Summer 2007 is set to be another busy one for the box office. Sequels of Spiderman, Pirates of the Caribbean and The Fantastic Four, along with the first ever Transformers movie, will be fighting for audiences and shelf space to fill with their branded goodies.

But there’s an obvious theme here. The licensing for all these movies is skewed heavily towards boys. So why isn’t the film industry doing more to cash in on the girls’ licensing market? It’s widely accepted that girls are more open to buying licensed products after buying into characters and lifestyles they see on TV and in cinemas. Despite the fact that boys are more influenced by hobbies and peers, they’re still the main focus for movie makers.

Walt Disney Pictures has been working particularly hard in recent years to ramp up its licensing programs. All opportunities have been fully exploited, with carefully executed marketing campaigns for Chronicles of Narnia and its animated Pixar co-production Cars. But High School Musical – a more female brand - (which debuted as a TV movie on the Disney Channel in January 2006) is enjoying phenomenal success despite a much lower level of advance strategising.

Perhaps this is just a shining example of the fact that however much research you do, the movie licensing industry is always essentially unpredictable. But also, with such a thriving range of female consumer products already in existence, Disney has been ploughing much of its energy lately into increasing film merchandise for boys.

Blockbuster action movies are undoubtedly a safer bet to guarantee healthy audiences. Girls will still watch boisterous films, but persuading boys to see The Princess Diaries or Powerpuff Girls really is a mission impossible.

There’s also a heritage in many boy’s film properties that will keep fans loyal. The chances are, if you loved Spiderman and Star Wars when you were seven, you’ll still love them now. Merchandise has dual appeal – kids will want it, and parents will want to buy it for them. The girls’ market is more complex. Film-makers rarely have that solid base of nostalgia and cult following to work from, so it’s much more important to be on-trend and strike the right chord.

High School Musical provides the emotional themes that more socially mature girls desire and action movies lack. Girls who like it are already discerning purchasers aspiring to more ‘grown up’ merchandise than boys of the same age. Licensed products need to be carefully designed to appeal to these increasingly sophisticated tastes.

The best chance for other girls’ licensing success this year could be Shrek the Third or Harry Potter: Order of The Phoenix – two movies that will still have a substantial percentage of merchandise aimed at boys. Whilst TV supports such popular girls’ brands as Totally Spies, Bratz and Pop Idol, and nostalgia properties like Barbie and My Little Pony don’t require movies to generate sales, it seems they are an un-necessarily costly way of building brand attraction. But maybe some lessons could be learned from High School Musical that will focus the camera on girl’s properties a little more in 2008 and beyond.

Red Central, the leading creative resource for the entertainment industry, has been chosen by the organisers of The Daily Telegraph Bath Festival of Children’s Literature to design a brand, brochure and logo for the festival, appealing to children from four months to teenagers. The branding will be seen across the city with the brochure available to visitors during the festival, which takes place on 21st – 30th September 2007, at various venues within Bath.

The 36-page high quality, colour brochure (the ‘Free Guide to Events’) will detail all of the 95 events scheduled to take place during the ten-day event, which will feature appearances from some of the UK’s most celebrated authors including Jacqueline Wilson (who was born in Bath), Eoin Colfer, Anthony Horowitz and Louise Rennison. Along with the distinctive logo, the brochure and additional branding reflects the large age range the festival is aimed at.

“We wanted to make a benchmark during the organisation and preparation for the inaugural festival by using solely local companies for our outsourced activities, from banking to printers,” explains Festival Director John McLay. “When we met with Red Central the team instantly understood what we wanted to achieve with this brand. We couldn’t have hoped for a better local creative partner than Red Central, given their extensive experience within the children’s entertainment industry and endless list of big name clients on their roster. The logo and whole look and feel of the brand is fresh and bright, and will certainly help to sell the event and attract visitors to the festival, year on year.”

The Daily Telegraph Bath Festival of Children’s Literature will become an annual event and it is the largest dedicated children’s book festival in the UK. It was created separately to and scheduled six months apart from the famous Bath Literature Festival, to ensure sole focus on young fiction and encourage reading amongst children.

McLay continues, “We didn’t want the festival to be a fringe to the adult festival, as these days kids’ authors are just as popular as adult writers, if not more. 2007 is the perfect year to kick start the annual festival as it is a Harry Potter year with the last book of the series released this summer, and children will again be even more turned on to reading.”

Director at Red Central, Gail Swann, adds, “The main aim of the brochure was that it must be something that kids want to pick up and look at, encouraging them to attend the readings and sessions taking place and to inform their parents when they are selecting events for their children. The varying levels of understanding given the wide age range was taken into consideration, to ensure it appeals to and is understood by everyone.”

The Bath Festival of Children’s Literature takes place on 21st – 30th September 2007, in venues new and historic across Bath, including The Guildhall, The Assembly Rooms, The Mission Theatre, Bath Forum, Bath Pavilion and Bath Central Library. For more information, please visit www.bathkidslitfest.co.uk.

