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Feathers prepare to be ruffled – Brand Licensing Europe is here again and it is time for P&I to name this year’s top movers and shakers in the licensing industry.

Our panel has been looking at who has been doing what over the past year, as well as the properties and promotions set to make waves over the next 12 months.

A league based on subjective opinions will invariably generate some controversy. Last year, the response was generally favourable, although there were one or two raised eyebrows over the decision to place more emphasis on marketing promotions than on licensed merchandise.

This change led to the appearance in the league of several new faces, as well as the relegation of a few stalwarts from previous years.

The rationale for doing this is the same now as it was then. More studios are tying up with brands for partnership campaigns, as opposed to paying for the privilege of offering free licensed merchandise.

In 2008, only eight people retained their place on the list from the previous year; and
one of them has topped this year’s poll.

Aardman Animations and its head of licensing Sean Clark have always been active in the licensing and advertising sectors, but the past 12 months have been particularly busy. Much of this has been based on Wallace & Gromit, with campaigns for brands as diverse as Npower and Kingsmill.

However, Aardman is no one trick-pony,
as proved by Shaun the Sheep’s work with Weetabix, and a major campaign with an FMCG brand expected for Timmy Time.

Hot on the heels of Clark are Fox’s licensing chiefs Carl Lumbard and Ian Morton. The studio has produced plenty of licensing-friendly films this year including Marley & Me and Wolverine, which tied up with Pedigree and FCUK respectively. Last year, Lumbard and Morton featured as two separate entries, but this year, the panel felt that their roles had become interchangeable and that they should therefore be treated as a single entity.

Among the handful of new entries is Vickie O’Malley, who returned to the list after her absence from it last year, and FremantleMedia senior vice-president for licensing Dominic Burns. Overall, as with last year, the candidate list was incredibly strong. So we would like to thank our panel of judges for their tireless work in ranking them.


1 Sean Clarke
Head of licensing, Aardman Animations

Clarke has been an ever-present in the league since 2006, and with properties such as Wallace & Gromit, it is easy to see why. This year, Aardman has raised the bar with several brand promotions across a wide range of sectors. Most prominent has been the Kingsmill activity in support of the feature-length film A Matter of Loaf and Death, which involved the brand giving away Wallace & Gromit-themed toys. The property has also featured with Npower and even Pyrex dishes. In addition, Aardman has run a promotion this year with Weetabix for Shaun the Sheep, while new CBeebies show Timmy Time is set to be signed up for a big FMCG promotion next year. Arthur Christmas , meanwhile, which should provide lots of licensing opportunities, is due to be released by Universal.  


2 Ian Morton and Carl Lumbard
Executive director of European promotions theatrical and home entertainment; executive director marketing partnerships EMEA, theatrical and home entertainment, Fox

Fox is the only company to have two names in the list, as a result of the number of properties it holds and its unique structure.Morton handles licensing for new releases (such as Avatar) while Lumbard (pictured) focuses on existing properties. This year, Morton linked Marley & Me with Pedigree and Wolverine with FCUK. Lumbard has been busy on films such as Ice Age 3, which included the creation of an ice-cream brand with Unilever. Most difficult to ignore though is The Simpsons, of which Lumbard is considered the brand guardian. Now in its 20th anniversary year, its popularity shows no sign of waning, with tie-ins including Currys’ sponsorship of the series on Sky.  


3 Bettina Köckler
Head of licensing, Chorion

In addition to more recent properties such as Olivia, Chorion holds the licences for some of the best-known children’s characters from the past 30 years. Chief among these are the Mr Men and Paddington Bear, with the latter used in promotions for British Airways, as well as a Marmite campaign. The Mr Men characters have been used in campaigns for BB’s Coffee & Muffins, Virgin and Persil, and are expected to increase their presence within Marks & Spencer. For more recent properties, keep an eye on French show Gaspard and Lisa. Chorion has not had the most stable of years personnel-wise, however, following  several departures. Most notable among these was partnership man­ager Vickie Holtom, who was responsible for most of the aforementioned activity.

4 Jo Webster
Senior marketing manager, McDonald’s

We are told not to eat too much fast food, so there can be only one quick-service restaurant in the top 20. It was a close-run thing with Burger King’s Sarah Power, but last year’s runner-up retains her place on the list, although some credit ought to go to McDonald’s agency, The Marketing
Store. The wide variety of McDonald’s promotional work, together with its more regional focus on the UK, helps it make the top 20. Its biggest promotion of the year has undoubtedly been the ‘bigger and better’ return of its Monopoly promotion, a £250m push involving brands such as Kodak, HMV and Nokia. Meanwhile, Happy Meal promotional tie-ups included Ice Age 3 and A Night at the Museum.


