Licensing
The "Talking Tommy Doll" is
one
of more than 2,000 Nickelodeon
products which will be featured in
Nickelodeon stores. © Nickelodeon
Get Your Nickelodeon
Knick-Knacks Here! Viacom Retail Group
opened its first three Nickelodeon retail stores last month in Minneapolis,
Minnesota, Long Island, New York and Schaumberg, Illinois. Additional stores
are planned for 1998. Viacom, Nickelodeon's parent company, first entered
the retail scene earlier this year with the Chicago launch of the first
Viacom store, similar to Warner Bros.' and Disney's studio stores. The
Nickelodeon stores strengthen Viacom's position in the lucrative merchandise
marketplace, and offer a niche-marketplace for Nickelodeon's growing line
of products, such as plush toys, figurines and clothing. Out of the more
than 2,000 branded products, 75 percent of the merchandise carried will
be available exclusively in the Nickelodeon stores, allowing the company
to "experiment" with and test new consumer products before offering
national licenses. Complete with tilted walls, purple ceilings and even
a special bed with cubbies for kids to hide their stuff in, the stores
are developed with "a single goal in mind," said Viacom Retail
Group president Tom Haas, "to create an official Nickelodeon headquarters
that serves as the only place kids can get the complete Nickelodeon experience."
Harvey's Heavy Into Licensing. Since regaining the rights from Universal in May, Harvey Entertainment is pulling out all the stops to license their proprietary comic and cartoon characters such as Casper, Richie Rich, Wendy the Witch and Baby Huey, in all forms of media. In the past seven months, the company has secured 100 licensees, for everything from soap to sleepwear. One of the more collectible products in the works is a CD box-set of music from the original cartoons, which is being published by Edel America Records. In November, Harvey opened a U.S. $10 million, 75,000 square-foot family entertainment center in Jakarta, Indonesia. In 1998, Harvey plans to appoint 20 new international licensing agents worldwide. "The Harvey Classic Characters are ideally positioned today to benefit from merchandising opportunities created by heightened worldwide interest in the `retro' `50s, `60s and `70s," said Harvey chairman and CEO Jeffrey A. Montgomery of the company's strategy. New animated productions featuring Harvey characters include two more direct-to-video titles slated for a fall 1998 release: Casper Meets Wendy and Richie Rich's Christmas Wish.
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