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Red Central, the leading creative resource for the entertainment industry, today announced that it has designed the winner’s trophy for the Emirates Cup, 28th – 29th July 2007. Taking influence from the architecture of host club Arsenal FC’s home ground, as well as elements of Red Central’s Emirates Stadium brand conception in 2006, the stunning design will be presented to the winners of the inaugural tournament between some of Europe’s top-level clubs.

In addition to the trophy, Red Central has conceived a full brand identity with guidelines for the tournament to ensure consistency across all promotional campaigns, merchandising, advertising and sponsorship activity. Featuring style elements sympathetic to both the trophy design and the Emirates Stadium’s idiosyncratic structure, Red Central has further developed the Arsenal FC brand family by publishing a mini style guide. The guide will be available to brand licensees and other partners and combines principle brand characteristics such as typefaces, colour palettes and icons with illustrations and key images.

“The guide ensures that every piece of promotional media from brochures to posters will be consistent with the successful brand we have built up for the Emirates Stadium over the past year, as well as this new brand extension for the competition,” says Head of Marketing at Arsenal FC, Angus Kinnear. “Red Central has time and again proved itself with a solid understanding and empathy for the integrity behind our history, as well as the future of the Emirates Stadium as one of Europe’s largest and most advanced International sports venues.”

Director at Red Central, Phil Overton, explains the inspiration behind the trophy’s concept, “We wanted to build a design that both stood out from other International football trophies and something that a club would be proud to place in their cabinet. The Emirates Stadium has very iconic, asymmetrical flowing lines across the rooftop, which motivated identical lines in the original brand identity for the stadium. The base, lip and handles of the trophy mirror these, with the Arsenal FC-red Emirates logo placed firmly on the face of the cup.”

Kinnear adds, “We are confident that the stadium will be sold out for both days and expect the Emirates Cup to become a permanent fixture in the football calendar. We hope to see Red Central’s trophy develop into a much-coveted symbol for one of the most popular pre-season competitions in Europe.”

Taking place 28th – 29th July 2007 at the Emirates Stadium, four top International clubs comprising host club Arsenal FC, Inter Milan, Paris Saint-Germain and Valencia will compete for the Emirates Cup prize. The tournament will see the winning club being presented with the trophy by a senior representative from Emirates airline. For more information, please visit www.arsenal.com.

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To date, the ten year-old franchise has been built on the content introduced in just three core computer games.

However, the arrival of Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl will herald new characters, a movie and a television series.

"Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will thrust our brand right back to the forefront of children's minds across Europe." offered Rekha Rajput, licensing manager at Pokémon UK.

The firm believes the launch is so monumental it has hired brand building specialists Red Central to produce the first exclusive European style guide for the franchise. Its brief is to achieve a look which retains the classic Pokémon style, while introducing new characters and content to give it a boost in today's marketplace.

The branding will be aimed at a core target of six to 12 year old boys, but with some designs aimed at tween girls, plus classic characters for people who have grown up with Pokémon and want to revisit it.

“This is a dynamic property with both a mass and cult following” said Red Central Director Phil Overton. “The style guide is an important part of the launch, and we intend to capture Pokémon’s energy to make sure all licensed merchandise does the brand justice.”

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So far, the Pokémon franchise, its many hours of TV animation and its 10 years of mammoth international success have been built on the content introduced in just three core computer games. Now, after a four-year wait, the next instalments – Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl – are about to launch, bringing with them new characters, new movies and a blockbuster new TV series.

“Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will thrust our brand right back to the forefront of children’s minds across Europe, and we strongly felt that a landmark of this magnitude deserved its own European-specific style guide,” explains Licensing Manager at Pokémon UK, Rekha Rajput. “We asked Red Central to create it for us because they understood exactly what we wanted to achieve, and with their experience in the children’s entertainment industry we knew they could translate our goals into great designs.”

Red Central’s brief is to achieve a look for the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl style guide that retains the classic Pokémon style while introducing the new characters and content with a freshness that will shunt the brand to the cutting-edge of children’s entertainment. With a wide range of fans, the branding will be aimed at a core target of boys aged 6 – 12, but with some designs aimed at tween girls, as well as classic characters for people that have grown up with Pokémon and will want to re-visit it.

“This is a dynamic property with both a mass and cult following and we’re very excited to be involved in its development,” says Red Central Director Phil Overton. “The style guide is an important part of the launch, and we intend to capture Pokémon’s energy to make sure all licensed merchandise does the brand justice.”

Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl video games will be available in Europe from Summer 2007. The accompanying animated TV series is due to air in the UK shortly afterwards on Cartoon Network.

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Back in the 1950s, pre-school television programmes produced for Watch With Mother had just one objective – to entertain. Now, despite the recent trend for re-packaging and re-launching old properties like Muffin the Mule and Babar the Elephant, the industry has changed almost beyond recognition. Pre-school properties have to work a lot harder in 2007 to secure their place on the small screen.

