Laurent Taieb discusses his work on the Princess Sam and Tara Duncan IP

Thanks for making time, Laurent. You’re Head of Licensing for Princess Sam Consumer Products… Am I right in saying you’re still quite new to that role? You’ve been doing that, what, a year now?
Yes, almost exactly. I joined the company in early January last year. In fact, I’ve got LinkedIn happy anniversary celebrations popping up all across my network! Looking back on what we’ve done in that year is interesting because it’s been about setting the foundation. It’s been about some cleaning as well because the previous team – I think this is fair to say – wasn’t into licensing at all.

So year one has been about building a base…
Exactly, and saying to some of the existing contacts and partners, “We’re here now… You know us: we’re a team of professionals; veterans of the industry” and discussing the way we’ll be working together. That way they know they’ve now got people who are used to working in the licensing industry, or in the toy industry.

Yes, and you bring great credibility to that, Laurent, because while you’ve only been doing THIS for a year, you’ve been doing what you do for nearer 30.
Yes, I started a long, long time ago in another galaxy where I was in the toy industry. I joined a company at that time called Ideal Loisirs. Ideal was a French toy company with a subsidiary in UK and more across Europe. We were doing a lot of toys at a time when you didn’t have the major corporations, and you had US partners coming to find some European companies to distribute toys. I’ve been lucky to work on Micro Machines, Super Soakers before they were with Hasbro… One of the first ranges I worked on as product manager was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Wow! First time around?
Right, from Playmates at that time. And then Turtles follow me a lot…

Not a complaint you hear every day!
Ha! No! But I’ve been a licensee on Turtles and I’ve been selling Turtles when I joined Paramount. After Ideal, I joined CPLG. I wanted to go and see what happens on the other side of the fence; I was really interested in learning all about the rights. That was also the time where CPLG was really having all the rights. As a doll-licensing agency, we were able to work on Star Wars, Marvel, DreamWorks, Sony… They were the golden years of the entertainment industry – working with CPLG.

Wow.
Leaving CPLG, I’ve opened the French office for Nickelodeon then, step by step, opened the Spanish and Italian offices, then did ten years at the end of what was called the ‘South Cluster’ for Nickelodeon… That meant everything in between Lille, north of France, up to Cape Town. That was really interesting.

That’s a hell of a pedigree! Phenomenal. CPLG, Nickelodeon, Turtles, they’re all in there… And Star Wars?
As a Star Wars fan, I’ve been really lucky about opening and doing some of the most interesting deals. I’ve done a deal with Lucasfilm on what was Star Wars – One Love. I don’t know if you know, but “One Love” was always what Yves Saint Laurent signed when he was sending New Year’s cards… One Love was also the marketing theme for Star Wars: Episode 1 on the Princess. We’ve done a deal where we’ve been working with YSL Beauty on launching a Star Wars makeup line. That was really, really interesting and exciting.

A line of make up’s not an obvious idea, is it? It’s great!
Yes, that was cool. Of course, with the big corporations it is, at some point, a case of, “Everything is fine, but thanks a lot!” So we parted and I’ve opened, for a few times my own, a consultancy. I think, when you turn 45, everyone pretends to be the best consultant ever. I’ve had my fair share of work as a consultant… A senior consultant, because I’m old enough to say that I’m a senior consultant!

Ha!
Then I moved on to work with various toy companies, helping them with various licensees. I have ongoing discussions with our Vice President Najib Fayad… At some point, he came back to me saying, “Laurent, we’re ready to kick off a new chapter at Princess Sam Consumer Products and try to deliver on that. Do you want to join us?”

So you went from one princess to another! For people who don’t know Princess Sam and Tara Duncan, tell us about them…
If you want to go to the shortcut, I’d say Tara, coming from the publishing business, is the equivalent of what Harry Porter would be for boys. As a boy character – not FOR boys, because Harry Potter is definitely unisex – but as a boy character, we’d refer to that. With Princess Sam, the S, A and M stand for Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian – the writer and owner of the company. If you don’t know Sophie, she is a real Armenian princess.

