The global Wide Eye brand continues to fly high with Plus Licens, Scandinavia, securing a major Wide Eye clothing and apparel deal with Vendi Wear for Russia and Finland
11/02/05
Plus Licens, the largest licensing company in Eastern Europe and the Nordic countries, is the licensing agent for Wide Eye in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe and they place Wide Eye in their top three pre-school brands.
When Plus Licens company owners Eva Brannstrom and Peder Tamm were first presented Wide Eye, they immediately saw what an extraordinary property this was for their markets. Both Eva and Peder commented that it was the 2D animation and the catchy theme song that made them fall in love with the series:
“We have been building up a lot of pre-school properties in recent years, Bananas in Pyjamas, Teletubbies, and Bob the Builder, just to mention a few success stories. With the market’s present focus on 3D animation we immediately recognized that Wide Eye looks different from most new series with its lovely illustrations and stories wrapped up in an excellent high quality traditional 2D animation” says Eva Brannstrom, company Executive VP and part owner of Plus Licens.
The apparel license with Finnish company Vendi Wear Oy, a leading clothing supplier specializing in children’s characters (e.g. Disney characters and Scandinavian characters, The Moomins), covers a range of over 20 products including: nightwear, t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, gloves, socks and underwear.
Vendi Wear is owned by the highly respected English clothing company WW Group LTD. In Finland, Vendi Wear is focusing on pre-school children (6% of the population of 5.2 million) as a target group. The Wide Eye (or in finnish “Valle Valpas”) collection is designed in Finland and the first collection will be presented at the Finnish Fashion Fair in Helsinki at the beginning of February 2005. First deliveries will take place before the summer and the pre-school start in August. Broadcast will begin at the end of May on Finnish TV-1 and there are already soft toys on the Finnish market.
After the Finnish Fashion Fair, negotiations will start with Russian clients to reach Russia’s population of 240 million people.
Vendi Wear’s Marketing Manager, Sari Sillantaka immediatley picked out the Wide Eye characters from all the other alternatives and stated: “I liked the characters because they were so nicely drawn. And not only because of Wide Eye but Flea and Wily Komodo too. When I showed these characters to my own children and their friends, they instantly wanted to have T-shirts with these characters on. This test left no doubts.”
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For further information, please contact:
Nardis Roscoe
Marketing Director
020 7563 3933 [email protected]
