All about Aardman
Aardman Rights, the marketing, licensing and international TV distribution division of the award-winning Aardman Animations, recently held a property showcase in Bristol’s exclusive Arnolfini gallery (the very same room where the live political debate took place month before!).
The event was held to update Aardman’s partners and licensees on the growth and development of its brands over the past 12 months, and all the exciting future plans the company has in store.
Around 120 attendees gained a comprehensive overview of Aardman’s plans for all of its popular properties, including Wallace & Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Timmy Time and Morph, as well as some sneak previews into some brand new – and very exciting – broadcast projects. They even got a sneaky peek at two new upcoming Aardman feature films, Arthur Christmas and Pirates!.
With a strong running theme throughout all the presentations, it quickly became clear that Aardman is embracing multi-platform opportunities more than ever, with exhibitions and live events growing massively over the past two years and a digital platform remaining integral to all of its properties and projects.
This last part of Aardman’s business has been integral to the company, and with the digital offering going from strength to strength the team has more than doubled (increasing from seven members of staff to 15) in the past six months. This significant expansion is also due to several recent large commissions and new business wins for external clients – including the prestigious Tate Movie Project.
Each of Aardman’s properties was considered in some detail, and key highlights for each were outlined. Timmy Time was tackled first, with the popular pre-school animation due to reach its 1000th transmission on Sunday 6th June. The daily output on Cbeebies and incremental slots on BBC1 and BBC2 all continue with no signs of abating, and new episodes have recently started airing across both BBC2 and CBeebies. Post-production is almost complete on the first 52 of these new episodes, while 26 brand new episodes will be going into production later in the year.
As a brand, Timmy has been extremely popular – 230, 000 Timmy books have sold since the 2009 launch and the little lamb is a top five property
across pre-school toys and plush (NPD 2010 year-to-date). Current activity includes the Fairy promotion which has now launched across both TV and print, a
nd is going incredibly well. Aardman Digital has also recently launched a brand new game on the Timmy website in support of the promotion.
The
new TV series Wallace & Gromit present A World of Invention is now in production, with the animated segments being produced at Aardman and live action segments being filmed all over the world. The concept is truly multi-platform, with a live road show due to launch alongside the TV show (which is due to air in autumn 2010) and an exciting website proposition supporting all aspects of the show and live events.
Aardman is also looking forward to new product launches at the end of the year, including The Wrong Trousers graphic novel and the Wallace & Gromit Haynes manual, plus the Harper Collins book which will accompany the new TV series. The A World of Cracking Ideas exhibition is doing well at its new location, in the Glasgow Science Centre, while the Wallace & Gromit in Space exhibition at Spaceport, recently enjoyed its strongest Easter ever.
More than 3.2 million Shaun the Sheep DVDs have been sold since the show launched way back in late 2007. This incredibly popular property has a very strong online presence, with over 221,000 Facebook fans and 150,000 website visitors a month. The latest online game, Home Sheep Home, has had 20 million plays in its first three months!
Aardman is also working on further confidential projects which it is hoping to announce in more detail at some point within the next six to 12 months. So watch this space...
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