Shortly after this year's Licensing Show, Elie Dekel left Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising to rejoin Haim Saban. Dekel joined the Saban Capital Group as managing director. Dekel spent 12 years working for Saban Entertainment and Fox Family Worldwide when Saban co-owned the company with News Corp. Dekel will work with Adam Chesnoff on licensing and merchandising opportunities.
Rumors of the demise of Zizzle have been swirling for months. On July 2, Crain's Chicago Business reported that Zizzle is holding a July 15 auction for its assets. Roger Shiffman, along with former Tiger Electronics employees, launched Zizzle in 2005 with iZ. The company went on to acquire a number of licenses, most notably Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean.
Target Entertainment Group has been appointed by UKbased owner, product developer, and licensor Brand Champions Ltd. to represent the worldwide licensing rights to Brit Chicks, the girls' fashion/lifestyle brand.
Brit Chicks is a brand with core target age group of girls ages 7 and up. The property centers around Eva, Mica, and Honey, a girl group sensation who are about to take the online world by storm. In October, the Brit Chicks social networking website www.britchicks.com will launch where girls can make friends, chat, and share adventures in a safe, friendly, and glamorous virtual world. The Brit Chicks will be on hand to welcome and guide new members through every step of the experience.
As music is a key element of the brand, original songs by the Brit Chicks will be available to download from the Brit Chicks website and iTunes. A compilation CD is also planned.
The death of Michael Jackson nearly a week ago has left behind more questions than answers. For the licensing industry, the question that keeps popping up is, "who handles the licensing?" For now, the answer is we don't know. An internet search doesn't reveal anything beyond discussing the rights to his music, which would be separate from other merchandise. A search through licensing directories didn't reveal much either. Yet, we can assume that their was merchandise created for the London shows. However, it is not known if those items would be just for the specific tours or part of a larger licensing program in development before his death. If anyone has any information, please let us know.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opened on June 24 and in roughly six days it made $419 million worldwide. This film sets the record for the biggest opening for a movie in the month of June as well as the biggest opening for a Wednesday. The Dark Knight, which opened July 19, 2008, holds the record for the biggest opening weekend with more than $158 million domestically. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen opened domestically with more than $108 million.
The Upper Deck Company announced that it has established a long-term licensing agreement with Marvel Entertainment, Inc. The multi-year arrangement provides Upper Deck with the rights to produce trading card games, miniature games, and trading cards based on the Marvel Universe. The first wave of products is scheduled to hit the market in January 2010.
The long-term partnership grants Upper Deck the rights to develop products based on Marvel's comic books and Marvel Studios' upcoming feature film releases, including Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, and The Avengers.
Sesame Workshop announced a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support Sesame's Healthy Habits for Life initiative. The initiative aims to inform family child care providers on how to integrate healthy nutrition and physical activity into daycare settings that serve preschool children, as well as inform their parents and caregivers about the same topics. 
The announcement was made last week at the National Association for Family Child Care's (NAFCC) annual conference.
Thirteen thousand bilingual Sesame Street Healthy Habits for Life: Child Care Resource Kits will be distributed through the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee, areas with great need and strong networks of family child-care providers.
The Sesame Street Healthy Habits for Life: Child Care Resource kit, originally produced in partnership with Nemours Health & Prevention Services and KidsHealth.org, is a 100-page print guide that includes strategies and handson activities that can easily integrate into the daily routines of formal and informal childcare programs. The kit also includes The Get Healthy Now Show, which is an original Sesame Street DVD, and companion children's activity book. Many components of the print guide, offered in both English and Spanish, will be available on Sesame Workshop's website, www.sesameworkshop.org/healthyhabits.
Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc., a division of Dorel Industries has named Synergy Licensing, LLC as its licensing agency of record. The relationship will expand Dorel Juvenile Group's brand portfolio by applying licensing opportunities.
Synergy will work to license related trademarks Baby on Board and Nature Next, which fall under the Safety 1st brand umbrella, as well as Cosco.
The Baby on Board icon and the Nature Next eco-conscious product lines lend themselves to niche approaches of product extensions, while Safety 1st and Cosco licensed products will reinforce brand equity within the industry.
Disney Consumer Products and ASUS, maker of the Eee PC netbook, have collaborated to develop the Disney Netpal, a netbook computer for children ages 6-12 that's web-safe and easy to use. Developed with parents and kids in mind, the Disney Netpal by ASUS is durable, with a reinforced mechanical design and Disney user interface. Features include more than 40 parental control options, an 8.9-inch LCD display, Wi-Fi capabilities, Windows XP Home, and kid-friendly software featuring Disney characters and icons in visual environments. Browsers and email have extra filters to assure that parents are able to control online safety and content for their children, and can easily select with whom their children can correspond via email. The Disney Magic Desktop "gadget tray" offers a 2-D menu displaying Disney-themed email, Disney-themed browser, and a suite of Disney-themed parental control options.
Disney Netpal will be available in late July in two models with prices based on features. The retailers include Toys "R" Us and Amazon.com with a suggested retail price of $349.99.
