“Catoms: Atoms with Attitude” and “Hunnie Bumble and Friends” Crowned License This! Competition Winners at Licensing Expo
The competition provides a platform for creatives to pitch their concepts and launch into the licensing industry.
Las Vegas, NV (May 25, 2022) – Licensing Expo, the world’s largest trade show connecting the $292 billion global licensing industry, hosted the live finale of the License This! competition today where select illustrators, designers, and animators had the opportunity to pitch their concepts in front of a panel of expert judges. Catoms: Atoms with Attitude, designed by Kieche Meleson O’Connell, was selected as the winner of the Character & Animation category, and Stef “Sharky” Shultz won the Brand & Design category with Hunnie Bumble and Friends.
The two winners of the competition, sponsored by Flowhaven, presented alongside four other fellow finalists to an audience of Licensing Expo registered guests and world-renowned experts in the licensing industry. Each winner takes home a highly regarded grand prize package including:
Free-of-charge 100 square foot booth at Licensing Expo 2023 worth $2,500
One-year Licensing International membership worth $1,000 for a small business
One-year Products of Change membership, worth up to $450 for a small business
One-to-one consultation with License This! judges
“Congratulations to our winners,” said Anna Knight, SVP of the Global Licensing Group, organizers of Licensing Expo. “It’s new creators and out-of-the-box thinkers like Kieche and Stef that keep our dynamic industry fresh and imaginative. Each of the finalists brought amazing ideas to the table and will be the next IPs to watch over the coming years.”
The judging panel consisted of nine senior executives representing industry-leading brands” License Global magazine, Flowhaven, Licensing International, Global Licensing Advisors, Boat Rocker Studio, PowerStation Studios, Redbubble, Lisa Mark Associates, and Product Counsel. Following each on-stage presentation, judges asked questions and shared actionable feedback to help the designers, animators, and creators hone their designs and ideas as they bring products to market. Feedback spanned how to pin down their core audience to working with retailers.
Character & Animation
Catoms: Atoms with Attitude – Kieche Meleson O'Connell
I took the periodic table and made each element into a cat that represents its unique scientific qualities in the form of coat patterns, superpowers, and personalities. The Catoms universe offers fun stories where the characters take you through the mysterious and often invisible world of chemistry but from the Catom’s point of view. Catoms are essentially edutainment. The characters and stories are engaging but based on scientific fact, so they are indirectly teaching real science.
Brand & Design
Hunnie Bumble and Friends – Stef "Sharky" Schultz
Hunnie Bumble is a whimsical queen bee who lives in a colorful world comfortably far from our own reality – along with her husband "Hubbie Bumble" and all of their friends. Buzzing with adorable antics, absurdly zany humor, and with new friends being introduced all the time, Hunnie Bumble and Friends will always keep it cute, adventurous, and zany on the countless adventures to be had – from cooking and hide-and-go-seek, all the way to skydiving, rock climbing, spelunking... and whatever else they feel like in the next five minutes!
“I am speechless,” commented Kieche Meleson O'Connell, winner of the Character & Animation category. “I was not expecting it, to be honest; I am a chemist by trade and have been trying to switch into this creative world. When I first came to Licensing Expo, even though I was super excited, I did feel like a fish out of water, so it’s nice to see that people recognize Catoms: Atoms with Attitude as a good project.”
“I’m so incredibly honored to win – it was a pleasure and such a great opportunity,” said Stef “Sharky” Schultz, winner of the Brand & Design category. “I’m very thankful and want to use this brand to bring change to the world. There’s a niche that Hunnie Bunnie and Friends supports, bringing awareness to how we recycle and that there is such a division in care. I want everyone to have access to good things; I want people to have opportunities to have access to and afford sustainable things and drive up the demand for sustainable recycled materials. Hunnie Bunnie and Friends is this catalyst!”
Other finalists in the License This! competition that presented on-stage at Licensing Expo include:
Character & Animation
I want to be a baller-ina – Finalist Cherie Mays
Sunny The Apathetic Bunny – Finalist Claire Schechinger
Brand & Design
Game Toy – Finalist Alexandre Silva
Monsters & Martians – Finalist Ken Reil
Licensing Expo is produced in partnership with industry trade association Licensing International. Register to attend the in-person expo for the final day of the live trade show or to engage with the event’s online platform for four weeks following.
