BRAND BULLETIN
September 2012
2 This month’s September edition of the DCT Brand Bulletin showcases news updates, current and new licensed products from the Consumer Products Team.
● The Beano’s presence was all around and everywhere among the 1,300 retailers, licensees, licensors and suppliers who attended The Licensing Awards 2012 at the Grosvenor House Hotel last month to honour the industry’s highest achievers.
Host for the night, comedian Russell Kane starred in the Beano-themed table menus. Some of the industry’s most respected executives were reportedly prepared to fight whitened tooth and manicured nail to bag the Dennis & Gnasher salt and pepper sets apportioned to each table! But the highlight of the night was the announcement of Gnashional Trust for The National Trust from DC Thomson winning in the category ‘Best Licensed Marketing Communication Campaign’. Many congratulations to all those who contributed in this superbly co-ordinated campaign organised between DC Thomson and The National Trust.
● It’s a tough ask to not require a wet wipe or three after getting stuck into these truly scrumptious offerings from sweet supremos Rose Marketing. They have now added Splat-A-Pults and Mud Pies to their growing range of Dennis & Gnasher confectionery. Brand Marketing’s Carl Richardson, ‘There’s nothing those Masters of Mayhem, Dennis & Gnasher love more that messing around in mud! So look out for Mud Pies from those menaces at Rose Marketing - tasty choc covered wafer cones with a super creamy marshmallow fill, with no artificial colours or flavours....so go on get some now and get messy! And as for Splat-A-Pults - let’s have some tasty fun with Dennis and Gnasher! The menacing team are at it again! Yep, brand new marshmallows with choc flavoured coating with no artificial colours or flavours and gluten free!’ Log on to www.roseconfectionery.com for stockists.
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● We are pleased to announce Card Mix’s range of Beano greetings card which was first launched in February this year is nominated for the final of ‘Best Licensed Range’ category at The Henries Awards 2012 to be held in October. They are rubbing shoulders with a heady mix of modern legends in this category including Angry Birds and One Direction. So fingers crossed!
www.cardmix.co.uk
● TruffleShuffle’s in-house design team’s success at producing the coolest Bananaman T-shirts continue onwards and upwards mirroring the trajectory of our superhero launching himself at warp speed through the air. Fortunately the in-house team are infinitely cleverer than our peabrained hero and remembered to open the skylight! Available end of September at £19.99 each. www.truffleshuffle.co.uk
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● The Magnetic Board Company have taken magnetic boards and wall art to a new dimension adding personalisation and a dry wipe options to their attractive high quality range.
The ‘dry wipe’ boards with speech bubbles are sure to inspire budding comic writers of all ages to dream up endlessly hilarious comments again and again.
Add a character board of The Beano gang, Bananaman or Dennis & Gnasher for an instant cool wall to any room. The Vintage Cover selection hosts evocative titles Victor, The Hotspur, Red Dagger and The Rover Book for Boys. Great ideas for Dads’ Christmas wish list and Mandy and Bunty are perfect for the Mums.
The boards are available in two sizes - 75cm x 100cm and 55cm x 75cm. Director Amanda McIvor, “We are very excited to be launching a range of magnetic boards and wall art featuring these well-known loveable characters and comic titles.
What could be better than having a Desperate Dan notice board were you can write in the speech bubble with a dry wipe pen - it’s ideal for your favourite cow pie recipe! Following our initial discussions with Licensing Agent Ian Downes of Start Licensing we are convinced grown-up fans will love our boards. To have Dennis the Menace and crew on board (ahem!) is such a huge bonus for us as we know many products in our range are also bought as gifts for children because the iconic comic style fits so perfectly. We’re looking forward to see the impact these famous brands will have on sales leading up to Christmas”. www.magneticboard.co/
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● A few months ago we featured the start of a fantastic Beano & Dandy collectable pin badge range (left). Now collectors can feast their eyes on the full set of 50 custometched and hand-enamelled badges of some of the many stars to have appeared throughout the last 75 years of The Beano comic displayed in this beautiful wooden case. Each badge also comes with a collector card featuring a fun biography and enlarged artwork of the badge illustration.
Michael Stirling, Editor-in-Chief of The Beano & BeanoMax, ‘I wore my Gnasher badge loads last month. One of those occasions was when I was on Sky News chatting to Eamonn Holmes. I had people asking me about my badge for days afterwards. Another occasion where it got a fantastic reaction was at Sighthill Primary School in Edinburgh. It seemed as if the entire class wanted one, and this was from children who became Beano fans long after the original fan club had closed. It just goes to show that you can never put a good dog down!’ www.danburymint.co.uk
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● These lenticular Dennis the Menace and Desperate Dan A5 notebooks are handy if you fancy doodling or scribbling down those helpful reminders that can easily slip the mind. You know…clean your teeth, feed the children, flush the toilet, change your socks, pay before leaving a shop, don’t swallow chewing gum*, don’t sleep with your hands under the pillow**, don’t stand on a dandelion ***don’t stare at a monkey puzzle tree**** The notes have got great little illustrations of Dennis and Dan respectively at the bottom of the pages to keep you amused whilst you do your doodles. *it swirls around your stomach for years **the sandman will take them away ***you’ll wet yourself ****there lives an evil monkey that will eat you ● Having survived BBC TV’s ‘Dragon’s Den’, the team at Mask-arade Ltd have turned their attention to an infinitely more formidable line up of characters – Dennis and Gnasher!
Some of these are untrue...
Public Health Warning: a heavy dose of multiple Dennis and Gnasher mask wearers exposed to the general public may incur bouts of raised smiles, prolonged laughs, blood-curling screams, hysterical tears and the occasional theatrical swoon! Result!
Each mask is made from high quality durable card and comes with eye holes and an elastic strap. MD Ray Duffy, ‘Get up to mischief with the all new Dennis and Gnasher Face Masks. We are very excited to add Beano icons, Dennis and Gnasher to our range; they are well-loved, cross-generational characters and will complement our other fantastic licensed character masks.’
● ‘The Art and History of the Dandy’ is a chronicle of 75 years of biffs, bangs and banana skins from the likes of Desperate Dan, Korky the Cat, Beryl the Peril, Keyhole Kate and other intrepid figures who have long since left the comic. Wonderfully illustrated book, an ultimate guide to The Dandy, with detailed archive history of each comic and notes on artists and writers.
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● The Natural Bag Company have added more great Broons and Oor Wullie designs to their high quality jute bags range of various shoppers, lunch, gift and bottle bags.
All bags are ethically manufactured using top quality hessian and every bag comes with a woven branded logo sewn into the seam. There are bags in all styles and sizes, some tae suit the young anes and others the auld fowk wid like. Dinna bother wi’ thae useless plastic bags, oor jute bags are strong and look just great. Fowk aye comment on how braw they look when you load then up wi’ your messages or tak’ them doon the toon for a richt proper shop wi’ the lassies. MD Simon Pritchard, ‘As one of the last remaining jute companies based in Dundee we are very proud to be able to produce the range of The Broons and Oor Wullie jute bags, thus preserving the link between jute and journalism in the city. Throughout the entire process DC Thomson has been very supportive and the finished products have definitely been worth the effort. Initial sales have been excellent and we look forward to developing the range further over the next few years’.
Log on to http://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/ for a wide selection of licensed product and exclusives. For more information contact Roddie Watt, Consumer Products Department, Kingsway. rwatt@dcthomson.co.uk (Information correct at time of writing) ©DC Thomson