CHARACTER BUILDING

The use of classic characters from books, comics and films in sales promotions is growing, and can bring significant exposure both for the characters themselves and for the products they are linked with.

The Smurfs are back, and while parents may cringe at this particular blast from the past, it seems kids can’t get enough.

But the sales promotion industry has yet to wake up to the potential for promotional link-ups, laments Christopher Crouch, the man charged with selling the benefits Smurf promotions can bring.

Crouch, licensing manager of Yaffa Character Licensing, the agency handling the Smurfs in the UK, says: “Sales promotion consultancies should have picked up on it – we gave them a year’s warning. I’m a little disappointed – but they’re beginning to express an interest.”

It seems odd that the sales promotion industry has given the Smurfs the cold shoulder. It was, after all, on the back of what must have been one of the first pan-European promotions, that the Smurfs spread from their native Holland during the Seventies.

Without the push provided by BP, which offered plastic Smurf models to people buying its National Benzol brand petrol, it is likely they would have remained a purely Dutch phenomenon. There is still a worldwide hard-core group of Smurf fanatics who are prepared to pay up to 1,000 for models which were originally given away.

But Crouch is wary of repeating that sort of promotion. He says: “By the time it came to the UK it was huge on the Continent. It rather swamped the nation and the Smurfs became heavily identified with one company and one product.

“People thought ‘am I taking a licence for a product or am I advertising for National Benzol?’.”

The Smurfs never really went away on the Continent, where they have sold over three million albums over the past 18 months and have had hit singles in Germany, France, Switzerland, Holland and Spain. Now, they have returned to Britain, with their animated adventures running on BBC, and EMI releasing a compilation album of new Smurf songs.

The Smurfs are not the only “classic characters” to be enjoying a sudden renaissance says Ali Nichols, head of promotions for licensing agency Copyright Promotions (CPL) Typhoo Tea, for example, has just done its first character promotion, offering consumers five fig urines from The Wind in the Willows.

Nichols says: “The response was absolutely tremendous. It was their first dip into character marketing, so they deliberately chose classics which would appeal to children, parents and grandparents. They were so pleased, they’ve already given us two more projects.”

CPL also handles Tom & Jerry, recently used by Burger King in a promotion, the Mr Men, the new Star Wars films and Johnny Quest, which Nichols claims will be one of next year’s biggest properties. Johnny Quest was a cartoon series originally aired during the late Sixties, but a new version will be hitting British TV next year.

Nichols says classic characters perform well as promotions for a number of reasons.”Although the end user may be a child, you have to appeal to the purchaser, who will usually be a parent.”

It is that ability to cross generational boundaries which explains the appeal of Dennis the Menace, for example, who has appeared recently in advertising for Vosene Junior and for TalkLand, the mobile phone retailer.

“Classic characters are brands in their own right,” says Nichols. “They are often over 50 years old, with enormous heritage.”

Robert Prevezer, managing director of sales promotion consultancy The Communications Agency, says: “The key to putting together successful promotions using animation properties is the brand fit.”

TCA is retained by Disney to handle all UK partner promotions involving Disney characters and properties. This includes the Andrex and Kleenex recent on-pack promotion using the new animated film, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Prevezer says: “Disney is very careful about who it works with. What we, as guardian of the property, have to do is make sure the brand we link with will not devalue our property.”

Prevezer believes that if a promotion is done properly, both partners will benefit. In the case of a link-up for Disney, “if it’s executed properly, it can create considerable exposure for a new movie with the right target market. For the partner, they’re obviously gaining the value of the Disney name.

That’s going to shift huge volumes”.

And to prove that linking with Disney works, Prevezer points to clients such as Boots, Kleenex and BT, all of whom, he says “keep coming back”.

“The most obvious benefit to a partner is the opportunity to develop very creative and colourful promotions.

“Take Toy Story, it’s not just the film, but all the different characters. If a partner can’t make something creative out of that, they’re crazy,” he adds.

Rainbow Productions is the UK’s biggest “costume character” specialist agency, and was recently bought from the Copyright Promotions Group, CPL’s parent company. It specialises in hiring out people dressed as well-known characters for promotional events, and helped the Euro 96 mascot, Goliath, make hundreds of personal appearances across the country.

Amanda Whitehead, marketing executive at Rainbow, says: “The main reason people go for character licensing is that they can buy in to an already trusted identity. For example, the Power Rangers or the Rug Rats offer a short cut to instant recognition. You’re buying in to something that has had millions of pounds spent on it – there’s a ready-made audience you get automatically.”

While characters such as Power Rangers do not particularly appeal to adults, their success comes from children’s “pester power”.

One set of characters which definitely appeals to both parents and children is The Muppets, whose latest blockbuster film, Muppet Treasure Island, is curr ently running in UK cinemas.

Paul Comben is licensing manager for Design Rights International, the agency which is handling The Muppets in the UK.

DRI runs the Burger King promotion in which models of four main characters from the film are being given away as part of a Kids’ Club deal.

Comben says: “Burger King gets a far better response from a licensed character promo tion than if it were to create its own.”

He believes there is going to be significant growth in character licensing, both for use in promotions and for other purposes, such as actual licensed products; Mars has added a Kermit the Frog ice lolly to its ice cream range.

Judging from the promotional activity involving licensed characters, the area is indeed growing.

In fact, PepsiCo and Lucas Films recently signed what has been called the world’s biggest character licensing deal.

PepsiCo will have the rights to use the characters from the new Star Wars trilogy – not due for release until 1998 – to promote all of its products.

It will involve all three of PepsiCo’s restaurant chains (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC), the Frito-Lay snack food division and the Pepsi beverage brand. PepsiCo will have worldwide exclusivity for all of these product categories.

Although industry experts say it is nowhere near the 1.5bn tag which PepsiCo has put on it, they do agree the link-up will involve a marketing spend of up to 120m in the US and another 150m for the rest of the world.