5 Dominic Burns
Senior vice-president licensing UK, FremantleMedia

No one can ignore The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent. The former is currently featuring in an OXO campaign that offers consumers the opportunity to film and star in an ad for the product, while Domino’s linked up with Britain’s Got Talent to create an official pizza for the show. Essentially, the formula is
the same – 10-week shows with positive messages broadcast to a huge audience, and
both are extremely brand friendly. Other properties include Family Fortunes and
The Apprentice.


6 Zachary Eller
Vice-president for global promotions, Sony Pictures

Eller’s work on the James Bond film Quantum of Solace won him the top spot last year, for hard-to-ignore promotions with Ford and Coca-Cola. However this year’s big property from Sony, Terminator Salvation, had difficulty living up to those high standards. That’s not to say it was a failure from a promotional point of view. Following on from Coca-Cola’s decision to rename Coke Zero after Bond, Pizza Hut created
the Terminator Pizza, as well as a range of competitions. Other work from Sony this year includes a tie-in with technology brand Brother around the HD DVD release of Ghostbusters.


7 Andrew Brown
Senior vice-president media and promotions, Universal

Universal has been going through something of a metamorphosis over the past year. The studio that made Mamma Mia! is shifting toward family animations, with several films planned for next year including Despicable Me and Aardman’s Arthur Christmas. Universal has also signed a deal with Hasbro to make a film based on the Monopoly board game. However, Brown’s position on the list is not based on what’s coming up, but on what has been done over the past year – and many of Universal’s films, while popular, have not been particularly licensing friendly, such as Bruno and The Soloist. 


8 Tina-Louise Phipps
Head of promotions, DreamWorks Animation

Phipps’ inclusion owes less to what has
been achieved over the past year and more to what is coming up. DreamWorks may have released Monsters vs Aliens, but according to some of the panel, this had limited success from a promotional point of view. However, the release of Shrek 4 is expected to prove popular with brands. There are also several other properties on the product line, such as How to Train Your Dragon, while Phipps has reappointed CPLG to handle licensing. One panellist praised Phipps’ ability to manage the politics of working with the US. It is uncertain, however, how well the studio’s properties for children will fare in the UK’s health-focused market. Shrek 3 did well three years ago, but since then, brands such as Kellogg have said goodbye to licensing and moved toward more price-based promotional activity.


9 Vickie O’Malley
Managing director, CPLG

One of the big achievements this year for O’Malley and CPLG was the licensing campaign behind Star Trek. It might have seemed a sure-fire bet, but before its launch, it didn’t look that way, as many people ¬ believed the film’s choice of a new cast would fail to revive the series’ glory days. In spite of this, O’Malley managed to bring in several partners, including Toshiba for a pan-European licensing deal involving products and promotional campaigns. ‘Star Trek was a tough sell,’ said one panellist. ‘No one knew it was going to come off. But O’Malley is a great leader, who leads by example and knows the industry inside out.’

10 Clare Piggott, Vice-president of consumer products, Nickelodeon

This has been a busy year for Nickelodeon, with properties such as Dora the Explorer and Spongebob Squarepants at the
forefront of activity. Last year, Nickelodeon announced it was joining Disney in creating an ‘anti-fast-food charter’. These are difficult times for kids’ properties, and yet Nickelodeon has managed to rise to the challenge, setting up several initiatives, most notably a campaign for Spongebob Squarepants with fashion retailer Claire’s Accessories to celebrate the character’s 10th anniversary, and a kitchen-roll promotion with SCA in Asda.

11 Claire Atherton, director consumer products UK, Mattel

There are many justifications for putting Mattel in the list, but its standout achievement this year has been the handling of Barbie’s 50th anniversary. ‘The work tying it up with London Fashion Week was tremendous,’ said one panellist. ‘The brand wasn’t out of the press.’ Another paid tribute to ‘the incredible number of Barbie brand extensions’, including clothing brands in stores such as Top Shop and a luxury handbag range manufactured by Paul’s Boutique and available in Selfridges.


