FC Barcelona is ending its 17-year partnership with Nike where it ceded its retail and licensing rights to FCBMerchandising. The football club forms a new company to manage its retail, licensing, and merchandising activity. The newly formed Barça Licensing and Merchandising will take over its rights on July 1 and oversee a $77 million merchandising business spanning three of the club’s owned stores, 15 licensed stores, 328 licensees, and 250 employees. Nike is not entirely out of the picture, however, having signed an 8-year deal to supply the club’s kit through the 2025/26 season.
The first-ever fully-branded Kidz Bop Experience debuts at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Punta Cana. Lauching summer 2018, the partnership with AIC Hotel Group will give vacationers aged 4–12 years-old the chance to “be a Kidz Bop Kid,” with a dedicated interactive creative space and series of show pop-up activations throughout the resort.
The U.S. Postal Service and Warner Bros. Consumer Products bring the first Scooby-Doo stamp to life, with the titular Great Dane getting a Forever stamp highlighting his new social responsibility initiative, Scooby-Doo Doo Good. The campaign, launched earlier this year with generationOn, provides young people with tools and activities geared toward enriching the environment; its first theme this summer is hunger awareness.
Ikea is teaming up with both Lego and Adidas to facilitate opportunities for kid’s play and enjoyment of sports experiences at home, respectively. Adidas noted that it is looking at more than just equipment and the design of workout spaces but also eating and sleeping solutions.
Hasbro closes its $522 million acquisition of Saban Properties’ Power Rangers as well as its interests in My Pet Monster, Popples, Julius Jr., Luna Petunia, Treehouse Detectives, and others. The transaction, a mixture of cash and stock, includes $22.25 million previously paid by Hasbro as part of a master toy agreement scheduled to begin in 2019. The first set of Power Rangers products from Hasbro will be available in spring 2019.
Retail Watch
CoverGirl is opening its first store, launching a B&M concept location in New York City. The brand store will feature a beauty play room, full service makeup application, on-the-go services, digital experiences, and “exclusive innovation”.
Rooster Teeth launches its first-ever pop-up store in Los Angeles, featuring a capsule collection of t-shirts, hoodies, bags, and enamel pins. The Geoff Ramsey Collection, named after RT’s co-founder and its designer, launched in 2016. Merchandise now accounts for 20% of RT’s revenues, eclipsed only by advertising at 25% share.
Content Creation
Warner Bros. Animation launches Looney Tunes Cartoons, a series of new short form cartoons starring iconic Looney Tunes characters. Each cartoon will run from 1–6 minutes and, from the premise on through to the jokes, will be “written” and drawn by the cartoonists, allowing their own personality and style to come through.
Hasbro partners with Rhett & Link in a multi-year relationship committed to bringing Hasbro games to life in 2018 and beyond. The toyco and comedy duo will initially create digital content to launch Hasbro’s new games on the duo’s daily episodic YouTube series, Good Mythical Morning.