Thinking about what to write about in my Brand Licensing Europe (BLE) wrap-up this year was interesting. You see, I spoke to many people about the show, and some were of the opinion that it was quieter and others that it was busier. My take is that it was equal to, if not buiser than last years show, especially the main show floor (downstairs).
Overall, I don’t think that there was one particluar standout (although the Nickelodeon stand was always super busy), it was quite balanced in the brands and characters on display. Rovio did create quite a mess with their ‘photo shoot’ setup on the stand, to promote the new Angry Birds movie. By the end of the three day show, there were Angry Birds feathers across the hall all the way on to the Warner Bros. Consumer Products stand!
Whilst Disney were not on the floor (which was disappointing aesthetically), they did annouce their plans for the Good Dinosaur, which looks great and opens later this year in December (Australia). The screening room was busy as usual and there were many presentation sessions to attend (read about the Nickelodeon presentation later in this report).
One session that I thought was really insightful was the session on eSports and Gaming by Dan Amos from Tinderbox Agency. The growing popularity of eSports is astounding, and it has been reported that the sector is currently worth $612 million in worldwide revenues you can read more about this at the links below:
superdataresearch.com
buggreport.com.au
IMG also had a significant presence this year, with a number of popular stands in the Lifestyle area upstairs, including Volkswagon and Playboy. On the main show floor, the two major banners which were on display were The Secret Life of Pets by Universal and Blaze and the Monster Trucks by Nickelodeon.
A genius idea, which was literally sold-out the whole show, was the booth on the Universal stand for The Secret Life of Pets, where they were creating custom Dog Tags for attendees! The line for this was huge at all times and regular intermissions seemed to be required by the staff.
In this report you will also find some photos from the show and an article on UK Retail by Lincon Boyd from Blueprint Licensing.
