With popularity booming, the animator, the music label and the licensing agent will represent Gummy Bear at Brand Licensing Central & Eastern Europe.

Popular internet and music character Gummy Bear will be on stand 410 at BLCEE on March 8 & 9 in Budapest and the character costume will tour the exhibition. Any character needs to build public awareness and popularity to generate strong sales of licensed merchandise and benefit licensees and retailers. Gummy Bear is one of the first characters to achieve that through skilful use of the new opportunities provided by the internet. Between January 2008 and August 2009, unique visitors per month to www.gummibar.net increased 480% to 130,000. In the same period, page views increased 700% to 360,000 and Funny Gummy ecard unique visitors per month rose 260% to 52,000 & page views 270% to 99,000. Gummy Bear videos are among the top 60 most viewed for all musicians worldwide on YouTube. The dedicated Gummybear YouTube channel attracted an average of 300,000 daily video views in September 2009, up 1,500% year-on-year. Total views now exceed three quarters of a Billion. Almost one million Gummybear songs have been played on the character’s MySpace site and Facebook friends increase by about two thirds every quarter year.

Unlike most of the other characters to be shown at BLCEE, Gummy Bear’s merchandising success actually began in that region. In Greece, food products company Ifantis adapted a Gummy Bear music video for a TV commercial and the public there have fallen completely in love with the character. The music album sales are currently thirty times platinum. So far, 12 merchandise licensees for over 50 products have signed and are launching throughout 2010.

Ifantis will extend their campaign to Bulgaria and Romania this month.

Gathering in Budapest in support of Gummy Bear and on hand to meet licensees and retailers will be the animator of Gummy Bear, the music label people from various countries in the region and AT New Media, the exclusive pan-European licensing agent. “We all know that licensees and retailers traditionally rely on TV series for merchandise sales,” says Paul Comben, CEO of AT New Media, “But they are learning fast that children and parents get more and more of their entertainment online and 750,000 web viewings of Gummy Bear means huge pent-up demand for merchandise.”

Contact Paul Comben, +44 7931 335831, paul@atnewmedia.com