Born Licensing to Offer Character Licensing Workshops for Aussie and NZ Adland

Leading licensing agent Born Licensing has announced that it will offer a series of workshops for Australian and New Zealand based advertising production and creative teams which will provide the tools needed for agencies to incorporate famous fictional characters more confidently into their work. 

The 45-minute workshops will be run virtually by the recently appointed director of business development Stephanie Candiloro, who previously held roles at Warner Bros. and Entertainment One. 

The offering follows a busy 3-month period where Born Licensing Owner David Born ran workshops for agency production and creative teams across the UK. Agencies of all sizes attended the virtual presentations including McCann, TBWA, Leo Burnett, Engine, BBH, Ogilvy and more. 

The announcement comes as Born Licensing shares results from a survey conducted in October by IPSOS which showed that Australians ‘most like’ to see fictional characters in advertising compared to celebrities, sports stars and musicians. 35% of Australian adults said they ‘most like’ to see fictional characters in advertisements while 31% said celebrities, 18% sports stars and 16% musicians.

The licensing agent also shared results from a review of over 500 advertisements airing in Australia and New Zealand in 2020 which showed fictional characters appearing in only 0.52% of ads, significantly less than celebrities (6.28%), sport stars (5.24%) and musicians (1.75%).

The licensing workshops, which are available to book now, will help advertising agencies navigate common challenges when working with fictional characters. 

Earlier this year Born Licensing published their first ever white paper which addressed how fictional characters are under-utilised in UK advertising, with similar results. Consistent with the Australian study, original research from Born Licensing showed that 38% of UK adults most like to see fictional characters in advertising – more than celebrities, musicians and sports stars. Despite this, celebrities, musicians and sports stars are 13.4 times more likely to appear in UK ads than fictional characters .

David Born, Founder of Born Licensing, comments, “Our research clearly shows that fictional characters are being under-utilised in Australian advertising. During the workshops we offer production and creative teams tips on how to best approach working with characters with an aim to boost their confidence when going about this in the future.”

Born Licensing has managed the licensing of characters and IP in campaigns around the world for major brands such as Uber, KFC, Cadbury, Danone, Direct Line, Facebook, Tesco, Barclaycard, British Airways, Old Navy, Menulog, Subaru, Walmart, T-Mobile, Samsung, Ritz and Instagram.

The virtual workshops are free of charge and will take place throughout October and November. Bookings can be made by emailing stephanie.candiloro@bornlicensing.com.