Paramount Consumer Products

Last updated
Paramount Consumer Products
FormerlyNickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products (1991–2019)
ViacomCBS Consumer Products (2019–2022)
Company type Division
IndustryMerchandising
PredecessorCBS Consumer Products (2009–2019)
Founded1991;34 years ago (1991) [1]
Headquarters
One Astor Plaza, New York City
,
United States
Area served
Worldwide
ServicesLicensing
Parent Paramount Consumer Products and Experiences [2] [3]
Subsidiaries
  • Paramount Game Studios
  • Paramount Shop
  • Paramount Licensing, Inc.

Paramount Consumer Products (formerly Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products, then ViacomCBS Consumer Products) is the retailing and licensing division of Paramount Global. The department is in charge of merchandising for Paramount-owned brands. As of 2015, the division was valued at $3 billion. [4]

Contents

While the company manages merchandise for the entire Paramount portfolio (including Paramount Pictures and Comedy Central), its main focus is Paramount's children's television brand, Nickelodeon. Most of its products are based on TV shows that originated on the network, as well as properties that they purchased and incorporated into Nickelodeon, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx Club . [5] From 2007 onward, the division's most profitable property has been SpongeBob SquarePants . [6]

According to an article in The Chicago Tribune , Paramount Consumer Products takes "an unconventional approach to licensing" where the company waits up to two years after a show's premiere before releasing tie-in merchandise. This is in contrast to competitors like Disney Consumer Products, which generally release products to coincide with a premiere. [7]

History

1990s and 2000s

Logo and toys from when the company was known as Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products Nickelodeon-and-Viacom-Consumer-Products.jpg
Logo and toys from when the company was known as Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products

Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP) was founded in 1991. [1] At first, it was a subdivision of Nickelodeon Enterprises, [8] a business unit set up to license Nickelodeon's properties to other companies. [a]

One of the division's first profitable franchises was Rugrats , which the News & Record called Nickelodeon's "first big splash in consumer products." [9] Merchandise sales for Rugrats peaked at over $1 billion in 1999. [9] The following year, NVCP released merchandise spun off from Blue's Clues , which also garnered over a billion dollars in revenue. [9]

SpongeBob SquarePants represented the "company's biggest surprise" when tie-in products were first released in the early 2000s. Revenues from SpongeBob items exceeded Nickelodeon's expectations by over $250 million. At first, merchandising companies were hesitant to produce merchandise based on the show, and they "underestimated consumers' emotional connection" with it. By 2003, however, there were over 100 companies that were licensed to use the SpongeBob brand. [9]

Shows like SpongeBob helped Nickelodeon Enterprises (the branch of Nickelodeon that included NVCP) become Viacom's fastest-growing asset in the early 2000s. [10] In 2003, Nickelodeon's consumer products arm generated $2.5 billion in sales, which marked a 19 percent increase from the year before. [7] Meanwhile, the sales of the company's main competitors (Disney and Warner Bros.) were both flat compared to the previous year. [7]

In late 2003, the division experimented with creating a pair of new properties that were not based on TV characters. These "off-channel" brands were the video game franchise Tak and the Power of Juju and everGirl , a doll line and website designed to promote a positive self-image for girls. [11] everGirl was co-created by Angela Santomero (one of the creators of Blue's Clues) [12] and its development was overseen by Leigh Anne Brodsky, [12] who went onto become the president of NVCP from 2004 [13] to late 2011. [14]

Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products took over Paramount Pictures' licensing activities in 2004, relocating all operations to New York. [15] Paramount, which is Viacom's film division, had previously managed licensing from its own Hollywood offices. Three years later, Paramount regained its own licensing division in Hollywood with the foundation of a separate department called Paramount Licensing. [16]

In 2007, NVCP named Jakks Pacific as the master licensee for SpongeBob SquarePants, continuing a long partnership between the two companies. [17]

2010s

Entrance to the Nickelodeon Store in London London - Nickelodeon Store.jpg
Entrance to the Nickelodeon Store in London

Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products appointed Michael Connolly, a former Disney Consumer Products executive, as head of international consumer products in 2010. In the following years, Connolly helped relaunch two brands that Viacom had purchased: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx Club . Connolly said that TMNT represented an opportunity to appeal to collectors and the "comic book geek crowd" while Winx Club provided Nickelodeon "with a much-needed girl's property." [5] One of Nickelodeon's top priorities for 2012 was to reboot both franchises worldwide; Kidscreen reported that the company had "international plans to make a splash at retail with the rebooted Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx IPs." [18]

