At the occasion of the latest Licensing Expo, LM had a talk with Andrew Carley, Director of Global Licensing at BBC Studios.
How is Bluey performing in the US?
Andrew Carley
It exceeded all our expectations. The most important achievement is our presence in all the major retailers. The toy program is driving the expansion into other categories such as apparel, certain elements of Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG), back to school, and much more, for a complete offer. I think we’ll start to really see the impact of that in retail in the second half of this year.
The US success is replicated around the world. We’ve got a CP program in 36 territories. The UK is leading, but in Europe we are present in France, Spain, Italy and we’re about to launch into Germany. Over the next 12 months, we’ll be in most of the world. There won’t be many territories where we haven’t launched, including Asia.
The reason for this triumph is due to the quality of the content, which is really well written, and manages to engage children and adults.
Is there any plan that you are working on for Bluey in the US?
Given our success, the larger FMCG partners tend to come on board with a mature program. We’re now engaging in conversations with them, and I would expect, between the end of this year and the next, there’ll be significant partnerships with multinational American blue-chip companies.
This allows us to expand from a purely CP program into more promotional partnerships, also engaging the adult audience. That’s a really exciting opportunity, knowing that adults engage with Bluey through their children, but they watch and love the content. The US is an important market, because the scale of opportunity is really large.
How is it proceeding with the Hey Duggee IP?
It’s going great, with a really lovely UK program. The focus is driving the UK market over the next couple of years and then, based on the success that we’ve had with Bluey, also include Duggee in a structured licensing program and drive it out internationally.
We are planning launches in Latin America with Brazil as the priority markets following Bluey airing on TV Cultura, and in Asia with the focus on South Korea as well as continuing to build the ongoing China program.
And what about Doctor Who?
For Doctor Who we are very happy to have Disney as our global broadcast partner. We’re going to see Doctor Who elevating from a UK program to one under the banner of Disney, alongside Star Wars and the superhero action series, expanding the audience from 5 to 65 years old.
Do you plan any specific initiative for the 60th anniversary of this brand?
Thanks also to Disney’s support, we are very focused on creating new content to captivate the audience. We’re not jumping in with a licensing program straight away. We’ll first let this new content drive the awareness and momentum, capturing a new and broader audience.
