For decades, the entertainment industry told the same story in the same order: a book or a toy, then a series, then, eventually, licensing. The panel I moderated at Young Horizons on 28 September made it clear that this sequence is over. Four executives, four very different IPs, one conclusion: animation is no longer the finish line of an IP’s journey. It is one engine among many, and it works best when wired directly into play.
Nuša Gantar, Deputy VP of Entertainment at Outfit7, represents the most radical case. Talking Tom & Friends was born as a game and grew into a franchise with over 27 billion downloads and 120+ billion video views. “Starting digital-first in gaming gave us an instant global audience, while YouTube became our main engine to deepen that fandom”, she said.
From there, the universe expands to streaming, linear TV, licensing and live events, because “today’s digital-native kids want an active relationship with the characters they love.” Her conclusion deserves a place on every development slate: “When you connect a daily playable habit with premium storytelling, you build a lasting transmedia ecosystem.”
Rob Doherty, VP Production at Hasbro Entertainment brought proof from the opposite direction: a broadcast giant rediscovering its audience through digital. Peppa Pig Tales, a YouTube-first series of three-minute weekly episodes, grew from 0.1 billion to more than 4.3 billion views in four years. “The growth in the brand came almost entirely from new digital-first storytelling,” Doherty noted, a model Hasbro now intends to bring to PJ Masks. Data even shaped the plot: baby-focused content drove 55% higher watch time, and Baby Evie was born.
If Peppa shows what a broadcast brand can learn, Warrior Cats shows what a publishing brand can unlearn. The first book came out in 2003, a year before Peppa aired; the first official YouTube channel arrives only now, into an ecosystem the fans built themselves over two decades.
The Roblox game, originated by a fan developer, has passed 770 million lifetime visits, and licensing now follows the community, with Bonkers Toys as master toy partner and an official console and Steam game with Trailmark. “Fandom is infrastructure, and YouTube and Roblox are where the Warrior Cats brand lives” said Jo Redfern, SVP Digital at Coolabi. “The IP owners who treat their communities as co-creators, rather than audiences, will outpace the ones still selling rights and then stepping away.”
Caroline Duvochel, Director of Audiovisual and Innovation at Média-Participations, brought the legacy perspective with the Marsupilami reboot. Rather than waiting for the film and series, the group introduced the new universe through a 4D attraction, plush toys and a first video game, then the Marsu Days, mixing physical and digital activations. In 2026 came the live-action film, France’s biggest box office hit of the year so far, the TV series, music, a second game and a board game. “We’re moving from a world of adaptation to a world of orchestration,” she said. “Today, different media can be developed in parallel and orchestrated to create momentum across multiple audience touchpoints.” Her warning should resonate with every studio: “The more entry points you create, the more exceptional your storytelling and characters need to be.”
My takeaway, as someone who works across the licensing, publishing, gaming and audiovisual communities: animation professionals should stop treating games, licensing and books as downstream revenue. They are development tools, audience laboratories, and, increasingly, where the story begins. Producers who still pitch a series and wait for a broadcaster before thinking about play are working to a calendar their audience abandoned long ago.
This does not diminish animation; it raises the bar. Every new entry point demands stronger characters, not just more products. Kids already move freely between Roblox, YouTube, the bookshop and the toy aisle. Our job is to make sure the story is waiting for them wherever they go.
What’s Next: See You in London
Warsaw was about how stories are built. Next week in London, at Brand Licensing Europe we take the conversation to where many of them pay off commercially. At BLE, Licensing Magazine hosts “One IP, Many Worlds: Transmedia’s Impact on Licensing Roll-Out” on Tuesday 6 October at 09:30 in the Networking Hub.
The Young Horizons panel showed that the old sequence, book, then series, then licensing, is over. The next question is what replaces it on the licensing calendar. Today’s most successful IPs are designed from the start to unfold across animation, gaming, social platforms and live experiences. For those IPs, category sequencing and retail timing can no longer just wait for a broadcast date.
We’ll also cover what brand owners, agents and licensees need to consider when developing properties for this multi-platform era. Bringing real case examples to the stage, together with Emmanuelle Cadet, Head of Brand Licensing at SEGA Europe, Kate Smith EVP, WildBrain Network, WildBrain; Luca Bonecchi, VP Licensing Europe, Miraculous Corp.
Their properties come from games, digital audiences and animation. All three show that the story, and now the business, starts in many places at once.
