Licensing no longer means simply placing characters and trademarks on consumer products. It has taken on a sophistication of its own, especially in the volatile children’s market.

Licensing and merchandising professionals find themselves with a new role to play in the partnership that brings new products to the consumer.

‘The goal of all members of a licensing partnership should be to try to capture a part of the ‘personality’ of the original creative concept to grab the core DNA and work from it so that any new formations remain connected by the life blood of the original production,’ says Helen Isaacson, senior vice president and general

manager of international licensing at Turner Home Entertainment.

In the following report, senior marketing and licensing executives from leading entertainment companies discuss some of the new products and new initiatives that they are bringing to the discipline of licensing and merchandising.