Rovio flies high with Angry Birds
05.06.11
"We want to build a brand and an entertainment franchise," he told Media in an email interview. "This is the first time a game has struck a chord in the mainstream, with largely an audience who have never played video games before.
"When you think about brands like Hello Kitty, or Pokemon, it's less and less obvious where these brands initially started, where the characters and stories came from.
"That is how we envision Angry Birds -- as an entertainment brand, with equally strong branches in media other than gaming."
In another step towards the birds' planned total world domination, Rovio recently signed a local licensing deal with Wild Pumpkin that will see a cornucopia of themed merchandise come on sale in Australia and New Zealand in spring, including fashion, footwear, homewares, stationery, mobile accessories and more. But not all at once.
"We have to be very careful not to flood the market so you won't see a lot of products this year, but what you will see are selected items that are cool," says Lim Mi-Kyoung, director of Wild Pumpkin, which also manages the local licensing for brands including World Wrestling Entertainment, Ben 10, Hi-5 and the Discovery Channel.
Source: The Australian