An estimated 450,000-plus tea and tea-drink shops were operating in China at the beginning of this year, according to the China Tea Marketing Association. These include both traditional tea shops and new-style shops focused on flavored milk, fruit, bubble, and even cheese teas, with new-style chains growing quickly over the past several years (despite a […]
Tag Archives | Smiley
Characters Help Kids Relax for the Vax
Demand for most of the COVID-specific licensed products that came on the market early in the pandemic—masks, hand sanitizer, distancing signage, and the like—has declined, even as the crisis continues to drag on. And there have been few new COVID-driven licensing deals forged of late. That said, new developments in the ever-changing COVID landscape offer […]
Merchandise To Support Mental Health
The consumer products community’s embrace of mental health as a theme for licensed products and promotions, which we last covered in February, continues through the pandemic. This is not surprising given COVID-fueled stresses such as working and learning at home, experiencing financial suffering, and dealing with a lack of in-person connection, along with the feeling […]
Sticking to the Message
Characters and other imagery associated with instant messaging apps have given rise to a number of licensed product initiatives, many of which have become strong programs globally in terms of retail sales. Such initiatives can be organized into three major groups: Proprietary characters created by messaging apps. LINE Corporation oversees a wide range of products […]
The Friendly Skies
Airlines’ participation in consumer-products licensing is relatively limited compared to many other types of corporate brands, both in the number of properties active and the scope of their programs. That said, they are involved in the business in a variety of ways: Outbound licensing. Lufthansa has been extending its brand for a decade but last […]
Soaking Up Festival Culture
Music festivals—from Bonnaroo, Coachella, and the Electric Daisy Carnival to Glastonbury, Lollapalooza, and Firefly—have not only proliferated throughout the years but have become highly visible among consumers at large, especially in the summer. They attract attention on celebrities’, attendees’, and marketers’ social platforms, in mainstream news and fashion publications, and through mass advertising and promotional […]
On Unicorn Foods and Other Social Media Trends
Over the past few years, licensors and licensees have been looking to social media, especially YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram, for product development ideas. For example, a licensor might note that fans are creating their own room décor featuring one of its characters, and seek licensees for craft kits, wall art, or other as-yet-unexploited products that […]
Cute Fruit
Cute food-themed designs and characters are currently in fashion within the licensed products landscape, thanks to a number of driving forces: Collectible toys. Moose Toys’ Shopkins and MGA’s Num Noms have been showing strength in both in their core playthings and in their licensed brand extensions. Kid Robot’s plush-based Yummy World is another example. Emojis. […]
Getting Cosy with Emoji
The trend for emoji-related intellectual properties becoming available for licensing, which started to gain traction a year or more ago, initially focused on newly created brands. Examples included those with roots as emojis, such as LINE Friends from Japan, Tuzki from China, or The Emoji Company’s Emoji trademark, as well as those inspired by emojis, […]
Cartoons for Coping
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to express and control one’s own emotions, as well as interpret and respond to the emotions of others. In the last year or so, it has become an emerging theme for entertainment and consumer products targeted at preschoolers. Some of the EQ-centric preschool initiatives in the news since […]