10.30am – 11.00am
Japanese publishing giant Kodansha is a leading producer of manga IP. In recent years, they have been developing licensing strategies that help to extend their IP beyond manga in order to become iconic brands applied to consumer products and beyond. In this interview, we’ll be looking at the strategies behind crossovers of Kodansha content with consumer product development and the wave of major international trends around manga, giving the audience relevant insights into what’s hot to follow right now.e.
Speaker: Yulia Amano, Senior International Licensing Manager, Kodansha Ltd, Japan
11.10am – 11.40am
Ben Roberts, content director, EMEA, License Global, takes a deep dive into the trends and data forecasting shifts in the licensing business across 2024/25 and beyond.
Speaker: Ben Roberts, Content Director EMEA, License Global, UK
11.50am – 12.10pm
How an unseen brand touch point can have a very visible impact on your licensing programme. Audiobooks offer a shared experience that can help you nurture and develop your brand’s fandom and act as a catalyst to much deeper engagement from your audience.
In this lively session, we will explore the reasons why children (and increasingly parents) engage with audiobooks in a meaningful way, and how to deliver on their expectations. We’ll also unveil some never-before-seen data, and will look to the future at what it is that parents and children want from their audiobook experiences. By the end of the session, you will have a raft of new insights to take away and use to increase the power of your brand through the wonder of audio.
Speaker: Gary Pope, Co-founder, Kids Industries and The League Family Marketing, UK
Moderated by: Samantha Loveday, Group Editor, Max Publishing, UK
12.20pm – 1.00pm
“Girl power” is increasingly central to children’s content and the development of aspirational IP, even if literature has always been full of “powerful girls” who still serve as role models for every generation that has met them, and who know how to be relevant today through their values and character. It is no coincidence that Pippi Longstocking is a richly licensed brand, while the editorial success of Rebel Girls is the cornerstone of a still-evolving brand licensing programme. In this panel we will discuss these two examples with the Astrid Lindgren Company and the author of Rebel Girls.
Speakers: Ludvig Kullander, Licensing Manager, Astrid Lindgren Company, Sweden; Elena Favilli, Board Member, Founder, and Chief Creative Officer, Rebel Girls, USA
2pm – 2.30pm
Come on a journey through the dynamic evolution of Talking Tom & Friends. From a “talk back” app launched in 2010 to a global entertainment powerhouse, the brand continues to take the market by storm. In this session, the adaptable and pioneering brand tells its stories of friendship and fun across a wide variety of categories, including mobile games, animated video content, publishing, entertainment parks, licensing and merchandising, and more. Discover the secrets of its enduring success and gain valuable insights in this talk, including how the company cultivates partnerships with other brands; explore how, crafting joyful experiences for its loyal fanbase, it pursues its singular goal year-in, year-out.
Speaker: Tadeja Irmančnik, Global brand partnerships & Co-brandings, Public Relations Manager, Project Manager, Talking Tom & Friends, Slovenia
Moderated by Ben Roberts, Content Director EMEA, License Global, UK
2.40pm – 3.20pm
SPOTLIGHT ON GAMING
GAMING CROSS-PUBLISHING AND LICENSING. NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Along with publishing and audiovisual, gaming is, self-evidently, one of the sources of original children’s content subsequently licensed to develop successful IP. Gaming is also a medium from which audiovisual producers and publishers acquire content to develop animation, live action, feature films and book series. Today, gaming is central to communicating with an increasingly fragmented and distracted young audience. This panel delves into how a number of top international gaming industry stars approach connecting the worlds of licensing, audiovisual and publishing.
Speakers: Fée Heyer, Head of Global Licensing & Partnerships, Devolver Digital, UK; Gianluca Marani, CEO, Funny Tales, Italy; Thierry Baujard, Co-founder, Spielfabrique, Germany
Moderated by Ben Roberts, Content Director EMEA, License Global, UK
3.30pm – 4.00pm
SPOTLIGHT ON GAMING
GAMES FOR MOVIES – MOVIES FOR GAMES
Exploring the intersection of animation and gaming: AL-ONE’s bold adventure toward a new future.
Driven by passion and creativity, this team of professionals has adopted cutting-edge technologies to ensure high-quality standards and the ability to create and narrate captivating and intriguing stories for a wide range of audiences.
Speaker: Alan Vele, CEO and Producer, AL-ONE, Italy
4.30pm – 5.30pm
BLTF AWARDS CEREMONY
Don’t miss the award ceremony for the best child- and youth-oriented licensing projects and products developed during 2023: the well-known Bologna Licensing Awards.
The award ceremony will be followed by a cocktail reception open to all participants.
Except where otherwise indicated, all sessions will be moderated by Cristina Angelucci, Editor-in-Chief at Licensing Magazine.
After specialising in advertising and comic licensing in the first few years of her career, Yulia is now leading the global film licensing team and the merchandising licensing team for non-Asian territories at KODANSHA. KODANSHA is one of the biggest publishing houses in Japan with over a century of history.
