George@Asda buyer’s licensing vision earns Carte Blanche’s £500 BLE retailer prize
Ghanika Neranja is looking forward to a luxurious spa day thanks to Carte Blanche Greetings as the George@Asda assistant buyer scooped the publisher’s big prize from the competition it set at the recent Brand Licensing Europe.
As part of its programme licensing the iconic Me To You brand, Carte Blanche and its recently-appointed licensing agent Bulldog Licensing ran a competition for retailers to design a range of licensed products featuring signature character Tatty Teddy.
Run within BLE’s Retail Mentoring Programme, a free course to educate retailers in the key aspects of brand licensing, visitors to the Informa Markets Retail Lounge at the show could put their design skills to the test using brand-new Tatty Teddy creative.
And the £500 Champneys voucher prize went to Ghanika as CBG felt she captured the brief with a range of commercial Me To You products for parents and kids, supported with physical and digital marketing activation, creative in-store merchandising and promotional ideas.
Carte Blanche marketing manager Grace Elphinstone said: “A big thank you to all retailers who entered the competition and huge congratulations to our very worthy winner. The competition was a great opportunity to showcase our new creative for Me To You and inspire our retailers with the versatility of the brand.”
Part of the George@Asda team which picked up an award at the Licensing Awards on 13 September, Ghanika reckons she has the “best job ever” and exclaimed that winning the competition had “made her week” and said she “loved the fact that it was a creative task where we could really pull together our imaginary range and visualise how it would look”.
She’s planning on sharing her luxurious spa day with her sister for a much-needed break after an extremely busy and successful trip checking out BLE.
CBG’s head of licensing Talia Tester and licensing approvals coordinator Aneta Gral had a busy time setting up the publisher’s stand for BLE as they had to wrangle no less than 400 plush Tatty Teddies and Tiny Tatty Teddies into two frames for the display – but their handiwork hasn’t gone to waste as the artworks are to be installed in the company’s Chichester head office.
Top: Tatty Teddy was Carte Blanche’s focus at BLE
