Beginning in June, visitors of the ArtScience Museum at Marina Bay Sands, in Singapore, will have a firsthand look inside Harry Potter: The Exhibition. The exhibition will showcase a collection of artifacts from the various film sets and viewing props, including Harry’s wand and eyeglasses, Professor Snape’s original costume, the Golden Snitch, and the Gryffindor school uniforms.

Other featured items include Sybill Trelawney’s crystal ball and exotic wardrobe; costumes and props from Professors Lupin, Lockhart, and Umbridge; artifacts from the Yule Ball, including costumes from such notable characters as Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Professor Dumbledore; and life-size creatures, including centaurs, a caged dragon, Buckbeak the Hippogriff, and a giant Acromantula.

Harry Potter: The Exhibition runs from June 2 through September 30, and tickets will be available for purchase online and at all Marina Bay Sands box offices beginning May 1.

As the official Global Kids’ Ambassador for World Wildlife Fund’s Earth Hour initiative for a second year, Zinkia Entertainment’s character Pocoyo will support the new Earth Hour 2012 “I Will if You Will” campaign by spreading Earth Hour’s message to children around the world and by participating in his own challenge.

For Pocoyo’s challenge, Zinkia has pledged to plant up to 10,000 trees—one tree for every person who goes online to play Pocoyo’s Recycling Game, which launched in February through Earth Hour’s website and the Official Pocoyo Facebook page. A pre-launch test campaign generated nearly 10,000 plays in less than one week. The trees will be planted by charity partner Trees for the Future, whose mission for this year is to plant 17 million trees worldwide.

To promote Pocoyo’s initiative, a new public service announcement featuring Pocoyo is available for on-air broadcast and online across websites and social media platforms. There will also be special Pocoyo Earth Hour activity booklets available for printing and distribution as well as Pocoyo Earth Hour screensavers and wallpapers.

Child’s Play Communications has added the Toronto-based international sales, licensing, and merchandising business, Entertainment One (eOne) to its client roster.

Child’s Play will publicize eOne’s, Peppa Pig, the preschool franchise recently introduced in the U.S. The show involves Peppa, a loveable, exuberant little piggy, who lives with her little brother George, Mommy Pig, and Daddy Pig. Peppa’s favorite things include playing games, dressing up, days out, and jumping in muddy puddles.

Child’s Play Communications will also handle the public relations for Team Mom and Web Mom blogger programs, to generate awareness of the TV series and DVD, books, and toys for this fall.

Trans-media entertainment company Atlantyca Entertainment has secured a licensing agreement with Italian confectioner Sorini S.p.A. for the manufacture and distribution of a new line of Geronimo Stilton Kingdom of Fantasy chocolate Easter eggs.

Under the new deal, Sorini will manufacture individual 280 gram chocolate Easter eggs with a surprise inside each egg, and small bags of six-gram chocolate Easter eggs with a surprise inside each bag. Rachele Geraci, Atlantyca’s licensing and agent manager, secured the deal which will result in products being introduced throughout Italy in time for Easter.

“We are pleased to be working with such a well-known company as Sorini on a new line of products that will serve to reinforce the Kingdom of Fantasy property’s position as a fixture among Italian pop culture this Easter,” said Mazzucco.

Licensing@Russia, the new expo that will take place in Moscow on March 14–16, has unveiled the floor and location plan. The event, which incorporates a trade show, conference, seminars, property presentations, and networking events, will run in the same pavilion and in the next-door hall of the Crocus Expo Centre as Toys & Kids Russia. In addition, Licensing@Russia will also run concurrently with the Skrepka Stationery Fair.

According to organizer Goran Krnjak, interest is running extremely high. “Since announcing the move to Russia we have been dealing with constant demands for information from the international licensing community,” Krnjak says.

Licensing@Russia presents an opportunity for anyone looking to become acquainted with the potential offered by the Russian licensing sector. The timing of the event also gives visitors the chance to enhance the value of their visit by attending a number of shows and tapping into the depth of expertise that will be available. For more information, visit www.licensingshowrussia.com or contact Goran Krnjak (goran@creata.hr).

Nickelodeon has restructured its consumer products business to closely align with its core business, with global, cross-platform property plans as the driving force behind the new organizational model. The new structure emphasizes toys and apparel, and retail marketing becomes integral to Nickelodeon’s overall marketing organization.