As more research is conducted on factors influencing the early development of children, the impact made by television is rarely out of the spotlight. In the US, some major broadcasters will no longer consider a pre-school property unless it has obvious educational value. If a producer wants to achieve global appeal, the series has to meet certain criteria, touching on healthy eating, fitness, reading, learning a language etc. The reason behind it is simple – parents will buy in to these shows because they take the guilt out of distracting children with TV.

‘Edutainment’ as a concept is nothing new. In 1965 Play School used early learning experts and pioneering techniques to encourage viewers to join in – in much the same way as Cbeebies’ Tikkabilla does now. Sesame Street is still regarded as one of the best ‘learning through fun’ series ever made. More recently the BBC launched Numberjacks, which also uses animated numbers to teach basic maths.

But could this heavy emphasis on education lead to the end of innocent fun? Kids are not cynical enough to notice, but they will soon switch off if they aren’t engaged. In the UK, Bob the Builder is one of the most successful pre-school properties around, with no strict agenda and a strong focus on enjoyment. Its creators take their influence from real life, using positive role models instead of educational science to tell stories and entertain.

It seems there is a place in the pre-school market for both story-led shows and those with blatant educational themes. But with additional pressure on producers to increase revenue from a property, it’s sometimes difficult to reconcile worthy, constructive learning with the requirements of toy manufacturers.

Now that a ban on adverts promoting high fat, salt and sugar foods alongside children’s programming has come into effect, the need to concentrate on property licensing is likely to increase if UK kid’s TV production is to survive. With 23 dedicated children’s channels running, producers will need to compensate for the loss of ad revenue.

This fact doesn’t have to compromise the quality of pre-school properties. Pre-school children respond to the familiarity of their own little lives, carefully reflected in stories and characters, and to shows that stimulate and teach them new things. Educational elements and moral messages can actually open up new revenue streams from other market sectors, attracting different licensees and retailers.

But amongst all these rules and regulations, bans and restrictions, research documents and sources of profit, it’s important not to forget the one most important factor for any pre-school property to succeed – pure, unadulterated, silly fun.

The guide was completed prior to the show’s broadcast, the extensive collection of design elements, icons, product concepts and guidelines created by Red Central will be used as a backbone to Chapman Entertainment’s recently launched worldwide retail programme.

Featuring the voices of comedian Peter Kay and legendary racing driver Stirling Moss and due to air across the UK in May 2007, Roary the Racing Car is the first property based upon motor racing for pre-school boys. The style guide seeks to inspire licensed partners to create exciting product ranges that reflect the fast-paced and bold feel of the series, according to Red Central.

“Having previously worked with Red Central on the branding for the very successful girls’ property Fifi and The Flowertots, along with their great track record in the industry, it was the natural choice to approach them for Roary the Racing Car,” says Managing Director and Executive Producer at Chapman Entertainment, Greg Lynn. “We were looking for a set of easy-to-use materials packed with style that inspires creativity, which is exactly what we received.”

The style guide encompasses everything from packaging ranges and a full set of striking icons through to poster patterns and bold badge designs, bringing Formula 1 to pre-school children. Each and every element is crucial to ensuring that the Roary the Racing Car brand is consistent across every product range that the licensees create across a global market.

“There has been a gap in the market for a strong boys’ pre-school property and the whole Roary the Racing Car package, from the animated show to the branding has a very different feel to the other pre-school brands out there,” says Managing Director at Red Central, Steve Pearce. “Our extensive experience with numerous other successful pre-school properties includes Bob the Builder, Postman Pat and Fifi and the Flowertots and we are pleased to be supporting Chapman Entertainment in creating another leading property.”

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The licensing industry for children is already worth over £2.1bn and it’s expanding at a healthy rate. TV and film executives can no longer commission a production for kids based simply on its potential to attract large audiences, it must also lend itself to a profitable merchandise roll-out.

In a bid to maximise the purchase power of brands, licensors are under increasing pressure to develop concepts weighted equally towards girls and boys. This has been done several times over for the nought to three market with TV shows like Fimbles and Teletubbies, but is it really possible to create a hit gender-neutral character license for older children?

Attempts to do this in the past have had disappointing results and the risks can be high. According to Gary Pope at Kids Industries, after the age of four, when gender begins to affect children’s choices, boys are particularly reluctant to venture outside of traditional gender stereotypes.

Chapman Entertainment - the organisation behind Fifi and The Flowertots and new series Roary The Racing Car (launching in May/June) - certainly has no plans to stray from its highly successful path of gender specific brands. Managing Director and Executive Producer Greg Lynn has found that although Fifi is viewed by girls and boys equally, when it comes to its licensed product the divide is clear – Fifi is mostly purchased by girls and Roary merchandise is highly likely to appeal mainly to boys.

So is it really possible to kill two birds with one stone and cash in both on-screen and in-store with a more neutral formula for the over threes. At first glance, Nelvana’s The Fairly OddParents is one brand that should have achieved just that. This quirky animated comedy with male and female leading characters should, in theory, lend itself well to licensed product for both boys and girls. But although the show’s central character, Timmy, is male, the show is essentially about fairies – and fairies are most definitely for girls. Perhaps Nelvana would have enjoyed greater licensing success by giving the show a more specific feminine focus from the start.

