Everything Old Is New Again

You knew 'em and loved 'em. From Looney Tunes to Strawberry Shortcake, to Care Bears, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Thomas the Tank Engine, almost every adult remembers the popular brands from their childhood. Now marketers are reviving yesterday's beloved characters to rekindle fond memories from adults—and win the hearts of a new bunch of kids.

Characters are getting dramatic makeovers. After roaming the grounds of Disneyland and Disney World for decades, Mickey and friends will appear in CGI animation in Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, set to debut on The Disney Channel in 2006. Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes crew will receive a futuristic overhaul for Kids' WB!.

Besides building a booming business based on a practically defunct area of syndication—kids TV—DIC Entertainment has managed to resurrect Strawberry Shortcake—and a $1 billion annual retail business. Last year, DIC also licensed Trollz, based on those crazy-eyed rubber dolls with hair gone wild, and the brand is booming all over the world.

A Trollz TV series will air internationally. In the U.S., the brand is succeeding on its retail efforts alone. “Trollz has been out twice in the past—once in the '60s and once in the '80s. There's something very archetypal about the hair and the hairplay,” says Andy Heyward, chairman/CEO of DIC Entertainment. “It's one of those things that has great resonance with kids.”

Some brands, like Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony, fell dormant after attracting huge audiences—and huge toy store sales—in the 1980s. Others, such as the haphazardly coiffed Trollz and Clifford the Big Red Dog, evolved slowly for decades before generating major buzz in their new incarnations.

Of course, a few old favorites have retained a stubborn appeal. Tom and Jerry continue to chase each other in perpetuity on the Cartoon Network. And for the past 35 years, Sesame Workshop has helped kids learn to read through Sesame Street.

“You never get these classic brands to a place that is truly nostalgic,” says Eleo Hensleigh, chief marketing officer, Disney ABC Television Group. “They never rest.”

“Part of being able to make a brand work is to keep it relevant,” says Deborah Forte, president of Scholastic Entertainment, which produces Clifford and Maya and Miguel for PBS, among other properties. “We thought that kids could really identify with Clifford because he's like them. He's going out into a world that isn't homogenous.”

Today, Clifford is a top-rated show on PBS, 40 years after the big red dog first appeared in storybooks. A spinoff, Clifford's Puppy Days, airs on PBS Kids.

Sesame Street is enjoying new-found trendiness among tweens and teens, with favorite characters Ernie, Bert, Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch appearing on all sorts of apparel.

“There are so many competitive pressures today that everybody is looking for possible funding sources,” says Liz Kalodner, EVP/general manager of Sesame Workshop's global consumer products division. “Licensing is one important source of revenue.”

Sesame Workshop is a non-profit, and licensing makes up 60% of the organization's revenues.

“All of the money that we make goes right back into helping children. It allows us to do programming in areas of the world—South Africa, Egypt, Bangladesh—where there may not otherwise be programming,” Kalodner says.

While Sesame Street and its companion products have remained a constant in the market, the Care Bears—soft, fuzzy teddy bears with messages on their bellies—faded away during the 1980s. Two decades later, American Greetings decided it was time to resuscitate the brand.

“There isn't any reason for someone not to like a colorful bear with a colorful symbol on its tummy,” says Jeffrey Conrad, American Greetings VP of entertainment and creative licensing. Science might be unable to prove his point, but Conrad seems right on track: Today, Care Bears is one of American Greetings' biggest brands, bringing in some $1.5 billion annually.

The company built the revival without the support of a TV show. However, screen time is just around the corner. A direct-to-home video starring the Care Bear bunch scored with kids, and an animated TV show is in the works.

In fact, American Greetings has had so much success with Care Bears, it hopes to repeat with Holly Hobbie, a figure, aimed at girls, with the homespun sensibilities of Little House on the Prairie. American Greetings has signed a new licensing deal with Viacom Consumer Products—the geniuses that market lucrative brands like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants to the tune of $3 billion a year. And this time, Holly won't be wearing a bonnet.

“She's totally reinvented,” Conrad says, “and she looks really cute.”

Warner Bros. works hard to keep its many popular characters on the radar, constantly reinventing them for new shows, primarily on Time Warner-owned properties.

Loonatics Unleashed—the 70-year-old Looney Tunes set 700 years in the future—is being prepped for Kids' WB! in fall 2005. “This show is not intended to replace the Looney Tunes, which I'm sure will continue to air on television or on whatever television evolves into for the next 70 years as well,” says Sander Schwartz, president of Warner Bros. Animation.

Schwartz and his team also produced Kids' WB!'s The Batman, which portrays the caped crusader in his early 20s.

Cartoon Network and new digital sister network Boomerang also get solid ratings with such familiar shows as What's New Scooby Doo?, The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

In the end, reviving a brand is both a creative and business decision, executives say. “Everybody is always looking for properties that carry the smallest amount of risk,” says Kalodner. And if Mickey Mouse isn't a safe bet, who is?