Fast-growing global, licensing and lifestyle brand celebrates expansion at stand D090 Withit's hit characters are back ― and this time they've brought some friends! The all-new Withit Doodles will be joining the popular range of Withit characters at stand D090 for this year's BLE. Yes, Cheeky Monkey, Glamour Puss, Mad Cow, Top Dog, Happy Bunny, Miss Cheeky, Chocolate Moose and Lost Sheep are celebrating their ninth year at BLE! And they're planning to pull in the crowds with a theme appropriate to the biggest UK-based licensing show. The Classic Withit characters will be shown in an all-UK themed style focusing on Withit's top-performing characters in a fresh-faced format, with many references to the UK places and traditions.

And that's not all. Building on the enormous popularity of its established range, Withit is launching the Withit Doodles range featuring new characters and a completely new ‘sketched’ look highlighted with watercolour effects. The Withit Doodles will be launched in a series of six books for children, but, with their charm and emotional appeal, the Doodles are expected to have strong potential in the gift and card market.

The gallery of Withit icons was developed in 1991 and has been licensed from 2001. Since that time the characters have been part of a retail success story in more than 50 countries and across a wide range of categories including apparel, nightwear, stationery, bags, accessories and many more. The initial target market of tween and teen girls aged 9-15 has now expanded to include a strong adult market, with apparel increasingly becoming the core category.

And this year has already got off to a great start thanks to a specially designed range for Claire’s Accessories of exclusive stationery, bags and backpacks, featuring the much-loved Withit character Cheeky Monkey in a skull 'n' crossbones motif. The line will appear in-stores throughout the UK and major European markets. It includes A4 and A5 notebooks, mechanical pens and pencils, a 16-piece super stationery set, a zip top purse, a school-sized backpack, a mini courier bag, and a cool Converse-trainer-shaped pencil case…with laces!

More recent activity includes the release of the sixth consecutive range of nightwear at C&A (taking in over 1,000 stores in Europe), which has now branched out into outerwear t-shirts and socks. Two new ranges of stationery have been launched, one in Benelux and another major collection in Brazil featuring four different Withit characters, with over 24 notebooks in the range. In Italy the Withit stationery range continues to expand into more and more stores with all Withit characters featured. Also in Italy the high end apparel range priced at between €30 and €170 is not only on its fourth collection for adults but has also seen the launch of a new kids range. Glamour Puss and Miss Cheeky have both featured in nightwear, fleece and towels in the Middle East, with a whole room décor now in development for release Spring 2011. Also in the UK is showing growing sales in Mail Order nightwear Glamour Puss and Mad Cow as well as socks.

Withit scored a major success last year with a UK, Europe and Middle East-wide promotion with Burger King for the 2009 Back to School period that involved the distribution of a staggering 4.7 million back-to-school items.

And now there’s www.withitworld.com, the Flash-animated world of Withit, where the characters get 10,000 hits a day and can find out more about their favourites, play games, download wallpaper and screensavers, buy Withit merchandise and join the Withit Club.

Brad Caines, Creative Director of Withit says: “The past 18 months have seen the Withit brand grow at an amazing speed in Europe and the Middle East as well as Latin America. But we are seeing new awareness and interest here in the UK, as we launch a brand new range of Withit Doodles characters in a new look and format.”