It seems that by trying to generate universal appeal there’s a strong chance that a property simply won’t be strong enough to appeal significantly to either girl or boy audience over a certain age. When Granada Media launched puppet show Don’t Eat The Neighbours in 2001, hopes were high for a unisex hit. But despite major investment in research, CGI and celebrity voice-overs, it failed to deliver.

One property that has managed to find that elusive formula for a successful gender-neutral license is Lazy Town. Designed originally to promote health and nutrition for children, it seems to be a side effect that the brainchild of Icelandic Olympic champion Magnus Scheving has captured a far broader than intended audience. Boys want to be the fit, brave Sportacus and girls associate with feisty, pretty and clever Stephanie. Lazy Town manages to reach beyond that nought to three age boundary, but only just.

With licensed spend highest in the four to six age group, and strongest growth coming from the seven to nines, a license that proves popular with boys and girls is highly desirable.

Red Central, the leading creative resource for the entertainment industry, today announced that it has been chosen by the National Museum of Science and Industry to design and produce the style guide for its iconic locomotive, Flying Scotsman. Red Central will create design elements and branding guidelines for this luxury licensed brand, which will be available to potential licensees.

Now owned by the National Railway Museum in York, Flying Scotsman was the first locomotive to travel non-stop from London to Edinburgh and the first to travel at 100mph on the East Coast Main line route, with 2008 marking the 80th anniversary of this run. In anticipation, NMSI is launching its licensing programme this year with Red Central’s style guide, targeting licensees in the travel & tourism, luxury gifts, food & drink and tabletop/home decor markets. The resulting style guide will include a comprehensive set of branding guidelines to ensure cohesion across all licences.

“We wanted to capture the essence of this aspirational brand in design terms and ensure that our potential partners and licensees really understand the brand’s values and elements,” says Licensing Manager at NMSI, Lucy McCredie. “Red Central is a perfect fit for our brief and presented impressive credentials from its previous work with similar projects. We believe that it is essential for us as a licensor to provide licensees with clear guidelines in developing and launching products to market and with the style guide we will ensure these materials are first rate.”

Red Central’s brand style guide will encompass values evoked both by Flying Scotsman’s engine and its inspiring journey, representing a Golden Age of British ingenuity and evoking the glamour, elegance and romance of the Art Deco period.

Director at Red Central, Phil Overton adds, “The resulting Flying Scotsman style guide will include design elements such as graphics, icons and colour palettes encapsulating the romance, nostalgia and quality of a bygone age. As the NMSI is a non-profit organisation it works with a limited budget for its brand licensing activity, therefore more time is being invested into the graphic and creative element rather than a set of superior physical materials. In addition, making the style guide available to partners and licensees as a high quality email attachment or download inevitably reduces the cost.”

With the new style guide, NMSI will be seeking new licensees for the Flying Scotsman brand primarily in apparel, travel goods and accessories, leather goods, tableware, china, glass, linen, food and drink to add to its existing licensees.

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Free Running (or Parkour) has recently burst into mainstream public consciousness through BBC programme interstitials, documentaries, TV adverts and the latest James Bond movie Casino Royale.

After signing a deal to conduct a global licensing programme for the sport, intellectual property rights agency AT New Media approached Red Central to help develop a range of merchandise concepts.

Paul Comben, Chief Executive Officer of AT New Media, said: “We identified Parkour as a powerfully popular new pursuit among teenagers. Urban Freeflow is synonymous with youth credibility and awareness, so we wanted to develop a brand that reflected that. Having worked with Red Central on other projects, we were confident that they understood the demands of this market and could come up with the right look.”

Through a set of four mood boards, Red Central has created a series of clothing designs, illustrating the great commercial potential of this new brand to licensees.

Steve Pearce, Red Central Director, said: “Our challenge was to commercialise Urban Freeflow without diluting the edginess and exclusivity that attracts young people to the brand. We had to ensure an even balance between pop culture design and respect for a serious extreme sport.”

AT New Media now plans to expand the Urban Freeflow brand into all relevant product categories, including interactive games, clothing, bags, watches and sunglasses.

Comben added: “Without Red Central’s concepts, the task of selling a completely new brand to licensees and retailers would have been much harder. The boards have been very well received and we’ve already attracted a number of partners.”

Free Runners make use of their everyday urban surroundings including buildings, walls, fences and stairwells to move around their environment in a fast, flowing and controlled way. Inspiration for moves comes from martial arts and Hollywood blockbuster films such as The Matrix and Spiderman.

