Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · Page 33

Amusements33-35 Comfcs41-43 TV44-48 By ROSE DeWOLF Daily News Staff Writer merican Greetings Corporation calls it "the biggest character m A launch in the history of retailing." The biggest what??? The "character" is a "Care Bear." Actually, there are 10 of them, each with its own name, like "Cheer Bear" and "Grumpy Bear" and "Birthday Bear." Next spring, right after these cuddly creatures have been featured in their own animated TV special, American Greetings and 26 other companies will begin selling all manner of Care Bear products. There will be Care Bear greeting cards and Care Bear games and Care Bear sheets and stationary and books and dolls and records and home furnishings and children's underwear . . . and a lot more backed by more than $6 million in advertising. Americans are expected to care so much for these bears, they will spend $250 million in 1983 on things bearing their cute little images. You don't believe it? Just wait. Possibly, you are thinking: Another bear? Don't we already have Teddy Bear and Yogi Bear and Padding-ton Bear and The Potbellied Bear and Smokey the Bear and Winnie the Pooh, too? Yes, but these companies believe that great many of us can barely wait to add still more bears to our otherwise unbearable lives. To understand fully the significance of the "biggest character launch in the history of retailing, vnn have to eo back almost IS vears to what might be called the "smallest character launch in the. history of retailing." 7 ..... -.. " ' Tuesday S - - October 12, 1982 S . , '' . -J'- ' ' " Page 33 fJ j i -.-C"V;- fesv -X- y Is There Shelf Holly Hobbie In 1967, a young woman named Holly Hobbie, fresh out of art school, sent a sketch to American Greetings Corporation. It was of a little girl wearing an old-fashioned gingham dress, Mary Jane shoes, and a ruffled bonnet. American bought it to feature on a line greeting cards. Clever them. The public was captivated. This particular character was never launched at all. She simply took off by herself. The cards fairly leaped into buyers' hands. Whereupon American decided to capitalize on all this Interest by licensing the gingham girl called .Holly Hobbie after its creator to other firms for a percentage of the SSCftlOHl T T LM3M Life After Holly Hobbie? You Bet Care Bear profits. And so there were Holly Hobbie clothes and wallpaper and sleeping bags and roller skates. In no time at all, the Holly Hobbie rag doll was outselling the venerable Raggedy Ann three to one. . (Did Miss Hobbie, the artist, become fabulously rich out of all this? you ask. "She has done very well financially, as we all have," is all American Greetings spokesman John -Hernandis will say.) Holly Hobbie was American Greet-. .ings" first venture into licensing a , character. And this was done the way most licensing is done.W after the character had already established u aj Li Strawberry Shortcake some popularity. After Star Wars was a hot movie, all manner of Star Wars-related products hit the market. After the Dukes of Hazzard became a hit TV series, companies bid for the right to use the names and faces of its characters. This was also true of the Peanuts Comic Strip, TV's Smurfs, and the movie E.T. (American's big rival. Hallmark cards, has signed up E.T. for greetings purposes) and many more. ' But after Holly Hobbie, American Greetings did something quite novel. Apparently, the folks at American decided they liked being in the business of. licensing so much (as opposed to just being among the compa nies licensing characters from others) that they decided to create a character specifically for licensing purposes. That resulted in a little girl character called "Strawberry Shortcake" who had friends with names like Blueberry Muffin, Plum Puddin' and Huckleberry Pie. Even before these characters were introduced (via an animated TV special and an advertising blitz, of course) five companies had agreed to produce Strawberry Shortcake products. American Greetings would produce cards, of course. General Mills Toy Group produced dolls and other items. (A special feature of "Strawberry" and her friends were that they smelled like their fruit . namesakes.) This was risky business. It was not a case of taking an already popular character and selling its name and image. This was a case of selling the name and image of an invented character you intend to make popular. But it worked. "We hit the mother lode," exults American's John Hernandis. Eventually, there were 66 licensees, and in the two years since her "launching," more than $1 billion in Strawberry Shortcake products have been sold. You never know with this sort of thing. Manufacturers of all sorts clamored for the right to produce "Annie" products in advance of the release of the movie of that name. Alas, the movie has not been the smash they'd hoped for. According to Hernandis. Strawberry Shortcake has turned into the most successful licensed character of all time. And Holly Hobbie is still selling well, too. She now has 120 licensees. Greeting card characters, it would seem, have more staying power than movie or TV characters See BEAR Page 40