Gift Focus - May/Jun 2018 (Issue 107)

giftfocus 97 hot property World Book Day once again shone a light on books and book-related characters. Whilst the day this year was blighted by snow, the event itself creates real focus on books and provides momentum at retail. In licensing terms, some well-known characters and personalities featured in the £1 books line up including Nadiya Hussain’s Bake Me A Story and a special edition of the perennially popular Mr Men. The event has created a good opportunity for dress up companies who have developed product ranges based on well-known book, comic and literary characters such as Willy Wonka, the Beano’s Dennis and Minnie the Minx plus newer characters such as those from the David Walliams books. Companies like Rubie’s and Smiffy’s have tapped into the event well and have used it to build distribution for dress up. World Book Day is a great focal point for retailers big and small to build appropriate product ranges around. Whilst this is one day or week in the calendar it does highlight that books and the book world provide retailers with an opportunity to build on a subject and topic that resonates with consumers. Books themselves make great gifts – publishers are getting better at working with a diverse mix of retailers and are also better at creating books that are giftable – a great example of this is the highly successful humour-based Ladybird Books. Interestingly, these books have sparked a good range of licensed products including greetings cards and calendars from Danilo. Products such as these are easy to stock and relatively low risk items – it’s easy to imagine consumers buying a book and a card in combination. Publishers are using licensing in more creative ways in the book world – a really good example of this is a book published by Harper Collins using characters from Coronation Street telling a backstory that didn’t feature on screen. The book was published in the run up to Mother’s Day and features a storyline related to motherhood. At Christmas, annuals are a traditional gift – classic titles like Beano are literally ‘annual’ traditions. Gift companies such as Half Moon Bay have tapped into publishing properties well – for example Half Moon Bay has a full range of Harry Ian Downes hot property Catch up with all the latest from the world of licensing For more information visit startlicensing.co.uk The Gourmet Candy Company extends its RHS confectionery range The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) has announced that The Gourmet Candy Company has extended its RHS confectionery range and expanded the network of retail outlets supplying the range. Along with the existing selection of chocolate gift boxes, nougat and bonbons, the RHS Confectionery range now includes brand-new fudges and chocolate-coated honeycomb bars. All items in the range will use packaging designs inspired by the RHS Lindley Library, the world’s finest collection of botanical art. The RHS Confectionery range – which is available through UK wholesalers including Crème d’Or and Cotswold Fayre – was originally supplied mainly to garden centres and farm shops as well as the RHS shops, based around the UK at the four RHS gardens (Wisley, Harlow Carr, Hyde Hall and Rosemoor). The market for the range is likely to be among lovers of fine confectionery, but there will be a strong secondary market among gift givers looking for unusual and elegant treats to present to friends or family. For more information call +44 (0)20 3176 5820 , or visit the website rhs.org.uk/join Potter gift lines – the company has also recognised that book-based products fit well into the gift market. World Book Day provides a tremendous focus for children’s books but look beyond that and a good book can be a good retail hook for a retailer. And of course, a good read.