The author of Princess Sam is actually a princess?
Yes: Her Royal Highness Princess Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian. Then Tara Duncan is a range of 12 books published around the world. These books are large; 400 pages plus. It’s really a saga documenting the life of Tara from early teen days up to when she is a young adult and ready to become a mother by herself.

Oh, wow. Quite an epic…
Across the 12 books, we’ve got a wealth of material. animations: Seasons 1 and 2 of the animation only pull material from the first book. We’ve got plenty of material to develop more episodes, more seasons… We’re working on Season 2 now.

So when you look at something like this, with so much material, where do you start? How do you start saying, “This is the IP, this is the direction I want to take…”?
When Sophie started writing this, she already had the idea of taking Tara to the small screen. She found an alliance with Disney Channel: they came back to her saying, “We like Tara, and that character is definitely not going against our princesses.” Because Disney princesses skew younger in terms of audience, and you don’t have the same elements in Tara’s adventures. But Sophie had already been working with another studio which, sadly, went bankrupt with only half a season produced.

And the half season had a different animation style?
Yes! So Sophie always kept in her mind, “I want to go back and restart work on the show.” Well, three years ago, she was ready but wanting to do something completely different from what had been done previously. She went back to looking at what the character needed to have a wow effect compared to other animations and other characters. So she decided to go full speed on something amazing in terms of creativity…

Oh, wow! This is the new animation?
Yes! Now the show is full CGI. The most interesting thing working on the creation of the show is that all the characters are acquired through motion capture… As with the Avatar movies, for instance; we’ve got real actors playing in the show! Then they’re rendered into CGI characters. The show has a really strong quality and great scale. Our shows have the biggest number of different sets across an episode, and the biggest number of animated characters on screen at the same time. And when you compare it to the first iteration – it was 2D; very flat! So now we’re really back on track in terms of quality and design.

Yes, quite… I mean: this coming up now is like the Phoenix rising from the ashes! It’s bigger and better than it could possibly have been with the other studio. Let me ask you, Laurent: what do you look for in an IP partner?
We’re looking for partners that ask: can we best manage our shared interest? How can we best make it profitable for the two of us? And we ask how a licensee partner would really fit into what we’re willing to transmit about the equity, about the character. It’s not about slapping a logo or an image of Tara on products… We don’t care about that. We could do that by ourselves if we wanted to.

We’re also creating our toy lines because we’ve got that data, we’ve got all the capture of all the elements so it’s easy for us. It’s been fairly easy for us to develop a short line of products. Our first toys had a limited release on the French market last fall, and the release has been doing well. There’s an appetite for the characters and – step by step – we’re going to conquer more territories.

I like that you’re taking it one step at a time…
Yes, year one was putting down the base and laying out all the steps, all the elements. Jane Garner and Kilogrammedia have also been a big part of what we’ve been building… We’re a small, French licensor; a tiny team. The show is great, but we’re right to take baby steps to put Tara Duncan on the map. Tara’s now established in the industry. At least people have seen and been able to read about Tara in the various magazines, in the various elements, the newsletters, and everything.

Yes, and it doesn’t disappoint once it comes to your attention.
No, it’s great quality. We’ve been also working with potential TV partners. We’ve created a step-by-step network of broadcasters… We’re old-fashioned in the sense that people need to know the character and the property. When they’d be reading Tara Duncan, they need to have the image of Tara Duncan in their mind. We need them to have the best broadcasting network. We need to have the show on air. We need to have the kids watching and loving the show. Then, with our network of toy-distribution partners, we need the kids to be buying and distributing the products and doing the offering. That’s where I’m really thinking it has to be baby steps… It has to be small iterations on what we’re doing.