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The US sport brand licensing machine was worth $13.2 billion in the US and Canada in 2006, a figure not seen since the mid-1990s, when the market was saturated with products bearing the names of the top basketball, American football and baseball teams and players. In the UK, the market is much less mature but is a growing one with tremendous potential; as UK sports clubs and organisations increasingly visualise and market themselves as an international brand. Taking the cue from the marketing activities of the US sports industry, many UK clubs and organisations – in particular Premiership football clubs – are forming strategic partnerships with those in the US and Asian markets (e.g. Arsenal FC, which has partnered Thailand’s BEC Tero Sasana FC).

Traditionally, the brand licensing business model would include one brand owner, working with a number of licensing agents worldwide to bring a property to market. It is then the job of these agents to strike licensee and retail deals.

The toy industry has some of the best innovators, product developers and creative thinkers in the world. With a ripe market, we need to ask if more can be done to exploit the available opportunities, and what it will take to realise these within a competitive and increasingly global sports licensing market?

Sports consumers are becoming more discerning about the products they buy. The misheld view by many people is that they will buy anything with a club crest printed on it. Whilst this may have been true in the 1990s, today’s consumer is far more demanding. Surely brand owners want to align themselves with high quality partners and finally put an end to this outdated perception of licensed properties?

Many sports brand owners push core values that include aspiration, ambition, teamwork, and health and fitness - something which now figures highly in the consumer’s consciousness. Partners in the toy industry can use these values to underpin new, innovative and inspirational products. By taking advantage of the best of the toy industry’s talent and expertise, rather than making do with typical product lines and brand alignments (i.e. often low quality, cheaply made and highly priced goods), both parties will enjoy increased opportunities to further extend the brands, and the consumer will benefit from the high quality of products available.

Many sports clubs have junior levels as part of their membership schemes, which will also have a mascot representing the club’s core values and a recognisable face of the club’s brand (or even a brand in itself). Membership forms the building blocks of the clubs’ future and for many is growing year on year. In addition there are often strong family values – if parents support a club and are members, it is more likely that their children will be encouraged to support and join the same club. It is commonly known that if you can capture brand loyalty at an early age you will have it for life, which presents a great opportunity for toy companies - parents will support the brand by buying for their children.

Of course, it is not just the large global sports that offer new markets for toy companies. We are heading towards the Olympics of London 2012, which will make way for some of the less-known sports to capitalise on sports brand licensing, creating even further opportunities for both industries. As the UK sports brand licensing market matures, the toy industry needs to act now. It’s the perfect time to capitalise on this fast growing market. Forward thinking companies can only benefit by bringing their core attributes to work within sports licensing, before the doors to entry are shut, and tremendous opportunities are lost.

I speak to brand owners in this industry on a daily basis, and find it surprising how many properties are sent straight to market without an effective set of selling and marketing tools. A high percentage of branded properties do not have a clear message of where they are going – essentially a lack of ‘brand vision’. With so little preparation and foresight, brand owners and licensors risk losing potential revenue.

Traditionally, the brand licensing business model would include one brand owner, working with a number of licensing agents worldwide to bring a property to market. It is then the job of these agents to strike licensee and retail deals.

However, when licensing programmes are initiated without essential tools such as a comprehensive style guide or packaging range, it is often left to the licensing agent to produce them for use by potential partners. There is then a risk of losing brand consistency and impact if a specialist creative agency doesn’t perform the job or if several parties are involved in the process. This all takes time, so when tools are eventually made available, valuable ground has been lost in getting the property to market, leaving the licensing agent to play catch up right down the line.

This problem is most prevalent in the TV and film industries, where the focus is on the success of the production.

If necessary tools haven’t been created up-front, then the opportunity to attract partners will have a severely limited timeframe – remember that most licensees need a lead-time of eight to 12 months to develop products. Subsequently the producers cannot react to the market effectively and valuable revenue is lost.

In a toy industry scenario, where an initial product is launched with little consideration to potential brand extension, the business focus is concentrated towards the product. There may be several external agencies involved in product development, advertising and promotion, but without the benefit of a prior brand vision exercise, there is a risk of a diluted message.

Clearly, this model is due for a change. Savvy brand owners and licensors are now discovering that before anything hits the shelves or screen, developing a brand vision and tool kit is fundamental to securing brand licensing revenue. More companies are now approaching specialist creative ‘one-stop-shop’ teams at the conception stage, before any partners are signed. Not only does this mean that when a property is launched there is sufficient material to back it up, but ample budget can be allocated from the outset to enable this process and so much more can be achieved within the timeframe!

Typically, licensing agents are expected to pay for creating a comprehensive style guide and sales tools. Ultimately this means the project gets off to a sluggish start and time and energy is diverted from seeking and signing partners. In a contemporary model, the brand owner or licensor makes this a priority, including everything from graphics and icons, through to packaging and product concepts.

Some licensing agents I have spoken to have freely admitted that they are more likely to sign a property with a strong brand vision, backed up with a consistent set of tools and a comprehensive style guide. This enables the licensing agent to focus on their area of expertise – negotiating deals.

Taking inspiration from other adult campaigns and charities that affect children, Red Central has produced a brand new logo for Save Kids’ TV. Previously the campaign had been using a childlike typeface, but it was felt that it needed a stronger identity.