Thierry is the co founder of pan European video game catalyst Spielfabrique based in Germany. They develop European professionalization programmes for indie video games studios and help them to get to the next level. Thierry has been an expert in financing the creative industries for the last 25 years and has been involved in many cross sector projects involving public and private funding. He holds an MBA from Bocconi university.
Elena Favilli is a global bestselling author living and working in NYC. She is the co-creator of the New York times bestselling series Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls and the co-founder of Rebel Girls.
Fée's career in licensing has included managing rights for hit properties such as Mr Men, Ninja Turties, Hello Kitty and Smiley. Her holistic approach to brand management and consumer products is the result of her time spent as both a licensor and a licensee across several categories including FMCG, fashion and publishing. No stranger to fandoms, Fée now uses her expertise in the world of video games heading up indie publisher Devolver Digital's global licensing and partnerships team. Recent successes include Fall Guys's high profile fashion collaboration with sportswear brand Champion, and the launch of the Cult of the Lamb comic book and licensing programme in the US.
With enthusiasm for developing brands and crafting innovative partnerships, Tadeja Irmančnik is a go-to brand strategy expert. Hailing from gaming – the cutting-edge sector igniting all the hot conversations in entertainment – her perspective on brand development is fresh and distinctive. Leveraging her extensive journalism, PR, and marketing background, she seamlessly blends storytelling with business acumen. For the past five years, Tadeja has been co-shaping the future of Outfit7's Talking Tom & Friends franchise. This iconic brand is at the forefront of a transformative movement, leading the charge for mobile game IPs to evolve into entertainment properties.
Ludvig Kullander, Licensing Manager at the Astrid Lindgren Company, has a long experience and knowledge of working in the publishing industry. For the past two years, he has been dedicated to the product licensing business within the company. Astrid Lindgren’s stories about strong girls (such as Pippi Longstocking and Ronja, the Robber’s Daughter) are more relevant than ever. The Astrid Lindgren Company licenses Astrid Lindgren’s beloved characters in a variety of categories.
Samantha Loveday is group editor at Max Publishing, with direct responsibility for trade publication Licensing Source Book and online hub LicensingSource.net. She has 25+ years experience working in sectors including character, entertainment, brand and lifestyle licensing, toys, preschool and video games.
Gianluca Marani was born in Castel San Pietro (BO) in 1980, he graduated in Computer Engineering in Bologna; and in 2007 he began his career in the video game industry working as a developer and QA manager for the Californian company Javaground.
In 2009 he co-founded JUST FUNNY GAMES S.R.L., a video game development studio based in Imola (BO), where he held the role of CEO.
In 2023 JUST FUNNY GAMES and his sister company DIGITAL TALES merged into FUNNY TALES and Gianluca serves as CEO of the resulting company.
In FUNNY TALES, Gianluca designs, produces and develops multiplatform video games, both for original and third-party IPs, for Mobile, PC, VR, XR and Console platforms.
Over the past 17 years, FUNNY TALES has self-produced and released over 20 proprietary games and developed more than 70 B2B titles, reaching tens of millions of users worldwide.
From 2015 to 2017 he held the role of developer representative and vice president of the AESVI association (now IIDEA).
Gary began his career as a school teacher leading an English department before becoming a learning designer for a change management consultancy. He co-founded Kids Industries in 1999 and today leads the agency as CEO to find answers to the most challenging problems in the family market.
With a number of industry accolades under his belt, Gary has created and executed award-winning marketing campaigns for numerous FMCG brands, hotels, global learning programmes, theme parks, private island destinations and globally recognised, best-in-class digital products. He is the recipient of a BAFTA for the Co-creation of the Disney Channel Kids Awards, two Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Special Awards for Strategy (Glaxosmithkline and Aquafresh) and a Webby award for a campaign with Peppa Pig.
A firm believer in furthering education and increasing marketing campaign success rates, Gary is an advisor to The Children’s Media Conference and a guest lecturer at multiple academic institutions - including Bauhaus and Oxford Universities. As a result of his campaigning work - to get children’s voices heard - Gary was appointed Children’s Ambassador by Products of Change in 2021, to represent the views, needs and wants of children.
Based in London, Ben Roberts is the EMEA content director for License Global, the thought leadership platform for the brand licensing and extension industry, specialising in gaming, fandom and data-driven forecasting.
Alan Vele is a producer of audiovisual, movies and videogames, founder of Al-One. He worked for outstanding international brands from early 2000 such as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Fox Int. Channels USA, National Geographic and A + E Networks. In 2020 he started producing the first feature animation of a trilogy about environment, TRASH, about waste recycling, released in Italy with more than 320 screens and currently in worldwide distribution. He is now producing the second project of the trilogy, FOREST, about deforestation. In 2022 he founded Al-One Interactive, born from the parent company's claim, Games for Movies & Movies for Games, with the goal of making high-quality videogame products using the feature animations’ assets.
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GLOBAL RIGHTS EXCHANGE
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