Licenses from other places

A telenovela is a TV-show, close to the American concept of the soap opera, but more appealing to teenagers, thus allowing a 360º exploitation, including merchandising, lives shows etc. It usually runs on television for a long time, from a few months to a year. The telenovela often uses the romance, thriller or teen drama themes. Most of the telenovelas that we know today in Europe and North America come from Central or South America. In the last fifteen years, many telenovelas or TV series adapted from this concept arrived on the European and North-American screens.
Among them, we can quote Patito Feo. Patito Feo is the story of the teenager Patricia (Patito/Patty) and her mother Carmen, who move from their Argentine village to the capital Buenos Aires. Patito, who doesn’t know her father, meets him in her new town. Created in Argentina in 2007, and broadcasted on the Argentine channel Canal Trece (Artear), Patito Feo has been broadcasted in several southern European countries, for instance in Spain (Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Telecinco), France (Gulli) and Italy (Disney Channel and Italia 1). In Italia, Patito Feo ranked #3 in youth programs in 2010¹. According to Juanjo Conde, Marketing Director at Elastic Rights, “the success of this show can be related to the combined use, never seen before, of music, fashion, humor and parallel stories in the plot”.

The license Patito Feo has also been developed in an important licensing program: 600 000 copies of the soundtrack were sold in southern Europe (half of them in Spain), along with 1 million books and 30 million stickers album. A Patito Feo musical was also produced, with almost 400 000 tickets sold in Spain, Italy and Greece. Other categories of products covered by the licensing program include videogames (with Sony in Spain, Portugal and Italy), hygiene products, apparel, stationary or footwear.
Following the establishment of Patito Feo in Europe, Elastic Rights is currently working on the development of a new Latin American and European production designed for a young audience, based on a story full of fantasy, humor, music and dance, called “Lola, Muse in Training”, that is expected to make its debut in 2013.

The Japanese license Naruto, based on the manga created in 1999 by Masashi Kishimoto, arrived in Europe in 2002. This was the start of a giant success for the manga in Europe, particularly in France (edited by Kana): the French market represented almost 10% of the 150 million copies sold in the world. Naruto is also licensed in video games, in DVD or on TV. Namco Bandai for Sony, Ubisoft for Microsoft and its consoles, and Tomy for Nintendo have developed a total of 27 video games for the French market (40 in Japan) since 2006. More than 3.8 million copies of these games have been sold in Europe (1.3 million in France, 10 million at a worldwide scale). The last Naruto video game was launched in March 2012 on Playstation3 and Xbox360 with an important advertising campaign. This new game includes many new features, like the possibility of watching 60 minutes never seen before of the animated series. According to Jérôme Leclercq, Director of Mediatoon Licensing, the agent of the property in France “the DVDs of the animated series in France are the best sales in the Japanimation sector”. The animated series is also airing in France: Game One, NT1, France 3, Canal J or France Ô.

Created in Japan by Eichiro Oda in 1997, One Piece tells the story of Monkey D. Luffy, a pirate whose main goal in life is to acquire the treasure of the King of Pirates, Gol D. Roger. Acquiring this treasure would make him the next King of Pirates.
The manga, edited in Japan by Shueisha, has been very successful in this country. Now in its 65th volume in the Japanese edition, more than 250 million One Piece manga have been sold in fifteen years, making it one of the best-selling manga of all-time. And the 61st volume has set the record, in 2011, for the fastest and biggest books sales with 2 million books sold in just three days. The animated series adapted from One Piece also has also been successful: 540 episodes of the series have been produced since 1999 by Toei Animation Studios, with 11 animated movies (the 12th movie will be released in December 2012).