“British children’s television is widely acknowledged as amongst the most creative and innovative in the world. Unless an alternative funding structure can be found to replace lost advertising revenues from recent rulings and increased fragmentation of the market to online and games, we are in severe danger of losing it for good,” says Save Kids’ TV Executive Committee member and freelance producer, Colin Nobbs. “Red Central works extensively within the industry and its experience and support is extremely welcome. I am sure it will make a significant contribution to moving the campaign forward.”

Save Kids’ TV was set up in July 2006 as a reaction to ITV’s decision to cease production of new children’s television, with supporters from every corner of the commercial children’s television production population – from writers, actors and academics to producers and parents. With a core message of “Children deserve the best television”, the campaign aims to encourage broadcasting regulators and government to acknowledge the value of children’s television and protect it from growing financial pressures.

“Over the last five years Channel Four has gradually pulled out of producing new children’s television programmes,” adds Nobbs. “The digital channels like Nickelodeon and Disney Channel still produce a limited number of UK-produced programmes which also have to be sold to other countries, but ITV and Five were the only channels fully funding production. Now there is only Five and even then it is having to review its position.”

Managing Director of Red Central, Steve Pearce, explains why Red Central got involved. “We are fully supporting the Save Kids’ TV campaign because we believe British kids need programmes which they can relate to. The imminent decline of commercial children’s television affects every aspect of the industry, including non-commercial outlets such as the BBC, as without competition there is a reduced incentive to maintain the same standards.”

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Red Central was selected by Tiger Aspect Productions to create a full design guide including logos, colour palettes, packaging and a range of other elements for licensees. The new style guide gives a refreshed look to the international character phenomenon.

“Mr Bean has 15 years of heritage, so with another live action movie due to greatly increase awareness of the character in 2007, the time is right to refresh the brand design,” says Katherine Senior, Executive Producer at Tiger Aspect Productions. “We chose to work with Red Central because its team quickly understood and visualised the essence of the character - vital for the design of a fully operational style guide within some tight deadlines.”

Using the limited information provided by teaser ads and posters in the early stages of the theatrical production, Red Central has given Mr Bean a strong new look, consolidating the animated and photographic imagery.

“Mr Bean is such a well established brand, but the live and animated versions of the same character can sometimes cause confusion,” explains Managing Director at Red Central Steve Pearce. Our guide aims to draw the cartoon and live-action versions together, breathing new life into both without losing any of the simple quirky charm that makes Mr Bean so universally popular.”

Created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, the irrepressible Mr Bean started life as a TV comedy character. Bean – The Ultimate Disaster Movie followed in 1997 and in 2002 the Animated series was created.

New licensed product based on the style guide will appear in store next year with the publication of new books and DVDs to tie in with the film – due for cinema release on the 30th March 2007.

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The membership packs will be officially launched on 13th October 2006, shipping to the Club’s 130,000 members. Fans will be able to join via its website as well as in official Arsenal FC stores where a specially packaged version of the membership pack will be available.

“Red Central was selected because it understood the Club’s heritage and values,” says Senior Marketing Executive at Arsenal FC, Chris Bevan. “Red Central has previously worked with us on numerous initiatives and we felt confident that they would help us deliver a membership pack which maintained a style consistent with the packs of the previous two seasons, whilst embracing the opportunities presented by our magnificent new Emirates Stadium.”

“This season’s membership pack was designed to have an element of luxury to it, to reflect the fantastic content and exude exclusivity to the fans,” says Director at Red Central, Phil Overton. “The imagery used on the outside of the box as well as the books and DVD covers is very Emirates Stadium heavy as it is now Arsenal FC’s home and obviously this is something that should be celebrated.”

“Membership is central to the Club’s marketing communications as match tickets are offered to members on a priority basis prior to any general sale. The membership pack is an important factor in driving recruitment and minimising churn,” adds Bevan.

The membership pack comprises a box in Arsenal FC-red, featuring a dynamic image of the Emirates Stadium. Red Central has maintained design consistency across all the various elements of the pack, which were produced by several existing licensees. Contained inside is a lift-up flap design holding the Official DVD Annual, The Story So Far of Emirates Stadium and the 2006/07 Yearbook, with cover designs matching up within the box. Also included in membership is access to match tickets, stadium access via an electronic membership card and other benefits including website access and competitions.

At the beginning of the 2006/07 football season Red Central developed and produced a stand-alone brand for the Emirates Stadium, which was spearheaded by an iconic logo based upon the dominance of the structure upon the North London skyline. In addition to the Emirates Stadium branding, Red Central produced the ‘Final Salute to Highbury’ brand for the 2005/06 season, which was embraced across several different channels at the club.

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As a key supplier of creative and marketing materials to the licensing industry, Red Central was proud to sponsor the award for "Best Adult Licensed Product Retailer" - a hotly contested category won by Clinton Cards. Steve Pearce, Red Central's Managing Director, presented the stunning trophy to Mike Bugler, Managing Director of Clinton Cards.

