LazyTown to launch healthy kids’ drinks
Turner Broadcasting, which owns Cartoon Network, is launching a range of healthy drinks for kids under the LazyTown brand.
It is the first licensing deal it has struck since acquiring the Icelandic TV brand last year.
Gerber Juice Company will produce a range of healthy drinks and smoothies under licence. It will launch exclusively in Sainsbury’s from 22 March and be available elsewhere later.
The LazyTown fruit drinks will be free from artificial sweeteners, flavours, colours and preservatives, and will be promoted as one of the recommended five fruit and vegetables a day.
Each drink will be named after characters from the hit pre-school TV show including ‘Sportacus Apple & Blackcurrant’, ‘Stephanie Lemon & Lime’ and ‘Robbie Rotten Orange & Peach’.
The range will also include a LazyTown branded natural spring water.
Marketing support for the launch will include in-store promotions that will see the Sportacus make appearances in supermarkets and at events.
Turner outlined its plans to extend the LazyTown brand to consumer products, digital platforms and collaborations its existing properties, in a bid to make it into “the world’s leading healthy lifestyle brand for children” when it acquired the brand in September.
The show’s main character Sportacus has since been adopted by the Government as part of its Change4Life healthy lifestyle programme.
Graham Saltmarsh, UK licensing director at Turner Broadcasting, says: “At a time when there is so much focus on healthy eating, it is fantastic to have a brand like LazyTown in our portfolio which lends itself so superbly to healthy food and drinks products for kids.”
