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Hyderabad, India’s Green
Gold Animation and its
franchisees have opened
more than 30 standalone
stores dedicated
exclusively to Chhota
Bheem merch
LICENSING
SHOW
As for moving the popular IP to other Latin American
locales, the series was translated from Portuguese into Spanish.
“The popularity of the Spanish version on YouTube is
similar to the Brazilian version,” says Moreira, noting that
Spanish DVDs and mobile versions will debut this year.
An English version, tentatively titled Lottie Dottie Chicken,
is also in the works, and the company will look to follow
a similar route.
“We first will let the animation find an audience online,”
he says. “Then if it goes viral, we will launch products into
that market.”
The creators believe that the internet has levelled the playing
field for IPs, and although their original idea was rejected
by the gatekeepers of traditional media, they believe the blue
chicken will have the last laugh. “It seems children don’t really
care where the videos come from or where they originally
aired,” says Moreira. “If the children of the world want it,
Galinha Pintadinha will be the first Brazilian global IP.”
Hong Kong expansion With more than a decade germinating
in Hong Kong, design-led girls brand Fatina Dreams is
now looking to capitalize on its awareness in that influential
Asian market. Designed by Prudence Mac, and owned
by her company Chocolate Rain, Fatina Dreams
centers around a doll named Fatina that
“dreams herself alive.” The resulting designs,
not surprisingly, have a dreamlike
quality and also zero in on an ecological
theme. Fatina’s world, Mushroom
Land, is full of friends including Chefo,
Sky Bird and Latte.
Initially, Chocolate Dreams created and
produced Fatina Dreams products, including
accessories and bags, but the IP has since garnered
momentum through successful corporate
partnerships in Hong Kong with the likes
of Starbucks, HSBC and Giorgio Armani, as
well as local publishing deals and an apparel license with
Hong Kong’s Fashion Lab.
“Now we want to take her out to China and Southeast
Asia,” says Mara Gardner, director of brand development
and marketing at Chocolate Rain. “We are going to take advantage
of how popular it is in the rest of Asia to build our
case for China.”
An added bonus for the property is that it’s adaptable
to each territory it enters, according to Gardner. “In
China, the IP can be for teens and older,” she says. “In
Europe, we are thinking it will work for tweens and even
younger girls.”
With a high priority being placed on breaking into the
mainland Chinese market, Chocolate Dreams is looking to
start production on animated shorts made exclusively for
the territory while simultaneously investigating publishing
options in Asia’s most populous nation.
“The Chinese government is interested in this area and
they are looking at supporting something that grew out
of Asia,” Gardner says. “I think they looked at what Gangnam
Style has done for South Korea and found that to be
very interesting.”
Europe is also in Chocolate Rain sights. By aging the
IP down a bit, Gardner is working on inking
fashion and accessory deals for carriage at
major retailers to introduce the IP as primarily
a design-led girls brand.
“We are trying to make the brand as
universal as possible,” she says. “We have
found that it has a very wide appeal.”
With the two-pronged approach,
Gardner says that the company’s designs
on the North American market lay a bit further
in the future. “We feel that the US is a big
market and highly competitive,” she says. “We
want to have our success stories in Asia and
Europe first before we attempt to enter it.”
56 May/June 2013