Licensing caught up with Olga Cherepanova, Creator and Creative Producer at Glowberry, the producers of successful Ukrainian export Brave Bunnies, to hear more about the plans surrounding the brand.
The Bravest of Bunnies! Can you give some history to Brave Bunnies? Brave Bunnies has a brave and dynamic beginning. Soon after the first presentation of the Brave Bunnies project – at Cartoon Forum Festival in Toulouse in 2019 – we found a co-production partner – Anima Kitchen from Spain, global licensing partners – Spin Master as our global Master-toy licensee and our content distributor – the Oscarnominated studio Aardman from the UK. Those international partnerships catalyzed exciting creative and production pingpong between 5 countries and 3 continents! My original idea to encourage kids to respect the diversity of their world in a language they could understand turned into a huge, global project with a large team of unbelievably talented people working together on it. Just one year ago, Brave Bunnies successfully premiered on the biggest Ukrainian kids’ TV channel (PLUSPLUS). So far, kids from 63 different countries have become friends with our Brave Bunnies. Excellent broadcasting results continue to inspire our team to engage and entertain our young viewers even more. To help expand the Brave Bunnies brand beyond the show, we are working on its merchandising partnerships. Among our partners for the show are such leaders of the industry as Spin Master, DeAgostini and Penguin Random House along with our Licensing Master-Agents in Big Picture Licensing and La Panaderia who manage the consumer products business.
Can you tell us a little about yourself! I started my career as a writer and presenter for radio and TV shows. . Developing an illustrated book series for kids paved the way for me to work in kids’ content production. Twelve years ago, together with partners we opened a children’s publishing house in Ukraine. I created ideas
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and wrote by myself, invited talented young authors and illustrators to work together. Soon after, our books became prominent in Ukraine. Our apps repeatedly made it to the top of their categories in the AppStore and Google Play in multiple countries. This success and accumulated experience gave us the courage to create the first animation concept based on our most successful book – a series Mom Hurries Home. We took it to all the renowned animation festivals all over Europe. We made the finals of all of them! (MIFA pitching on Animation festival in Annecy, Cartoon Forum in Toulouse, Cartoon 360, Animation Production Day in Stuttgart, and others). Thanks to that experience, I had a chance to explore the state of this huge international industry and came up with a new original idea for a brand-new show,. My second degree is Psychology. And due to many years experiencing psychology education and research groups, I know that essential habits are set at a very early stage, when kids face making their first decisions and other challenges of socialization. Every day in our Brave Bunnies creative team, we practice talking about big values in a language of play and fun that children all over the world can understand.
Do you see animation growing as strong export from the Ukraine? The modern Ukrainian animation industry started conquering international markets from around 2010, when the kids’ animation series Eskimo Girl (produced by Animagrad Animation Studio and Hanzhonkov Film Studio) became the first animated series from Ukraine, which became available to American and Canadian audiences. Some time later in Ukraine, many other animation projects were created, and those projects became famous in the world. For example, in 2018, The Stolen Princes cartoon (produced by Animagrad) became the first Ukrainian film released in Chinese cinemas and was generally licensed to more
than 50 territories and it continues its international voyage. The Ukrainian animation industry gets more government support, and this fact encourages it to create more interesting projects.
Can you outline some of the licensing plans, and which categories you look to explore? From the beginning of the Brave Bunnies’ IP development, we have taken great care to ensure broadcasting of the show and licensing programs launch simultaneously. This is a challenging task that requires many strategic decisions at the very beginning of brand products development. We’re grateful for the support and the broad positive response from our partners. Since the premiere, we have published the first books and started the development of toys. The first collection of books published by DeAgostini and their Publishing house Planeta Libri appeared on the shelves of Italian bookstores this September. Currently, together with Ladybird, part of Penguin Random House Children’s UK, we are already hard at work on the first series of books about the journey and adventures of Brave Bunnies. The first Ladybird products to hit the shelves will be picture books, board books and little libraries which will be available in early 2022. At the same time together with Spin Master we are working on the launch of a Brave Bunnies plush and plastic toy line. We are delighted that the initial, major toy launch will happen in Q1 2022 in European countries. In December we signed agreements with four new partners for a range of products that will expand the offerings for the hit kids’ brand. We are sure that licensing partnerships will enable us to implement the Brave Bunnies’ themes and ideas in educational toys, books, art, and other spheres of life of our young viewers. We’re really gaining momentum and preparing to mark the next exciting achievements for our Brave Bunnies Family!