Got it…
In a way, 2023 for us was the opening ceremony. Now we’ve placed the actors. We’ve got the broadcasters. We’ve also been working all across the year on building a strong net of licensing agents. We can’t open offices overnight, so we’ve been looking, working all together on who would be the best partners for us on a local basis. We really put a lot of emphasis on the fact that we want local partners. We want local offices. We need people who know the licenses, who know the partners, who know the retailers locally…

Pushing into those territories, more detailed, more personal…
Yes. 2024 would be, for us, not a celebration year because we still have a lot to fulfil. We need to keep on working, funnelling the relationship. It’s not like five or ten years ago, when you talked to a licensee and, overnight, they signed you a massive deal. There are plenty of opportunities outside, but you need to build the relationship, you need to build the trust, you need to get them to understand that you would be there for them and working with them.

Is that easy, do you think?
Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not. You’ve got TV channels; they would air the show and take it off air because they can’t replay and replay and replay the same Tara Duncan episode. That’s also where you need to be really focused and working with the values partners, and don’t be over-excited about the idea of getting that $100,000 deal overnight. It’s not true, these are not existing anymore.

Okay…
Then it’s the same; we’re in a moving process, in a moving environment. Right now, if you’re talking to licensees, even on our side, no one has got a clear view on what is the best strategy, what is the best way to market in terms of launching a new show. Am I going on the network side? Am I going Netflix or Prime? Am I going the ‘old-fashioned’ way on CBeebies? Am I going to ITVX? We chose the path, in the UK at least, going to ITVX and the guys there are telling us they’re happy with the show.

And in terms of future deals, are there things that you immediately want to get off the ground?
Keep on supporting the show and keep on building the pillars of the communication. We often forget that, years ago, when we were launching a show, the pillars have always been the quintessential home entertainment: the videos, the network, the broadcaster, and also publishing. Kids need to be taking their property away and be able to keep on having dreams and stories with their preferred characters. So for us, the next big conquest, the next one should be publishing…

Classic publishing?
Yes, being able to fill the gap when you don’t have TV exposure lets the kids still live with their characters through reading the stories. But then, that also makes me say maybe too old for the job. I keep on thinking that kids should read!

Ha! You know, kids broke into my local library recently… I can’t tell you how pleased I was: if they’re going to steal anything, let them steal books!
Ha! Well, Tara Duncan comes from Sophie’s mind and it’s coming from publishing. We’ve got our base, we’ve got our pillars, we’ve got our words and the next step should definitely be back on those. Getting the words from the show, so it’s going to be the same stories… Then we’ve got our first three magazines launching in Italy within the next two weeks with Play Press in Italy. The most important thing for us right now among all these deals is how do we keep on filling the gap with TV in having opportunities for the kids to keep on having their characters in mind.

Right.
If you’re listening to licensing right now, they will tell you, “Oh, we need the show to be on Netflix. We need the show to be on Prime. We need the show to be on YouTube.” But we can’t have the show on every platform! We still have to do due diligence with all deals, some of which are exclusive. These broadcasting deals have got value. We know that there are plenty of competitors that would be outside giving away the shows in order to build a program, and we haven’t done that. We’re respectful of our agreements with the broadcaster. As I say, it’s baby steps. Sometimes you make one step forward and two steps backward in trying to understand: is it the right solution? Is it the right move? You need to be patient.

I think that animation is a great example of that patience. What’s that saying? ‘Just when the caterpillar thought everything was ending, it became a butterfly.’ I think there’s sometimes real wisdom in taking one step forward and two back. One last question to wrap this up, Laurent. What’s the one question I could have asked you today, but didn’t?
Good question! Honestly, I really don’t know… Maybe, “What would be a success for this IP?”

And what would be the answer?
I think it’s when you come across, in real life, kids playing with the dolls or having one of your books or wearing a T-shirt with your characters. For me, as much as it would be great to be making millions of dollars of royalties, it’s as much about seeing the smile of a kid wearing pyjamas of his or her preferred characters. It’s taking the characters, taking Sophie’s baby in real life to the next generation of kids.

Fantastic! Listen, if it was a good question, it was a great answer! That was very good. Thanks Laurent; Keep us posted on those baby steps.