In 2012, Connolly suggested that Viacom's consumer products had been decreasingly relevant to the public for several years, and that he hoped the introduction of the toyetic brands TMNT and Winx Club would change this. [5] Connolly also stated that SpongeBob toys did not sell as well as other non-toy products based on the franchise:

While SpongeBob is a great franchise, it has never been a heavy-hitting toy aisle property. With TMNT, that's all about to change, and buyers believe that TMNT will re-invigorate the toy aisle. Winx [Club] puts us more prominently in the girl's aisle and offers wider opportunities. [5]

From 2013 to 2015, Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products started to open Nickelodeon-branded stores worldwide, including a flagship location in Leicester Square, London. [19] Around 80 percent of the stores' merchandise was exclusive; Nickelodeon opened an online e-commerce site at NickelodeonStore.co.uk so that international fans could buy it. [20] By 2016, NVCP had opened twelve different Nickelodeon stores. [21]

Following the 2019 merger of CBS and Viacom, Nickelodeon & Viacom Consumer Products (NVCP) was renamed ViacomCBS Consumer Products (VCP), and it began to manage merchandise for CBS-owned properties from CBS Television Studios and Showtime. As a result, CBS Consumer Products was integrated into VCP. [22]

Notes

  1. ↑ By 2005, the Nickelodeon Enterprises name was no longer used, with NVCP now covering all of the company's licensing.

Related Research Articles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, commonly abbreviated as TMNT, is a media franchise created by the comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It follows Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, four anthropomorphic turtle brothers trained in ninjutsu who fight evil in New York City. The franchise encompasses printed media, television series, feature films, video games, and merchandise.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nickelodeon</span> American childrens pay television channel

Nickelodeon is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through Paramount Media Networks' subdivision, Nickelodeon Group. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children, the channel is primarily aimed at children and adolescents aged 2 to 17, along with a broader family audience through its program blocks.

Nickelodeon Universe is the name of two indoor amusement parks located at Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota and American Dream in East Rutherford, New Jersey, with a third location under construction at the Mall of China in Chongqing, China. The parks consist of attractions and rides based on Nickelodeon’s popular franchises. The amusement parks are owned and operated by the Triple Five Group with licensing rights from Paramount Global, which owns Nickelodeon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicktoons</span> Animated series brand used by Nickelodeon

Nicktoons is a collective name used by Nickelodeon for their original animated series. All Nicktoons are produced partly at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio and list Nickelodeon's parent company in their copyright bylines.

<i>Winx Club</i> Animated series

Winx Club is an animated television series co-produced by Rainbow SpA and later Nickelodeon. It was created and directed by Italian animator Iginio Straffi. It premiered on 28 January 2004, becoming a ratings success in Italy and on Nickelodeon networks internationally. The show is set in a magical universe that is inhabited by fairies, witches, and other mythical creatures. The main character is a fairy warrior named Bloom, who enrolls at Alfea College to train and hone her skills. The series uses a serial format with an ongoing storyline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rainbow S.p.A.</span> Italian studio

Rainbow S.p.A. is an Italian studio founded by Iginio Straffi and co-owned by Viacom from 2011 to 2023. Rainbow has collaborated with Viacom/Paramount's other company, Nickelodeon, on multiple shows, including Winx Club and Club 57. The studio is based in Loreto, Marche and was founded by Straffi in 1995. Rainbow began as an animation studio, providing creative services for larger companies until it secured enough funds for original productions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Robbins</span> American businessman

Brian Robbins is an American film producer, director, and actor serving as co-CEO of Paramount Global since 2024, president of Nickelodeon since 2018, and president and CEO of Paramount Pictures since 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nickelodeon Animation Studio</span> American animation studio

Nickelodeon Animation Studio Inc., is an American animation studio owned by Paramount Global through the Nickelodeon Group. It has created many original animated television programs for Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Loud House, among various others. Since the 2010s, the studio has also produced its own series based on preexisting IP purchased by Paramount Global, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx Club. In November 2019, Nickelodeon Animation Studio signed a multiple-year output deal for Netflix, which will include producing content, in both new and preexisting IP, for the streaming platform, while also doing so for Paramount+.

