Products for adults make up half the firm’s sales.
Technologies such as digital media are helping characters cross borders, said Marty Brochstein, senior vice president of the international Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA), but she warned that cultural characteristics were important.
In Japan, Moomin plays into a long-running craze for cute things, said Roger Berman, managing director of the Japanese branch of LIMA. It was a similar story to many characters seen in the West as targeting children, such as Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter or The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
“If it looks cute, Japanese adults will buy as much as a child will. They will happily display character hang straps from their mobile phones without self-consciousness,” Brochstein said.
Martin Olausson, digital media director at Strategy Analytics, pointed out, however, that with Disney recently agreeing to buy Marvel’s superheroes, the consolidating industry is tending to focus on established characters to minimize risk, rather than introduce new ones.
“Profitability depends on how strong the brand is,” Olausson said. “There is a very wide spectrum, but firms like Marvel, with a library of globally big characters, can charge a lot.”
In North America, character royalties slid 3.9 percent to US$2.6 billion last year. Giants like Disney and Marvel have suffered as consumers reined in purchases.
The Moomintrolls — curious, bohemian, generous — may be a bit more edgy and eccentric than the US mainstream.
Moomintroll is friendly and wide-eyed. He picks flowers and likes to fish. Besides Little My, who plays pranks, his friends are oddball. Snufkin smokes a pipe.
Where Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood has Eeyore the grumpy donkey, Moominvalley has a melancholy scientist, the Hemulen. A hill-shaped, lethal spook called the Groke invokes all winter’s pain. Even the comedy Hattifatteners — finger-shaped electric creatures which move in a flock — are unsettling.
Tove Jansson, who died in 2001, said her own experiences were the basis for her work and the experience of war may be one distinguishing factor making Europeans and Japanese susceptible to her sense of shyness and feelings of disaster.
Some experts, like Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, have said technology now allows firms to cater to increasingly fragmented audiences, boosting niche products.
Olausson, however, while not ruling out that Moomins could catch on, said there was little evidence to show a niche product could thrive in the profit-driven US market without the backup of a big player.
Lana Castleman, managing editor of Canadian trade magazine KidScreen, was also cautious about the chances of success for Moomins in a market that has traditionally favored princesses and spidermen above new characters.
“It’s a completely different mindset,” Castleman said. “They [Moomins] are very different from current and historical American characters, such as Mickey and Winnie, both in the way they look and content of the stories.”
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