NEWS
TOTAL LICENSING
10TH ANNIVERSARY FOR IT’S HAPPY BUNNY
Carole Postal, President of Cop- “trinkets and trash”…the rest was elsewhere. For us, the key to man-
Corp Licensing, talks about the history! The books from Scholastic aging a successful global program is
global growth of It’s Happy Bun- would come later.” good communications. We always
ny. Humor is obviously a big part need to know what is going with
of It’s Happy Bunny and its suc- our agents and licensees around
We’re here to talk about the cess. Did you run into any dif- the world so we can try to help and
10th Anniversary of Jim Ben- ficulties getting that humor to advise them. Also, we like to share
ton’s It’s Happy Bunny as a translate overseas? good ideas and success stories so
global brand. Why don’t you “Humor is universal. Jim Benton that our people don’t have to rein-
start by telling us a bit about always says that “people are the vent the wheel in each market.”
It’s Happy Bunny and how it all same everywhere in the world and What does the 10th Anniver-
started ten years ago. they all want to laugh.” There are sary mean for the It’s Happy
“Jim Benton’s It’s Happy Bunny is a always some people who just won’t Bunny brand? Are there any
cute little bunny with a big attitude. get it, of course, but that’s true special plans to mark the oc-
In fact he is so cute that he is able anywhere. The important thing is casion?
to get away with saying all the im- that Jim’s It’s Happy Bunny humor “Yes, we are planning some spe-
possibly funny and edgy things that taps into something that kids and cial events to celebrate the
other people might think to them- young adults and attitude-enjoying 10th Anniversary of It’s Hap-
selves sometimes but never say out people everywhere can identify py Bunny throughout 2010.
loud. The It’s Happy Bunny licensing with.” We’re not ready to announce any
program was born out of a meeting When did It’s Happy Bunny of the details yet, but - in true It’s
between CopCorp and Jim Benton first go international and how Happy Bunny fashion - they will be
and retailer Hot Topic at the 2000 have you managed the pro- fun and different with maybe a lit-
Licensing Show. It was instantane- gram’s global expansion over tle kicking and screaming along the
ous combustion.” the years? way!”
“Instantaneous combustion”? “It’s Happy Bunny’s popularity actu- What do you see ahead for It’s
“There was an immediate spark of ally crossed the border into Canada Happy Bunny in the next ten
interest from everyone to work to- very quickly, but I don’t think we years?
gether…right “edgy” retailer; right really started to attract overseas “Thanks to the deal we’ve just
“push the envelope” creator; right attention until 2004 when our pro- completed with Go!Animate, the
“put it all together” licensing agent. gram was nominated for a LIMA It’s Happy Bunny program has now
It was not quick or easy. It still took Award as Best Art Brand License entered an exciting new phase with
a few years and a lot of hard work of The Year. Over the next year, we the addition of Animation. We think
from everyone involved.” signed our first overseas licensees Animation will help introduce It’s
What were some of the big and started appointing overseas Happy Bunny to an even bigger au-
challenges and obstacles you agents to manage It’s Happy Bunny dience and open up new possibili-
had to overcome in those early licensing in Europe, Australia and ties around the world. Go!Animate
years? Latin America. Then, after we actual- is a free online animation tool that
“The biggest challenge was launch- ly won the LIMA Award for Best Art enables everyone to create their
ing and sustaining a licensing pro- Brand in 2005 we were off to the own animated stories and share
gram without the benefit of any races with additional appointments them with their friends and social
media platform at all. It wasn’t easy in Europe followed in the years networks around the world. This
to get manufacturers to take us se- since then with appointments of It’s deal means that Go!Animate web-
riously when we presented “a cute Happy Bunny sub-agents in Eastern site users will now have the ability
little bunny that said naughty things” Europe, Turkey, New Zealand, and to create their own animated ad-
without having a tv show or movie Asia. And we’re still growing: we’ve ventures starring Jim Benton’s It’s
or anything else behind it. Let’s just just appointed a sub-agent to take Happy Bunny. This is the first ever
say that some of those conversa- over management of our It’s Happy officially-sanctioned use of It’s Hap-
tions and meetings wrapped up Bunny program in Canada, and we py Bunny artwork for the purpose
very quickly. That said, once Hot are in discussions with interested of user-generated content within an
Topic had success with what we in agents in India, Greece, the United online medium.”
licensing affectionately refer to as Arab Emirates, South Africa and
www.goanimate.com
48
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160