As a collaborative model that promotes business value through cross-border collaboration, the rapid development of the authorization industry is constantly expanding the market's imagination.
According to the "2024 Global Licensing Market Report" released by Licensing International in August this year, the global retail sales of licensed goods and services will reach $356.5 billion in 2023. Among them, the retail sales of authorized goods and services in China increased by 9.6% year-on-year to 13.77 billion US dollars, surpassing Germany for the first time, second only to the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan, and jumping to the fourth largest authorized market in the world.
The 17th China International Brand Licensing Exhibition will be held in Shanghai from October 16th to 18th. Disney, Universal, Hasbro, Alpha, Tencent Video, Alibaba Fish and other companies showcased numerous well-known IPs at the exhibition. During this period, Marianne James, Senior Vice President of Global Authorization Business at Hasbro, publicly stated that the authorization industry in China has entered the 2.0 era from the 1.0 era after years of development. The authorized products with simple textures in the past can no longer meet consumers' deeper needs, and consumers are increasingly valuing their spiritual needs. These changes require authorization from both parties to integrate brand and product concepts into storytelling, while also requiring more creative marketing and promotion methods.
As the world's leading toy and game company, Hasbro was founded in 1923 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1999. Hasbro has more than 1800 iconic IP brands, including Transformers, Burly Ma, Peppa Pig, real estate tycoon, Pernod, and so on. Through setting brand authorization offices around the world, Hasbro has reached cooperation with multiple licensors, covering entertainment, toys, games, fashion, lifestyle, landing entertainment experience and other fields.
China has become an important strategic market and growth engine for Hasbro. Regarding Hasbro's main strategy in the Greater China region, Qian Jing, authorized consumer goods manager for Hasbro Greater China, stated in an interview with media including the International Finance News that "firstly, we will maximize our market reach by continuously promoting authorized cooperation, such as joint marketing between Hasbro's IP and numerous brands in various fields; secondly, we will provide comprehensive IP content to consumers with IP as the core, and hope that such promotion can benefit our partners, including digital, entertainment, content, as well as gaming, toys and many other fields of enterprises. Thirdly, we will win in the terminal consumption track, and further create better authorized products to improve. The stickiness of consumers and fans to the authorized brand of Hasbro
I have always believed that the issues of retail, products, and brands are interconnected. If we want to achieve 'winning at the end', the first thing to consider is the improvement of product strength. Only good products can continue to win the favor of consumers at the end. We have increased our investment in product research and creative assets. Secondly, we can directly cooperate with retailers because they directly reach consumers. Through cooperation with them, we can better understand what consumers are thinking and needing, and based on this demand, we can better create products and services that are suitable for them, "Qian Jing further pointed out.
In Qian Jing's opinion, for IP authorization enterprises, "content" plays an indispensable role, linking the emotional value of consumers. According to Qian Jing, Hasbro will continue to strengthen the continuity and innovation of its content, conveying the brand story to the world through attractive content and establishing deep connections with fans. This year, the release of the Transformers movie series "Transformers: Origins" has been well received by fans. In 2025, Hasbro's brand will also bring a series of new film and television content, such as the second season of Peppa Pig Miniseries, the sixth season of Little Hero in Pajamas, the eleventh season of Peppa Pig, the first season of Little Malaysia, and the second season of Transformers: The Earth's Fire.
It is worth mentioning that the current trend of IP going global has become unstoppable. While accelerating its layout in the Chinese market, Hasbro is also actively helping Chinese authorized partners set sail overseas. Only last year, Hasbro has helped brands such as Bruker, Card Game, Weihongxing, and Yiteng obtain overseas authorization, and is currently steadily promoting product overseas and overseas promotion plans. Qian Jing told reporters that IP overseas is not just about content output, but also a complex business operation process behind it. Successful IP overseas cannot be achieved without precise localization.