Sponsors, retailers, licensors and licensees were wined and dined in style, sharing the room with a Dalek, a Cyberman, opera-singing waiters and even Alistair McGowan. Bespoke animations of Pingu and Fifi & the Flowertots entertained the hundreds of guests, who left at the end of the evening with a goody bag - not just a piece of cake and a balloon in this party bag but character merchandise worth over £200!

Red Central, the leading creative resource for the entertainment industry, today announced that it has created and developed a style guide for the worldwide brand licence of The Annoying Thing (aka Crazy Frog), the first Internet and mobile phone brand in the world to be licensed. Red Central was selected by intellectual property rights agency AT New Media to develop the style guide for The Annoying Thing, which has over 60 licensees for over 300 products in 40 countries ranging from backpacks to interactive games.

The original Crazy Frog design was formerly a cult Internet character, moving on to become universally famous through its own distinctive-sounding mobile phone ring tone and subsequent chart singles. Red Central’s experienced creative team has developed the brand based on the character’s core look and artist’s illustrations, to produce a full style guide featuring The Annoying Thing alongside its ‘Ring ding ding!’ and ‘What’s going on?’ catchphrases. Red Central has also produced a series of patterns, packaging styles, borders and other design elements to create a universal brand for any area of application.

Without a style guide, there was no consistency for the brand, and several variations of the character were circulating. Explains Chief Executive Officer of AT New Media, Paul Comben: “Unusually, The Annoying Thing has many brand owners across the world and with a licensing programme that had grown rapidly for eight months, it became clear that there was a need to reconcile branding needs for use by licensees. Red Central was chosen due to its outstanding portfolio, and the impressive sample design pieces it produced for The Annoying Thing. We were confident that the team there would stay true to the original character as required by the creator.”

“The aim for the branding style guide was to merge contemporary 3D graphics with backgrounds suitable for the most annoying thing in the world,” says Managing Director at Red Central, Steve Pearce. “We had some very specific guidelines to work to so that all of the original charm of the character was maintained and the brand could be targeted at both boys and girls as well as a limited adult appeal.”

“Red Central ensured that all requirements were met within the creative restrictions, and we are pleased with the result,” adds Comben. “The style guide has also been very well received by licensees.”

Red Central will be producing a second style guide for The Annoying Thing’s newly commissioned animated television series, which will boost the brand’s licensing profile in 2007-2008.

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Red Central's new business director Phil Overton will be aiming to give brand owners a head start when developing a brand licence for retail, in a talk he is delivering on the creation and strategic use of a style guide.

The Introduction to Licensing Seminar will bring together many of the licensing industry's leading experts, who will be giving up their time for free, as well as newcomers to licensing, including brand owners and suppliers.

"This is the second time LIMA has invited Red Central to talk at one of its prestigious seminars and I am pleased to be able to give something back to the industry by sharing my experience and expertise with those who are just starting out," says Overton. "I will be showing visitors exactly what a style guide entails in terms of time scales, content and effective use for bringing a brand off the paper or screen and onto the shelf."

Red Central has created and developed style guides for some of the most successful brands, including Thumb Wrestling Federation (TWF), Postman Pat and The Annoying Thing (aka Crazy Frog). Red Central also created the first Brand Vision disc and style guide for Hasbro's Action Man licence A.T.O.M - Alpha Teens on Machines, involving the collaboration of the Design, Sales, Marketing and Licensing departments for the very first time. A full, consistent set of creative tools and visual materials were created to enable any department at Hasbro and its partners to sell the brand.

Director at Red Central, Gail Swann adds: "Red Central has a very well respected profile within the industry and we are experts in brand development, as proven by our track record. This will be a great opportunity for visitors to discover how to most effectively carry out a licensing strategy."

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Red Central, the leading creative resource for the entertainment industry, today announced that it has created and developed a licensing brand vision for the new-look second season of Jetix’s A.T.O.M. - Alpha Teens on Machines animated T.V. show, of which, Hasbro steers the product development and licensing business. Teams at Red Central and Hasbro worked together extensively to unite the Design, Sales, Marketing and Licensing departments for the very first time, and the collaboration proved to be a great success. Feedback from each ensured that Red Central had the briefing it needed to produce a full set of visual materials available for use by Hasbro and its partners, maintaining consistency for the A.T.O.M. brand across every area.

Red Central’s brand vision disc and accompanying style guide includes everything that any department or partner of Hasbro would require to sell the A.T.O.M. brand. The concept pushes the boundaries of branding with everything from packaging, merchandise and clothing, to Powerpoint and Word templates for marketing purposes and even an innovative interactive viral email for promotion. Every piece of branding material results in a consistent combined look to maintain brand integrity, as well as saving time and effort for Hasbro and its partners.

