Simo Hämäläinen Named to Lead Rovio’s Brand Licensing Business.
Rovio Entertainment, creators of the highly-successful Angry Birds franchise, has retained the services of Evolution as its USA licensing agent focusing on consumer products and retail expansion. In a separate but related announcement, Simo Hämäläinen has been named Senior Vice President, Brand Licensing for Rovio Entertainment as part of a global strategy aimed at strengthening the Angry Birds brand for the future.
Hämäläinen has been with Rovio for over four years and was the VP of Marketing and Promotions before taking over as the head of all licensing operations. He has a wealth of experience in working with big consumer brands. Prior to joining Rovio he held several sales and marketing roles at Heineken over a period of seven years, working with brands like Heineken, Sol, Fosters and Pepsi.
Evolution will represent Rovio’s ongoing Angry Birds initiatives for merchandising, promotions and retail opportunities while looking ahead to 2018 to focus on the breakout characters, the Hatchlings, the cute little young birds introduced in the company’s successful film debut, “The Angry Birds Movie,” last summer.
“These are exciting times for Angry Birds in the USA. We have new animation content in production, several big game launches coming in 2017 and 2018 and the sequel to The Angry Birds Movie in development,” said Hämäläinen.“Partnering with Evolution greatly strengthens not only our licensing program in the USA, but will significantly increase our retail penetration across all channels.”
With clients like Miramax, Gaumont Television and Sunny Bunnies on its roster, Evolution is poised to greatly elevate Rovio’s licensing and retail business.
“Having seen the huge success of the franchise in the past and knowing that the team at Rovio has a strong focus on releasing new compelling content: games, animation, movies, we felt that our team could assist them in expanding a meaningful consumer products program in the US,” said Travis Rutherford, Partner and Chief Revenue Officer of Evolution.
Rovio’s decision to turn to an external licensing agent solution in the US is consistent with how their licensing business is handled throughout the world and allows Rovio to focus on mobile game initiatives and expanding their content creation.