12 Kelvyn Gardner
Managing director, Asgard and
International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA)

Gardner’s work on behalf of the industry’s trade body LIMA has been described by some as an uphill struggle. The US is still very much the focus of the industry, and Gardner has his work cut out making the UK body relevant. However, it is not just his work for LIMA that has led to last year’s number 19 rising seven places. It is also his work on behalf of Yoplait’s Frubes, which garnered much admiration from the panel. In recent years, Frubes has regularly brought out licensed versions including Doctor Who, In the Night Garden and High School Musical. With Yoplait’s UK marketing department largely extinct, Gardner has been the one ever-present throughout the campaign.

13 Corine Pouvreau-Miles
Director of promotions, ITV Global Entertainment

Last year, Pouvreau-Miles joined ITV with a brief to extract licensing revenue from the broadcaster’s extensive list of properties, including shows such as Dancing on Ice
and Coronation Street. Next year will be particularly important for the latter, as it is the soap’s 50th anniversary, and the channel has been on the hunt for promotional partners. So far, only Warburtons, out of a projected five, has been signed up, although two others are expected to be announced imminently. Pouvreau-Miles joined at a difficult time, but as one panellist said of
her challenge, ‘if anyone can do it, she can’.


14 Alex Ward
Chief executive, Lime Communications

There are many agency heads who could arguably have been included on this list. However, the breadth of work undertaken by Lime ultimately wins the agency a place in the top 20. In addition to working exclusively for brands such as Masterfoods, it also covers Pathé and Entertainment Film Distributors. Most recently, Lime pipped 360 Communications to become the sole agency for Fox, and is preparing partnership activity around movies such as James Cameron’s 3D film Avatar. One panellist said simply of Lime: ‘It is extremely good at what it does.’ Among Lime’s standout promotions this year have been the Pedigree tie-in with the romantic comedy Marley & Me, as well as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen with Maxell.


15 Seema Khan
Head of licensing, UK Endemol

Last year, Khan took 12th place on the back of Endemol properties Big Brother, Deal or no Deal and Golden Balls. Now Big Brother’s days are numbered, the company faces the challenge of how to fill the void. One panel member said Endemol had approached them looking to develop partnership activity, but ‘there was nothing new’. However, another panellist pointed to the Alexander Armstrong quiz show Pointless, which is running on BBC Two. Khan has been described as ‘very efficient’, although panellists questioned whether Endemol had been proactive enough in its licensing.


16 Richard Hollis
Head of UK licensing, BBC Worldwide

In 2007, Hollis finished as runner-up in the Licensing Leaders list. However, following BBC Worldwide’s decision last year to focus on promotions, Hollis has moved down
the table. No one can deny the power of properties such as Doctor Who and In the Night Garden, but stringent BBC guidelines have limited what Hollis can do with them when it comes to teaming up with brands. However, in terms of merchandise, his properties are still going strong. 


17 Graham Saltmarsh
Licensing director, Cartoon Network

Like the BBC’s Hollis, Saltmarsh is responsible for some of the biggest kids’ properties around, most notably Ben10. Although there have been relatively few standout promotional marketing campaigns around Ben10, merchandising remains as important as ever. Deals this year included a tie-in with Hamleys, to launch the show’s Alien Force products.
 

18 Vanessa Andreis
Promotions director, Warner Bros

Andreis’ work on The Dark Knight last year with brands such as Orange, Maxell and Armani pushed her high up the Licensing Leaders table. There have been fewer films this year as licensing friendly, so Andreis has slipped a few places. However, Warner now releases all New Line’s films, which
will mean several new productions coming up in the next few months. The most promotionally friendly will be Sex and the City 2; the first instalment sparked a lot of tie-ups in 2008. Warner Bros’ consumer products manager, Debbie Binnie, also deserves a mention.


19 Ian Downes
Founder, Start Licensing

Start is probably best known for its work with DC Thomson properties such as The Beano. However, Downes himself has a wider influence than that. Credited as one of the most connected people in the industry, his opinion is one of the most sought after. ‘He is one of those people who is everywhere and knows everyone,’ said one panellist.


20 Sandra Vauthier-Cellier
Managing director, 4Kids

Vauthier-Cellier joined 4Kids in November 2008, as a replacement for Stephen Gould, who moved to RDF. 4Kids has a strong portfolio of properties including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Cabbage Patch Kids and The Dog. The latter is set for a record third run as a McDonald’s Happy Meal promotion. Yet the company and Vauthier-Cellier could face challenging times, as reports in the US have speculated that 4Kids is seeking a buyer for the business.