Poof-Slinky, makers of the Slinky toys, has named Jakks Pacific as its exclusive international distributor outside of North America (excluding United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Mexico). Both Jakks and Poof-Slinky are licensees of Disney Consumer Products. Under the new agreement, Jakks has the distribution rights to the entire Poof-Slinky portfolio, which includes the Slinky Dog toy that appears in Disney/Pixar's Toy Story films, including the upcoming Toy Story 3, and other products such as the Slinky, coloring and activity books, action toys, table top games, and more.
The Halloween Industry Association (HIA) announced its endorsement of the Halloween & Party Expo beginning in 2010. The Halloween & Party Expo (H&P) connects a global audience of buyers and sellers of Halloween and party products and accessories. Thousands of retailers spanning single stores to mass market domestic and international chains come to the Expo to view the latest industry products and services. The 2010 show is scheduled for January 23-26 in Houston, Texas. The 2010 H&P Expo is also endorsed by Party Club of America, Paper First Affiliates, and the National Costumers Association. For more information about the H&P Expo, visit www.halloweenpartyexpo.com.
The Toy Industry Association (TIA) and Show Initiative, LLC, announced that Engage! Expo (previously "Virtual World Expo") will co-locate with American International Toy Fair at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City in February 2010.
Engage! offers both a full conference program and a tradeshow floor to help major entertainment companies, youth brands, and advertising agencies learn how to combine existing products with the engagement opportunities and revenue streams of online media.
"Engagement" was highlighted as one of the top four toy trends identified during Toy Fair 2009 as digitally-native kids, video game-savvy dads, and connected moms continue to embrace the relationship between technology, digital media, and toys.
Plaza Sésamo's Abby Cadabby is set to host 3,2,1 ¡VAMOS!, an original half-hour preschool program premiering on June 22 on Discovery Kids Latin America. 3,2,1 ¡VAMOS! will feature segments from children's shows Play with Me Sesame and Global Grover and introduce children in Latin America to Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures, Sesame Workshop's first all-claymation series. Sesame Workshop worked with Discovery Kids Latin America to co-create 52 x 30 minute episodes of 3,2,1 ¡VAMOS!, which will air over the next two years. Each episode of 3,2,1 ¡VAMOS! will be hosted by Abby Cadabby who will invite the audience to play, cheer on her friends between segments, and say goodbye at the conclusion of the show.
From July through November, Walk around Abby Cadabby will travel through Latin America attending a series of events hosted by Discovery Kids. The tour begins in Mexico. Abby will also appear in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, Brazil, as well as Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Finally, a bright spot in the U.S. auto industry. On June 6 the Little Tikes Cozy Coupe was inducted, during its 30th anniversary year, into Cleveland's Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum, a Collection of Western Reserve Historical Society. The Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is one of the top 10 automobile museums in the country, according to Car Collector Magazine. It houses historically and technically important vehicles and
related accessories that illustrate the development of transportation and its connection to the culture and history of Northeast Ohio. The Crawford Museum will house one of the first Cozy Coupes to come off the production line in 1979 as well a 30th anniversary edition Cozy Coupe.
A special guest at the induction ceremony was Jim Mariol, who designed the original Cozy Coupe for Little Tikes. Mariol was the owner of a Cincinnati, Ohio design company Design Alliance, Inc., and before that he was a former member of the design team at Chrysler.
In Hudson, Ohio, a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe is manufactured every minute of every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 50 weeks a year. In 2008, the Cozy Coupe outsold every other car in America, topping the likes of the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord with over 457,000 units sold, according to Little Tikes.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI), coordinator of the U.S. standards and conformity assessment system, began accepting applications this week for certification bodies seeking accreditation according to requirements defined under the new Toy Industry Association (TIA) Toy Safety Certification ProgramSM. The TSCPSM was created to improve toy safety, help restore stakeholder confidence in toy products, and comply with new federal legislation that toys be tested by a qualified lab and certified that they meet rigorous national safety standards and regulations.
Under the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding signed in September 2008, ANSI was named as the official third-party accreditor of TSCP's product certification bodies. Its assessment of the competence of these bodies will be based on the requirements in the International Standard ISO/IEC Guide 65, General Requirements for Bodies Operating Product Certification Systems, the associated International Accreditation Forum (IAF) Guidance Document, and program requirements for the TSCP. The program builds on the requirements of the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) and goes even further to help assure the safety of toys entering the U.S. marketplace.
Development of the TSCP began in August 2007 when TIA engaged ANSI to coordinate a public-private partnership to develop conformity assessment guidance regarding toy safety. The resulting program has and will continue to include input from U.S. government bodies, consumer groups, toy companies, retailers, toy testing labs, and factory auditing companies as well as officials and industry representatives from China and the European Union.
It was reported late last week that Toys "R" Us, Inc., won its 2004 breach-of-contract lawsuit against Amazon.com. TRU accused Amazon.com of violating its deal by selling certain toys on its website that TRU had the exclusive rights to sell. Amazon.com agreed to make a one-time payment of $51 million to TRU to settle the case. The payment will be charged against Amazon's second quarter results, according to CBS Market Watch, which reported the story on Friday.
Toys "R" Us declined to comment on the matter.
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