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It's Happy Bunny main image
 
© Jim Benton.com 
IN TRUE RABBIT FASHION, the design and publishing property It’s Happy Bunny by artist and writer Jim Benton has multiplied quickly! Honestly rude (or rudely honest), the trendy bunny known for his pungent wit can be found on thousands of products with retail sales of nearly $200 million in 2006. In June 2007, The Wall Street Journal covered the success of the property, calling it a "licensing legend" and noting that "franchises like It's Happy Bunny don't come along very often". The Licensing Industry Merchandisers Association has awarded It’s Happy Bunny as Best Art Brand License of the Year (2005), Best Character Brand Licensee/Jerry Leigh (2006) and Best Character Brand Licensee/Scholastic books (2007).
 
It's Happy Bunny images
© Jim Benton
 

In its first two years (2001-2002), the It’s Happy Bunny licensing program was limited exclusively to Hot Topic specialty retail stores in the US. During the next five years, the program steadily expanded to include other specialty retailers and mid-tier before expanding into US mass retailers such as Target, Wal-Mart and Kmart in 2007. Last year, retail sales for the It’s Happy Bunny property reached nearly $200 million. Sales in Latin America have also been extremely successful and the program is now on its way to Japan.

The It’s Happy Bunny program is steadily expanding also in Europe, with licensees like GB Posters, International Greetings, Rainbow Designs, Scholastic UK and TDP Textiles in the UK, Ediciones Piemme and Gut Edizioni in Italy and HB Textil and Egmont Serieforiaget in the Nordic countries. Wide licensing programs are currently also being launched in France, the Benelux countries, Germany, Austria and other countries.

The publishing program from Scholastic, including titles like Life. Get One; Love Bites; What’s Your Sign?; and The Good, The Bad, and the Bunny as well as postcard books, mini-poster books and a Sudoku book is also very successful. The Scholastic books were awarded with the LIMA Award for Best Character Brand Licensee - Hard Goods in 2007 (the third consecutive win for the It’s Happy Bunny licensing program). Scholastic Book Fairs identified It’s Happy Bunny as their best-selling licensed property for the 2005-06 academic year.

An unsentimental attitude and a cool design makes It’s Happy Bunny appeal strongly to teens and also working very for design-oriented merchandise and downloadable content (mobile phones etc.).

Plus Licens represents Copcorp Licensing for merchandising, promotion and publishing rights to It's Happy Bunny and other properties from CopCorp in Eastern Europe.