ABSTRACT

The term ‘merchandising’ is applied to the exploitation of a character, personality, brand or design from one medium by licensing its use in the context of another medium. Merchandising may take two forms: the direct reproduction of the character or design as another product such as a soft toy, or on a T-shirt, stationery, bed linen or wallpaper, where it will form the main feature; or to endorse an existing brand-name product or service such as a breakfast cereal, a yoghurt, fast food, petrol, insurance or banking. The key areas for merchandising are clothing and accessories, health and beauty, toys and games, furniture and homeware, stationery, publishing (where books are derived from characters which originated in another medium such as film or television), music, DVDs, computer games (including online and interactive products), apps for use on mobile phones and tablets, and food and drink items. It is difficult to obtain precise figures for the total retail value of merchandised items worldwide; in 2011 it was estimated that 37 licensed franchises made over $100 million and 4 made over $1 billion, with Disney as the top earner. In 2012 it was reported that the top 150 global licensors accounted for around $230 billion. It was reported that there was a fall of 4 per cent in character merchandising revenues in the period 2011-12, but revenue is expected to rise in 2013-14 with the advent of new game consoles (see Video games in Chapter 25). This area of licensing is not of course limited to characters or designs

originating from a book or other printed product such as a syndicated cartoon strip in a newspaper. Lucrative business stems from the licensing of products featuring film and television characters, pop stars and sports personalities, and books may themselves be a form of merchandising of those characters and personalities. A character that first appears in one medium may come to fame through another. Charles Schulz was reputed to earn $60 million per year from his Peanuts characters, with revenue from extensive product licensing worldwide, including greetings cards, clothing, toys, figurines, posters, board games, Christmas ornaments and endorsements for products such as Kraft Foods. The characters celebrated their

sixtieth anniversary in 2010, the year of Schulz’s death, at which point he was estimated to have earned over $1 billion. A very early example of merchandising stemming from a book was a soft

toy produced in the early years of this century based on the Golliwogg character first created by Florence Upton. The series of Golliwogg books was extremely successful, although the character is now less used in children’s literature as it is perceived as having racist overtones. Beatrix Potter agreed to arrangements for soft toys, wallpaper friezes and china objects based on the characters in her books when they first became successful between 1901 and 1913, while in 1917 she agreed to the production of items such as board games, stationery and handkerchiefs. At the time of writing there are hundreds of licensees worldwide for the Potter characters, including plush toys, figurines, puzzles, adult toiletries, enamel boxes and homeware, and Peter has also appeared on the packaging of Enfamil baby formula. The World of Beatrix Potter is a popular attraction at Bowness in Cumbria and there is also a theme park in Japan. Licensees are carefully selected to preserve the integrity of the characters. Peter Rabbit was the first character to be patented in 1903 and is now registered as a trademark which can be renewed every ten years, extending the life of the property. Other early examples of merchandising were based on Frank L. Baum’s Wizard of Oz books; the illustrations of Kate Greenaway and of John Tenniel, the original illustrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, were also licensed for use on stationery items. Tim Burton’s psychedelic version of Alice in Wonderland in 2010 generated further merchandising. Other famous examples of characters that have been marketed exten-

sively are Garfield and Dilbert, from syndicated cartoon strips and books and Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear, known from books and television On the design side, the nature illustrations from Edith Holden’s The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady were licensed to appear on well over a hundred different products, ranging from ceramics to toiletries and wallpaper. Designs from Jill Barklem’s Brambly Hedge series were also widely licensed. Japan has been a particularly successful market for ‘cute’ illustrations, as

shown by gift-company Sanrio’s Hello Kitty merchandising phenomenon. Hello Kitty was created in 1976 and many thousands of merchandising items based on the cat character are available in Japan and worldwide, ranging from inexpensive plastic wallets and lunchboxes to diamond jewellery and a platinum Hello Kitty credit card. Sanrio controls a stable of over 450 cartoon characters.