Disney Consumer Products, Inc. is the retailing and licensing subsidiary of the Disney Experiences segment of The Walt Disney Company. Previously, Consumer Products was a segment of Disney until 2016, then a unit of Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media (2016–2018).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Nickelodeon</span> Historical timeline

Nickelodeon is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is part of the Nickelodeon Group, a unit of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global, which focuses on programs for children and teenagers ages 2 to 17 years old.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paramount Animation</span> Animated media production division of Paramount Pictures

Paramount Animation is an American animation studio, serving as the animation division and label of Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The division was founded on July 6, 2011, following the box office success of Paramount's own Rango and the end of their distribution deal with DreamWorks Animation in 2012.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is an American animated television series developed by Ciro Nieli, Joshua Sternin, and Jennifer Ventimilia for Nickelodeon, based on the characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The series begins with the Turtles emerging from their sewer home for the first time, using their ninjutsu training to fight enemies in present-day New York City. The series ran in the United States from September 28, 2012, to November 12, 2017.

Robert Marc Bakish is an American business executive. He became the president and CEO of Paramount Global on December 4, 2019, formerly holding the same position at Viacom before the merger with CBS Corporation. He resigned on April 29, 2024 when Paramount was considering a major merger after a poor performance in the stock market.

<i>SpongeBob SquarePants</i> (franchise) Nickelodeon media franchise

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated comedy media franchise created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg and owned by Viacom International under the Nickelodeon brand. It began with the series, which premiered in 1999, and went on to become one of the longest-running American animated series. The franchise is the most profitable property for Paramount Consumer Products, having generated over $13 billion in merchandising revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nickelodeon Group</span> American childrens entertainment division of Paramount Media Networks

Nickelodeon Group, also known as Nickelodeon Networks Inc., is an American children's entertainment company owned by Paramount Global through its Paramount Media Networks division that oversees cable television channels, its in-house animation studio, and Paws, Inc.

References

  1. 1 2 "Viacom Consumer Products - Company Profile". Bloomberg. Retrieved 15 November 2012.
  2. ↑ "Paramount Global Consumer Products and Experiences Announces Expanded Roles Among Key Leaders". Licensing International. 2022-05-25. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  3. ↑ "Paramount Consumer Products & Experiences Company Page - MarketingPartnerships.com". marketingpartnerships.com. Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  4. ↑ "Can Retail Drive Growth For Viacom's Consumer Products Business?". Forbes . July 8, 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Lisanti, Tony (September 24, 2012). "Turtle power". License! Global. Archived from the original on 2012-11-03.
  6. ↑ Szalai, Georg (October 18, 2013). "London Expo: Nickelodeon Touts $475 Million in Retail Sales". The Hollywood Reporter .
  7. 1 2 3 Service, Sherri Day, New York Times News. "Nickelodeon soaks up market share". chicagotribune.com.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ↑ "Nickelodeon Networks Realigns Senior Management". Animation World Network.
  9. 1 2 3 4 D'Innocenzio, Anne (February 5, 2003). "'SpongeBob' rules: Nickelodeon merchandise a hit with consumers". News & Record .
  10. ↑ Day, Sherri (January 9, 2003). "SpongeBob and Pals Provide Licensing Gold for Nickelodeon". The New York Times .
  11. ↑ Flint, Joe (October 9, 2003). "Testing the Limits of Licensing: SpongeBob-Motif Holiday Inn". The Wall Street Journal .
  12. 1 2 "Nick takes to the web to launch everGirl lifestyle fashion brand". Kidscreen . January 1, 2004.
  13. ↑ "Viacom's Nickelodeon Realigns Management". Los Angeles Times . October 12, 2004.
  14. ↑ Frankel, Daniel; Lang, Brent (September 16, 2011). "Leigh Anne Brodsky Out as Nickelodeon/Viacom Licensing Chief" – via www.reuters.com.
  15. ↑ Schiller, Gail (March 2, 2007). "Paramount licensing back in-house". The Hollywood Reporter .
  16. ↑ "Moving a Mountain". License! Global. 2007.
  17. ↑ "SpongeBob's new brand master". The Hollywood Reporter . October 12, 2007.
  18. ↑ "Nickelodeon Consumer Products Canada to launch on October 1".
  19. ↑ Ritman, Alex (October 6, 2014). "Nickelodeon Retail Store to Open in London". The Hollywood Reporter .
  20. ↑ "Nickelodeon UK Store launches online store". www.vimn.com.
  21. ↑ "Next stop, Dubai: Nickelodeon set to open 12th store". Kidscreen . October 13, 2015.
  22. ↑ "ViacomCBS Press Express - CBS Consumer Products". May 2, 2020. Archived from the original on 2020-05-02.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.