Follow Licensing Expo on social: #LicensingExpo
About Licensing Expo
Launched in 1980, Licensing Expo is the world's largest and most influential annual tradeshow dedicated to licensing and brand extension. Every year, more than 5,000 brands and 16,000 retailers, licensees, manufacturers, distributors, and licensing agents attend Licensing Expo from more than 70 countries. Licensing Expo is a part of the Global Licensing Group at Informa Markets, the licensing industry's leading tradeshow organizer and media partner. Its mission is to provide licensing opportunities around the world by bringing brands and products together.
About Global Licensing Group
The Global Licensing Group at Informa Markets is the licensing industry’s leading tradeshow organizer and media partner. Its mission is to provide licensing opportunities around the world by bringing brands and products together. The following events and information products are produced for the licensing industry by the Global Licensing Group at Informa Markets: Licensing Expo, Brand Licensing Europe, Licensing Expo Japan, Licensing Expo Shanghai, The Licensing Leadership Summit, License Global magazine, License Global Daily E-News and The Licensing Mixtape podcast. Global Licensing Group events are sponsored by Licensing International.
About Licensing International
Licensing International is the leading trade organization for the global licensing industry. Licensing International’s mission is to foster the growth and expansion of licensing around the world, raise the level of professionalism for licensing practitioners, and create greater awareness of the benefits of licensing to the business community at large. Founded in 1985, Licensing International members in over 40 countries enjoy access to an array of benefits, including extensive educational programming and worldwide networking events. Visit LicensingInternational.org for more information and to utilize licensing’s definitive online resource.
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Lauren Lloyd, PR Director
310-266-4792
A Toy Creators Academy alumni, Keiche Meleson O’Connell, won an amazing competition in May at the Licensing Expo. This exposition is the world’s largest licensing trade show. People come from all over the world to make partnerships, make licensing deals, or just see what is trending in the industry. This year’s show took place in Las Vegas from May 24-26 and has an online component that went on for an entire week afterward.
Keiche is the winner of the Character and Animation category in the License This! competition that happens at the expo each year. I am honored that Keiche thanked the Toy Creators Academy at the end of her winning pitch by stating “This wouldn’t have happened without the Toy Creators Academy.”
Her idea, Catoms: Atoms with Attitude, won the judges over. The innovative concept combines chemistry and cats. She took each element from the periodic table and made it into a cat. Each cat has a different coat, special powers, and a unique personality based on the element. The cats have fun and engaging stories that teach real facts about the elements while keeping people entertained.
Kieche, a chemist by trade, has a Ph.D. in chemistry and has worked for the Navy for the past 13 years. She is a great example of someone using what they know to create incredible toy and game ideas. In a previous review of the Toy Creators Academy, Kieche mentioned that TCA helped her to grow her toy industry contacts, pitch to toy companies, and compared TCA to her MBA program, saying she learned some of the same things at TCA!
During the License This! competition, illustrators, animators, and designers get to pitch their ideas to a panel of licensing experts. The competition is open only to artwork, brand ideas, and characters that don’t have any current or pending merchandising or licensing deals.
The judges come from all sorts of backgrounds but are all related to licensing in some way. They may be from manufacturers, retailers, or brands. The competition has two categories—Character & Animation and Brand & Design. The goal of the competition is to help brands looking to secure licensing deals or get an agent.
The winner of each category gets a 100 square feet booth at the Licensing Expo 2023, a Licensing International membership, a one-year membership to Products of Change, and a one-on-one consultation with the judges of the competition.
The Licensing Expo has over 200 exhibitors each year, including notable brands like Netflix, Lego, Paramount, Mattel, and more. In past years, over 16,000 people have attended, coming from more than 60 countries. Attendees include licensees, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, licensing agents, and more. Each show has more than 5,000 products or brands on display, allowing you to catch trends and get innovative ideas. Of course, there are many representatives from the toy industry, but there are also people in attendance from the fashion world, gaming, animation, and more.
The Toy Creators Academy not only prepares students to make pitches in situations like this but also gives them opportunities to pitch to toy companies through the TCA Virtual Pitch Event that happens twice per year. Before the event, I set students up in one-on-one meetings with executives in the toy industry. By the time they make their pitches, they have received weeks of training and industry information to help them polish their pitches. I am by students’ side the whole time, coaching them to success.
Curious about how to gain the confidence to make pitches and create toy industry connections as Kieche has done? Click here to learn more about the Toy Creators Academy and join the waitlist for the next cohort of toy industry students.