“One of the key objectives for A.T.O.M. - Alpha Teens on Machines was to create a brand synergy that would result in a set of creative tools that could be effectively used by the Design, Marketing, Sales and Licensing departments, enabling us all to deliver an exciting, emotional and visually cohesive brand message to our clients.“ says Steve Evans, Brand Design Manager (Toys) at Hasbro Europe.

Director at Red Central, Steve Pearce explains the hitherto unique, unified approach, “Traditionally style guides only cover off the main areas of brand application such as packaging and merchandise. We believe that, by bringing all relevant departments together at the start, we were able to provide everyone with what they need to sell the brand to potential partners. We have also ensured that the message is less at risk of being diluted as it may have been in the past, as inconsistencies are avoided and people are more likely to remember the brand.”

Red Central was instrumental in the creation of the original and successful A.T.O.M. product visual identity for the first season, where it worked closely with Hasbro’s design and R&D teams to produce video mood pieces with the initial idea for a refreshed, more exciting Action Man brand. Following this project, it was chosen again by Hasbro to further develop the brand for the second season. For Season Two, Hasbro subsequently developed 5” & 11” A.T.O.M. action figures, featuring characters including Hawk, Axel, King, Shark and Lioness: a group of crime fighting teens battling against the evil Mr. Lee and his Mu-Team.

“The licensed branding of the first season of A.T.O.M. was very successful but felt too much like the original Action Man brand with its bright orange colour scheme,” explains Director at Red Central, Steve Pearce. “So for the second season it was decided to move more towards black and red to enhance A.T.O.M.’s own distinctive look without moving too far away from the first. The brand vision disc and style guide have been very well received by Hasbro as well as current and potential licensees.”

Steve Evans adds, “Red Central’s exceptional balance of industry knowledge, visual flare and creative honesty is a welcome mix. The resulting style guide and brand vision disc is a great analogy to describe our working relationship; richly creative and innovative, whilst remaining simply effective.”

Working closely with Entertainment Rights, Red Central will reflect the vibrant and exciting new show by focusing on the illustrative style used in its interstitials. A new logo has been developed and this will be closely followed by a full manual of complementary design tools.

The Licensing Awards, created and organised by Max Publishing, will provide the industry with a benchmark of excellence for both its licensees and its retailers. The winners will be announced during a glittering black-tie ceremony at the Royal Lancaster Hotel on 14 September 2006.

Red Central is pleased to be sponsoring the Best Adult Retailer of Licensed Products.

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Recent UEFA Champions League finalist Arsenal FC and its licensing partner Granada Ventures approached Red Central to produce an individual identity for the Emirates Stadium, having seen the successful promotion of other leading stadia across the UK. Red Central has created an iconic logo, along with guidelines for users and licensees, in preparation for the summer launch.

The 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium based in Islington, North London, is the second largest home ground in the Barclays Premiership, resulting in massive international appeal, beyond football. Marketing manager at Arsenal FC, Angus Kinnear says, “We required a distinctive, versatile and striking brand identity to set the Emirates Stadium apart from both the well-known Arsenal brand and other stadia. Red Central’s strategic and creative approach, together with its team’s vast enthusiasm for the project meant it was the perfect choice of agency. It has produced a powerful brand, which reflects the individuality of the stadium, whilst retaining a strong link to the great Highbury past. This link is vital to ensure we avoid alienating Arsenal’s loyal fans.”

Along with Arsenal FC and Granada Ventures, the stadium’s namesake and sponsor, Emirates, also provided input during the creative stage. The architects had already established a lettering style with the name adorning each corner of the building, which was incorporated and adapted by Red Central’s creative team as part of the identity.

“The Emirates Stadium is one of the most state-of-the-art and technologically advanced sporting arenas in the world. Its striking architecture dominates the North London skyline,” explains Director at Red Central, Phil Overton. “Taking inspiration from the stadium’s stunning appearance, with its unusually shaped roof and flowing lines, we created an icon to reflect this.”

Coupled with stimulus from these characteristics, as well as the 1930’s Art Deco architecture at the club’s current Highbury ground, Red Central produced a brand identity that maintains a link with Arsenal’s heritage. Planned brand applications and branded material for the stadium include internal and external signage, sponsorship, corporate material and catering. Further licensing deals are expected, supported by the brand’s idiosyncratic look and feel.

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Since its inception in the Year 2000 Red Central has established itself with an enviable range of high profile clients and strong reputation. A proven track record of accomplishments in the dynamic enhancement of various brands, properties and products, will allow Red Central to cement its position as the industry leader.

“With a solid background in both technical and consumer PR, MCC International has the skills and experience we need to spread the word about our company and everything it can offer,” explains Director at Red Central, Gail Swann. "MCC's role is to push our substantial experience, vigorous creativity, and the understanding we have of what our clients need to maximise on building and extending their brands in an increasingly competitive marketplace."

MCC International CEO and Founder Gina Sharp adds, “We are delighted to be working with Red Central. The company has an excellent client base that will give MCC the tools to effectively promote their services. Red Central’s professional and tailored approach has led them to work with some of the biggest companies in the world, so our PR campaign will include some great success stories.”

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