TOY TALK TOYTALK
Industry couples walk down the aisle, Viacom International’s Mark Kingston dons a wetsuit for charity, the most infamous toy to ever grace a cinema screen is back and Sega Europe is our Team of the Month
GOING TO THE CHAPEL
TEAM OF THE MONTH SEGA EUROPE
Who's in the team? The team is comprised of Issy Neal-Hooke, our eminent licensing coordinator and equestrian talent; Renata Bukovanova, licensing manager and shopping extraordinaire, Stacey-Bates McCue, product development manager and creative genius; and Sissel Henno, head of brand licensing and eager cake baker.
What have been your biggest successes in the last year? We've had a lot of positive experiences over the last year and keep growing our licensing business. Highlights would include the phenomenal new leggings for Sonic The Hedgehog(a first for the brand) and the new book deal with Macmillan for our Total War franchise.
What are you working on now? We've got a hot new opportunity for licensing that we will be presenting at Brand Licensing Europe, so visitors to our stand will be able to learn more about this. Also, we're continuing to grow the licensing programme around Sonic, Total Warand the retro SEGA portfolio of vintage games and hardware.
What’s the hardest part of the job? Licensing is quite a complex operation and requires a good
strategy combined with a focused team. It can be challenging to always stay on top of the changing market conditions across EMEA. We spend a lot of time
researching local markets and attending trade fairs, so this gives us a good understanding of who's doing what and the best tie-ins for our brands.
And what's the best? Seeing kids play and engage with our brand in various ways, preferably with a big smile on their face. We organised a special racing
themed family event in May to showcase Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed,as well as licensed products to selected families. It was fantastic to see the excitement of the kids playing the videogames and having a lot of fun assembling the Sonic Meccano sets.
Who's the team joker? That title might be shared between Stacey and Sissel, and Issy also has some golden nuggets every now and then.
Tell us a secret about a member of the team… Sissel used to play in brass bands for over 20 years and was a pretty good flugelhorn player. With a bit of practice she can still swing a decent tune.
Summer is the season of weddings, and the toy industry has been feeling the love, too, of late. First up, we have PR manager at ToyNews’ partner Dubit, Paul Rayment and his lovely bride Rebecca, who tied the knot on July 13th at The Bivouac in North Yorkshire (left). Toys apparently played a big part in the
TRI-UMPH FOR KINGSTON
day (to keep both the little and big kids entertained), with the cake even featuring a Sylvanian Families topper. Congratulations also go to
Andrew Smith, general sales manager at Zeon, and his new wife, Lorna, international sales director at Guidecraft, who were hitched earlier this summer (right).
Toy Talk’s respect and admiration this month goes to Mark Kingston, general manager and SVP consumer products EMEA & Australia, Viacom International Media Networks, who completed an Olympic distance triathlon in September to raise money for MIND – The Mental Health Charity. Kingston and two friends completed a 1km swim, 45km bike ride and a 10km run at the St Neots
96 October
Olympic Triathlon on September 8th. Kingston finished in three hours and 20 minutes and, at time of going to press, had raised just over £5,000 for the charity. “I am very grateful for the huge support from family, friends, colleagues and the industry who dug deep to sponsor us,” Kingston said. You can still sponsor him by visiting this link: www.justgiving. com/Mark-Kingston1
www.toynews-online.biz
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