Girl-Power Properties Proliferate

Girl power continues to be a strong theme among entertainment/character properties for all ages, with new examples still entering the market and a number of ongoing initiatives performing well at retail.

The trend takes a number of forms:

• Properties with casts featuring multiple female lead characters, such as Genius Brands’ SpacePop.
• Properties with female characters mixed in with the boys as equals in an ensemble cast, as is the case with eOne’s PJ Masks.
• Properties in which a strong or smart girl has the sole starring role, surrounded by one or more friends or sidekicks, as with Goldie Blox or Zag’s Miraculous Ladybug.
• Properties that see key girl characters added to a formerly more male-centric cast in later seasons, such as Level-5 abby’s Yo-Kai Watch.
• Properties with male leads where strong female secondary characters are spun off into separate merchandise programs, as with Cartoon Network’s Marcelline, a break-out character from Adventure Time.

Such initiatives fit with the current educational trend toward teaching young girls that they can be independent and smart, and that they can succeed in careers traditionally viewed as being for men. They also mirror adult-skewing pop culture trends in which females are taking on roles historically played by males, as evidenced by Sony’s recent Ghostbusters film or CBS’s Sherlock. Most importantly for licensing, they are succeeding at retail (e.g., DC Super Hero Girls) and at the box office (Wonder Woman). These factors suggest that the girl-power trend will not go away any time soon.

The next edition of Raugust Communications’ free e-newsletter comes out this coming Tuesday, June 20. It will include a new monthly feature, Datapoint, which highlights an excerpt from recent Raugust Communications research related to licensing. This month we look at the number of licensing deals that are traditional (two to three years or more), versus agreements that focus on short-term lifestyle collaborations or are outside the realm of physical products (e.g. experiential, promotional, or content deals). The Licensing Topic of the Month, meanwhile, examines the need for context when assessing the quantitative success (or potential) of a given property. If you are not already a subscriber, sign up here.