At Bologna: The Licensing Trade Fair Names Its Winners

In News by Porter Anderson

The top prize at the Bologna Licensing Awards goes to Mattel for the Best Property of the Year. And she’s blonde.

At the 2024 Bologna Licensing Awards, April 9, the Best Property of the Year Award goes to ‘Barbie’ from Mattel. Image: Bologna Licensing Awards

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Thirteen Categories
At a total of 10 prize programs before friendly associated programs such as the PublisHer Excellence Awards are added, Bologna Children’s Book Fairs many awards programs are close to forming a new, fourth brand-extension of their own, like Bologna Book Plus and the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids.

It may be time to call it the Bologna Prizes Fair—and open up another hall for it at BolognaFiere. At some point during the week, you find yourself wondering if anyone will be able to escape Bologna without receiving an award.

Among these many event, the 17th edition of the Bologna Licensing Trade Fair/Kids were announced on Monday (April 9).

Our Publishing Perspectives readers know well about this group of honors, which were flanked this year by the arrival of the all-new television and film rights center for trade meetings, a first that generated more than 300 meetings between publishing professionals and film-and-television development visitors.

This year, the awards were certainly springtime for the Pokémon Company, which captured three of these honors. And the No Surprise to Anyone Award (we’ve made that up) goes to Mattel for Property of the Year. We’ll give you a  hint: Big film, big hair, lots of pink, Ken stole the show.

To review the nominees for the Bologna Licensing Awards this year, please see our story on the shortlists here. In this follow-up, we’ll list the results of the jurying.

Bologna Licensing Awards: 2024 Winners

Pre-School Licensing Project (0-6 years)

  • Universal Products & Experiences in partnership with Spin Master for the Gabby’s Dollshouse project

Kids Licensing Project (6-10 years)

  • The Pokémon Company International for the Pokémon x Van Gogh Museum project with the Van Gogh Museum

Teen Licensing Product (11-16 years)

  • The Pokémon Company International with the project Clarks x Pokémon in synergy with Clarks

Young Adult Licensing Project (18+ years)

  • Rai Com for the Mare Fuori (The Sea Beyond) licensing program, in partnership with various partners

Retail Project

  • Mattel Europe with the Barbie x Zara project in collaboration with Zara

Fashion Project

  • The Pokémon Company International and Dolly Noire for the Dolly Noire x Pokémon project

Licensed Publishing Project

  • Andersen Press with the illustrated books Goodnight Elmer and Elmer, search and find numbers

Licensed Toy Project (second year)

  • Universal Products & Experiences in partnership with Spin Master for the playset Gabby’s Dollshouse

Promotion/Loyalty  Campaign

  • Studio 100 Media with the Vegesaurs x Lidl campaign, in collaboration with Lidl

Promotion: Licensed Kiosk Product

  • Mondadori Media with the Peanuts 3D collection, together with CPLG WildBrain and Peanuts Worldwide

Licensed Sustainable Project (new category)

  • Studio 100 Media for the project Maya – License Factory in Natural Dye, in partnership with License Factory

Licensing Stars of 2023

  • Nerd Agency (FILM.UA Group) for Mavka. The Forest song

Property of the Year

  • Mattel with Barbie

More of our coverage relative to the 2024 Bologna Children’s Book Fair

More from Publishing Perspectives on licensing is here. More from us on publishing and book awards in the international industry is here. More on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here, more on children’s books is here, more on the Italian market is here, and more on world publishing’s trade shows and book fairs is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.