Brand Licensing Europe 2023 report

overview

After three full days of nonstop meetings with clients old and new, we have collated our favourite stands, top picks, products and experiences if you did not have a chance to attend or leave your stand.

Here are our main takeaways from this year’s show.

SEGA

It was hard to miss SEGA at the show on the walk into BLE, as all of the banners were promoting the various IP’s, whether it was the new Sonic Superstars game, the new movie coming soon or their new Knuckles TV show. The stand itself was colourful, bold & classic Sonic with huge panels of art and cool products and displays.

Paramount

Choosing to change up the formula from last year, Paramount went back to having giant character art panels. Each of the 3 sides that surrounded the stand had a prominent property, TMNT, Paw Patrol and Spongebob. The Spongebob side had product displays and an interactive show reel whereas the TMNT wall had a ‘turtl-ey’ rad photo op.

Pokemon

Pokemon’s stand was vibrant and open, using big character panels to decorate the walls as they’ve done in the past but with a sprinkling of really cool licensed products. On top of that they recently collaborated with the Van Gogh Museum to showcase an exhibition with a handful of Pokemon in Van Gogh’s style, this they chose to be at the front of their stand to work as a photo op. It was also a treat to see the new show being promoted on the front of the stand showing off the new cast.

Sanrio

Sanrio as always seem to have the most vibrant stand.
Giant 3D characters… check!
Super colourful and eye-catching… check!
Amazing collaborations…  check!
Amazing photo Op…  check!

The Wombles - Stand

The Wombles is our honourable stand mention, seeing the Wombles in this day and age is a treat, and they were promoting sustainability and their signature green lifestyle.

Big Characters

Walking around the show we noticed the return (not that they ever truly left) of big bold characters littering the stands. It was great to see some licensors tone down their product boards and keep it simple with large, colourful and bold characters.

Products

These are some of our favourite products we managed to see when zipping between meetings: Carrying on the trend we’ve seen recently for wooden preschool toys, hang out with Bluey and this wooden picnic set! Hasbro has turned one of DnD’s most iconic monsters the Mimic into one of our all-time favourite plushies! Want more Barbie in your life after seeing the movie, Hasbro has it covered with this range of Barbie appliances in the signature pink! Smiley Co. had plenty of products on display from their latest ranges and collaborations all of which are spectacular. Pusheen year after year always shows off wonderful products and it was the same this year showing off their latest guides. The Smurfs X Puma collaboration is amazing, if you got the chance to pick up a magazine at the show check it out, if not follow this link.

Photo Ops

As with every year there are a ton of photo ops, we’ve compiled our 6 favourites here:

Smurfs – Grumpy Smurf bench
Squishmallows Throne
Mattel – Triple Photo Op: Barbie Doll box, Sofa and Ken Doll Box
Saniro – Neon Hello Kitty Booth
Moonbug – Bus Cutout
Aardman – Gromit

Interactive

Some of our favourite interactive experiences were:

Natural History Museum – Colour in the wall, hats off to whoever coloured the T-Rex, the blending is particularly impressive!

Wild Brain – Teletubbies Live Graffiti

BLE Arcade Area – A nice area where you could relax between meetings, sit on a bean bag chairs or have a game of Donkey Kong!

Hasbro – The Hot Wheels Tiger Shark monster truck was hard to miss, this giant monster truck towered above even the stands themselves and another shout out goes to Hasbro and the interactive screens around their stand, allowing anyone to scrub through their recent product decks and sample guides is such a good idea for people unable to get onto the stand.

Bars

Themed Bars are becoming the norm at BLE, it offers a great opportunity to show off a single property in a full, fun experience that everyone has access to.

Hasbro – Peppa Pig
Hasbro carried on their Peppa Pig-themed cafe, this year however to celebrate Peppa’s 20th anniversary!

StudioCanal – Terminator
Also celebrating an anniversary, Terminator turns 40 in 2024 so what better way to show off the property than theming up a Skynet bar. The bar was also the host of opening night drinks and something we designed and artworked for the show. It was a great pleasure for us to work with them to produce this for the show.

Fashion Magazine - Smurfs

Following on from the success of their B2B document at Vegas, Smurfs handed out their second edition at BLE highlighting their recent collaboration with Puma and of course (shameless plug) we created this version too!

Football Industry

Taking a huge chunk of the floor this year was the football industry. Football has always been huge, especially in the EMEA market, so it’s no surprise to see Football teams & brands on the rise in licensing and at BLE this year. I mean the area was so big they even had their own sports bar!

Gaming industry

Carrying on from what we saw at the Licensing Expo Las Vegas, game IPs are begining to show off their properties at licensing shows. Without E3 to show off new games this could be the new home of gaming. With the likes of SEGA, Ubisoft & Smurfs (to name a few) all showing off new games coming soon.