As the effects of the pandemic loosen their grip on some parts of the world, LatAm is beginning to experience a long-awaited period of recovery and growth.

LatAm achieved the second-highest licensing sales bump last year, growing by 9.7% year over year to US$13 billion, according to the 2022 Global Licensing Industry Study released by Licensing International in July. Toy giants Mattel and Hasbro are both doing well in the region, highlighted in their most recent financial reports. Mattel reported that its overall gross billings in LatAm were up 33% in Q2 over the same quarter last year, while Hasbro’s net revenue from consumer products sales in the region increased by 36% year over year.

With kidcos eyeing up the territory for expansion opportunities, Kidscreen reached out to three companies experiencing success in LatAm for insight on what’s working and why.

Brazil’s Pinguim Content has been deeply rooted in the region since launching in 2009, quickly making waves there with the debut of 2D-animated adventure series Fishtronaut on Discovery Kids Latin America.

“It was the number-one channel for preschoolers at that time. And when Fishtronaut became the top-ranked show, kids, parents and companies began calling us, hungry for consumer products,” says Celia Catunda, Pinguim’s creative director. “It was hard for us to handle, being our first property. But it was a great opportunity to learn about the market and retailers in Brazil, and to give us the right context in order to succeed.”

For Pinguim to build a strong foundation in the region, the “right context” involved hiring Brazilian licensing agency Redibra to help develop its first CP program, and partnering with Paramount Pictures Brazil to handle home video production for the series.

While toys, publishing and apparel were Pinguim’s core pillars at launch in 2012, the company began moving Fishtronaut into new categories including software, back-to-school and party goods in pursuit of a full-range licensing program.

Taking what it learned from its partners, Pinguim brought its licensing and marketing teams in house in 2019, right before the pandemic struck.

And luckily, the company had Earth to Luna! (156 x 15 minutes, pictured above) in its pocket. This 2D-animated educational comedy series premiered on Discovery Kids in 2014. It follows the adventures of a young girl with a passion for science who treats the world like it’s a giant laboratory for her ambitious experiments.

“Schools in Brazil had a very tough challenge adjusting to online classrooms and teaching children core subjects like science,” says Camila Garcia, Pinguim’s L&M director. “Eventually, they started asking to borrow our content because Luna’s core values resonated with children, and parents supported our show.”

While Pinguim used the same CP rollout strategy for Earth to Luna! as it did for Fishtronaut, the strength of response to the Luna line encouraged creative thinking at the company.

Pinguim spied an opportunity to link its Earth to Luna! brand to farm-raised food products, inking a licensing deal with France’s Label Rouge

Following an episode in Luna‘s third season where she visits her family’s ranch and learns about the values of raising animals and growing vegetables, Pinguim decided to pursue food as a category, inking a deal with France-based poultry company Label Rouge to release a licensed line of free-range eggs in grocery stores and mass retailers including Walmart.

Meanwhile, LA-based ZAG Entertainment expanded into the LatAm region in 2017 to build on the global footprint of its flagship CG-animated show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.

Targeting the region’s population of 44 million children ages of zero to 14, the company now has close to 100 licensees working across LatAm to cover every product category possible, from toys and apparel, to back-to-school and party goods.

“In 2021, ZAG decided to change its strategy in LatAm,” says Angela Cortez, VP of consumer products. “Instead of working with licensing agencies, we set up a direct operation for the consumer products business so that dedicated local teams could be closer to partners, retailers and distributors, and build a strong and lasting evergreen strategy.”

This move was key to ZAG’s success in the region, she adds, as it enabled the company to operate at the local level, understand the differences between the countries in the LatAm region, and navigate core challenges such as economic fluctuations, taxes and politics.

Despite the pandemic impacting the region’s retail sales, Cortez says ZAG’s consumer products business flourished by responding to the sudden increase in demand for e-commerce solutions. The company established its own ecommerce division in 2021 and launched the official ZAG online store to help its partners sell licensed products online.

Eighteen additional ZAG stores operate through online retailers including Amazon, with 26 more expected to go live in 17 countries by the end of the year. Collectively, they offer more than 10,000 products.

Miraculous IP owner ZAG has made a major push into LatAm with a focus on local, regionalized strategies

ZAG has also launched collaborations with several brands—such as fast-food giant Burger King, beauty product manufacturer Revlon and Italian collectibles company Panini—to expand the reach of Miraculous and give the show’s audience reasons to remain engaged between content drops.

While ZAG expanded into the region swiftly with its strongest-performing property and successful consumer products lineup, UK-based Moonbug Entertainment is taking its time.

Moonbug is working toward a full multi-category CP program for LatAm’s preschool audience after researching how its core properties CocoMelon and Blippi are performing with Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking audiences online.

“Looking at our YouTube viewership and watch-time, we know that Latin American Spanish is the second best-performing language, and Brazilian Portuguese is the third,” says Marta Braun, Moonbug’s LatAm distribution director. “We know there’s a huge demand for our brands in the market, and there’s plenty of engagement from our consumers.”

While CoComelon and Blippi master toy partner Jazwares is already in the market, multi-category programs are expected to launch in Q4 2022, starting with Mexico.

Marisela Escobedo, Moonbug’s senior territory manager in LatAm, says she believes the company can be competitive in the market by hiring local agencies to help promote its portfolio of brands.

“LatAm is becoming a very digitized region, but every country requires a very specific social media strategy because the influencers and trends that emerge are often different,” says Escobedo.

She is also looking into incorporating digital elements into the company’s physical products in the region to increase their value.

“Latin American audiences look for quality, competitive pricing and products that actually tell a good story, especially when it comes to toys. I think that by adding in codes that unlock exclusive content or AR elements, we are satisfying their hunger for these types of products and remaining competitive.” And we have also been using the 3D scanning service that can be found at https://physicaldigital.com/services/3d-scanning/, as it’s by far the best way to get very accurate specifications from competitor products.

The two Moonbug executives agree that while the region is full of unique challenges, the toughest ones they need to overcome as a young studio are building their programs from scratch, and finding a niche to effectively compete with LatAm’s giants.

“There is a hunger for our products and our content. We just have to establish ourselves and prove that we are here to stay,” says Braun.

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen’s August/September 2022 magazine.