The strategic business operations, headed by Nickelodeon Group COO Sarah Kirshbaum Levy, will oversee the toys, interactive and consumer electronics, and soft goods, headed by Manuel Torres and Hal Snik. The Nickelodeon digital team—led by Steve Youngwood, executive vice president, digital, Nickelodeon Group—will manage Nick’s U.S. publishing and home entertainment businesses, headed by Paula Allen and Sherice Torres.

Retail marketing, which is overseen by Ron Johnson, will now report to Pam Kaufman, chief marketing officer, Nickelodeon Group. Packaged goods will report to advertising sales partnerships, led by Sharon Cohen, senior vice president of integrated marketing and ad sales, Nickelodeon Group. All international consumer products operations will continue to be led by Michael Connolly and report to Pierluigi Gazzolo, COO of Viacom International Media Networks. Manuel Torres and Paula Allen will have a dual report into Connolly for all international aspects of their businesses. Nickelodeon Creative Resources will continue to lead all creative components, managed by Russell Hicks, executive vice president and executive creative director, Nickelodeon Group.

Sex and the City has inspired a line of signature eau de perfumes created by Givaudan under a licensing agreement  between HBO and JTG Trading Company, which will manufacture and distribute the collection worldwide.  Two new fragrances, “Sex and City” and “Sex and the City by Night,” as well as “Sex and the City” Body Collections sets, will debut in Europe this month.

The new fragrances were developed by three of Givaudan’s perfumers:  Adriana Medina, known for her creations for Gwen Stefani and Ed Hardy; Rodrigo Flores-Roux, who has created scents for Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss and Estée Lauder; and Claude Dir, the fragrance creator behind Bobbi Brown and Tommy Hilfiger colognes.

“The Sex and the City series continues to resonate with women worldwide,” says James Costos, vice president, Global Licensing & Retail at HBO.  “The appeal of the four main characters, who are as unique, complex and trendy as any woman aspires to be, symbolize the show’s eternal allure.  We’re extremely pleased to partner with Givaudan – the global leader in the fragrance industry.  Their elite perfumers have developed fragrances that capture the essence of Sex and the City and JTG Trading Company has the expertise to execute our vision and deliver this collection around the world.”

In our Brand Licensing Europe issue, we talked about the difficulty of breaking into the Russian market. Now Disney has done it.

According to a report in The New York Times by Brooks Barnes, Disney will purchase 49 percent of SevenTV, a broadcast network reaching three-quarters of Russian television households. United TV Holding Russia will remain the majority owner of the channel, which will be rebranded as a Disney Channel and feature classic Disney children’s shows and new programs created in Russia.

This is potentially huge news for a licensing industry that has gained a foothold in western Europe but struggled to find its way against local brands in Russia. The backstory to this deal is probably incredible, and it obviously remains to be seen if this is a harbinger of things to come or whether Disney, with its considerable muscle, managed to place itself far enough ahead of a curve that we won’t see similar deals in the coming years.

Either way, it’ll be interesting.

—Bryan Joiner

Atlantyca Entertainment has signed China’s leading publisher, 21st Century Publishing House, to publish one million Geronimo Stilton books priced for children.

The agreement grants 21st Century Chinese-language rights to The Little Book of Nature, a book about ecology, for distribution to bookstores throughout China. The deal was brokered by Sara Wang, chief representative of Atlantyca’s foreign rights sales division office in Beijing.

The new book was created to attract Chinese children to visit bookstores and learn the principles of respect for nature and the environment from the words of Geronimo Stilton, Italy’s most famous mouse-author. One million Chinese-language books will be distributed throughout China at a value price designed to encourage young readers to experience the joys of reading.

Nickelodeon Consumer Products International signed a new deal with New Jersey-based consumer electronics retailer Sakar Interational to launch internationally a branded consumer electronics line inspired by Nickelodeon’s live-action series Victorious. Announced today by Michael Connolly, head of consumer products, VIMN, at Brand Licensing Europe, the two-year agreement will run until the end of December 2013 and covers all regions including Asia-Pacific, Europe, and Latin America.

The extensive Victorious range will comprise the same products internationally as for the U.S. and will be aimed primarily at girls ages 6-11. Included for retail are digital/video cameras and accessories, portable DVD players, digital keychain photo frames, clock radios, MP3/MP4 players, CD players and boomboxes, karaoke machines and other youth electronics devices. Also on sale will be a range of computer accessories, iPhone and iPod kits, and speaker docs, as well as headphones and video game accessories. Products will now be available across major European markets including Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland/Eire, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, Canada, and Mexico.

The Victorious range will be available in mass-market toy shops and department stores, specialty toy stores, office supply retail outlets, convenience stores, electronics stores, pharmacies, and video game stores.