Creacon Appoints Leading Licensing Agent In The Middle East For City Of Friends Brand Licensing Europe - October 2013

 
CreaCon Group, the Norwegian children’s entertainment production company, continues to expand the international licensing programme for its popular pre-school series City of Friends with the appointment of seasoned licensing specialist Christian Zeidler whose company 20TOO will represent City of Friends in the Middle East.

Dubai-based, independent licensing agent 20TOO will build a licensing and marketing programme for City of Friends across 16 countries across the Middle East, capitalising on the growing popularity of the brand in the region. 20TOO will represent the merchandising rights to the series including toys, Publishing, apparel, accessories, home furnishing, stationery, gifts, social expression, games, confectionery, food and promotions. City of Friends already airs on Al Jazeera Children’s Channel JCC across the whole region and has built a strong fan base with activity including the hit City of Friends live show (staged by MEI) as part of Dubai’s well-known ‘Dubai Summer Surprises’ retail festival for the last two summers.

Zeidler has a strong track record developing business in the retail industry across the MENA region. Prior to setting up 20TOO he lead Cartoon Network’s Middle Eastern licensing business for Turner Broadcasting Systems Arabia. The 20TOO team consists of industry experts whose comprehensive licensing and regional knowledge and solid relationships with all major stakeholders, media partners and agencies make them leaders in their field.

Harold Sletten, CreaCon Entertainment’s CEO commented, “The Middle East is a fast growing market for pre-school properties and is therefore strategically important for developing City of Friends as a brand. The City of Friends brand values work really well in the region and the lessons learned by Max, Ted, Elphie and Jumpi in each of the episodes are enjoyed by boys and girl from 2-8 years of age.”

Said Christian Zeidler, Managing Director, 20TOO: “City of Friends is a wonderful pre-school property full of catchy songs, high quality animation, charming, colourful characters and story lines that focus not only on educational themes but combine fun with action. It is an honour to be representing and developing CreaCon’s City of Friends for the Middle East and North Africa. We are excited to see the first merchandise and promotions hitting the shelves in the coming months.”

CreaCon Group has recently announced a toy deal with Top Toy Hong Kong Ltd. as well as a raft of new licensees across DVD and publishing in the UK where the TV series airs on Chanel 5 milkshake! CreaCon already has an extensive City of Friends licensing programme in place in the Nordic region across toys, games, apparel, food, Apps and electronic games including toy deal with major Nordic company TSI. CreaCon also has a multi year deal with Turner Broadcasting, which includes the broadcast of City of Friends on Cartoon Network and Boomerang across the Nordic and Baltic region where it debuted in Autumn 2012.

City of Friends is uniquely based on the adventures of a real-life Norway state police officer, CreaCon Founder and CEO Carl Christian Hamre, who first told them as bedtime stories for his young son. First broadcast in the Nordic region in 2010, City of Friends follows the adventures of new recruits to the Emergency Services working together to solve problems in their city. Today, City of Friends is broadcast in more than 180 countries and in 23 languages around the world. CreaCon Group is Norway’s leading independent children’s production company with businesses that span TV production & distribution, licensing, live events, DVD production and distribution, music and digital operations.

CreaCon will be bringing City of Friends to BLE 2013 - visit the team at stand F090.