New Pokémon Marketing in Europe

Red Central, the creative resource for the entertainment industry, announces that it has been commissioned to produce the first European style guide for the kid’s super-brand Pokémon.

Pokemon launches European branding guide for a new era

The Pokémon franchise over 10 years has seen mammoth international success have been built on the content introduced in just three core computer games. After a four-year wait, the next instalments – Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl – are about to launch, bringing with them new characters, new movies and a new TV series.

Red Central’s brief is to achieve a look for the new Pokémon Diamond and Pearl style guide that retains the classic Pokémon style while introducing the new characters and content with a freshness that will shunt the brand to the cutting-edge of children’s entertainment. With a wide range of fans, the branding will be aimed at a core target of boys aged 6 – 12, but with some designs aimed at tween girls, as well as classic characters for people that have grown up with Pokémon and will want to re-visit it.

Licensing Manager at Pokémon UK, Rekha Rajput, explains: "Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will thrust our brand right back to the forefront of children’s minds across Europe, and we strongly felt that a landmark of this magnitude deserved its own European-specific style guide.

"We asked Red Central to create it for us because they understood exactly what we wanted to achieve, and with their experience in the children’s entertainment industry we knew they could translate our goals into great designs."

Red Central Director Phil Overton said: "This is a dynamic property with both a mass and cult following and we’re very excited to be involved in its development," says Red Central Director Phil Overton. "The style guide is an important part of the launch, and we intend to capture Pokémon’s energy to make sure all licensed merchandise does the brand justice."

Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl video games will be available in Europe from Summer 2007. The accompanying animated TV series is due to air in the UK shortly afterwards on Cartoon Network.

A style guide is a publication which specifies details of writing style required by a particular publishing house or professional organization, including such matters as punctuation, capitalization, fonts and styles, imagery, and rules for citing references. Product producers and other licensee's use it to brand their items. It's used for packaging as well as advertising and so forth. For more info, follow these links: www.redcentral.co.uk and www.pokemon.co.uk