Classic licenses to headline at Back-to-School

Discount Store News, April 1, 1996

Nationwide DSN Report - Classic licensed properties will be every bit as important for Back-to-School merchandise as for the biggest movies due out by the fall, retailers and vendors report.

While movie spectaculars feature hot names - both animated and real - attract a lot of attention and spike sales in various departments, buyers and product managers believe that classic properties will headline this year in Back-to-School products. Their appeal, the experts noted, is timeless and multigenerational.

This year, the hot movie title that will appear on various types of Back-to-School products will be "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," a Disney movie, which will release in theaters June 21. Thomas Nelson, based in Nashville, Tenn., will lead Disney into social stationery - a new category for the entertainment-license giant - with Hunchback-licensed product.

"Goosebumps," the hit television series and by October a motion picture, will be the other entertainment-based property set to span several departments in discount stores. Both the series and the movie were inspired by a bestselling line of mysteries written for children by author R. L. Stine. Scholastic has licensed the Goosebumps name out to Happiness Express, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based maker of school supplies, toys and juvenile home goods, to create book bags, backpacks, pencils and stationery.

Venture will boutique, through endcap or aisle kiosks, Garfield-licensed product, the Coca-cola bears (Stuart Hall landed the license for a line of portfolios, binders, planners and notebooks) and to a smaller extent, probably a line of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame products.

"Classic properties will be the most important, such as Garfield, Looney Tunes and Lisa Frank," said Ken Ware, stationery buyer for the O'Fallon, Mo.-based discounter. The new Coca-cola product is terrific," he added. Stuart Hall plans to ship its corrugated 3-ft. merchandisers, suitable for freestanding or endcap display, with a planogram and colorful header included.

Boutiquing product is not new for the chain, but the, stronger focus on classic properties is. In the past, we've been more oriented toward the hot property of the day, usually a movie or movies," Ware said.

Goosebumps will also be prominently merchandised in the Back-to-School departments at discounters. Hills, Canton, Mass., for one has added the property to its mix for this fall.

"I expect Hunchback, Goosebumps and NFL to be hot for the Back-to-School selling-season," said Nora Cline, stationery buyer for Hills. But she also noted that Coca-Cola, Looney Tunes and Lisa Frank appeared to have come on very strong this year.

Almost identical reports have come from Omaha, Neb.-based Pamida. Looney Tunes is very strong for us, and classic properties in general have been doing well also," said Joe Fell, buyer. "NFL advertised heavily last year, and although we never ran ads for it, NFL properties did well on an everyday basis," he said.

Even in the off-season, NFL-licensed pens and pencils, like those licensed for the NBA, are staples in stationery/Back-to-School departments at this time of year. Recent trips to Ames, WalMart and Caldor revealed that in addition to the major sports licenses on pencils, the other year-round license on these retailers, shelves was Lisa Frank.

Adding a dash of the superhot properties to a mix of super-reliable ones may be one approach to a successful season. Part of the appeal of the tried-and-true classic properties is the way they reach various age segments.

The multigenerational appeal is one reason why electronics manufacturer Toshiba and day planner/organizer maker DayRunner both opted to license with Disney and Warner Bros.

We selected Warner Bros. because it is one of the more stable licenses," said Toshiba's Dan McGowan, director of marketing, personal electronics. "We chose not to do a movie or event, but instead we wanted to work more with the Looney Tunes properties, which are as popular today as they will be tomorrow."

Toshiba's alliance with Warner Bros. has brought the entertainment giant into new Back-to-School categories such as youth electronics and specialty lunch accessories, like the three-dimensional molded Taz lunch kit from Thermos.

Among other Looney Tunes-licensed product are a Taz desktop solar calculator and a Taz AM/FM stereo cassette player by Toshiba, which will begin shipping in June, and Tweety electronic diary and a Wile E. Coyote A Road Runner pocket calculator.

"The desktop solar [calculator] with Taz will appeal to several age groups and will be easily used by teens college students and adults," McGowan said.

"Our goal is for the child to see the display and say `Mommy, I want,' but we also want parents and grandparents to feel comfortable with these products as gifts. Looney Tunes characters really conjure feelings of nostalgia. There is very little you can say negative about these properties [unlike other fad-oriented properties]," he added.

Kids, requirements for the "I want, categories are similarly close to adults, expectations, Hills, Cline said.