Description: With the May 15 release of Quest For Camelot, the first full-length, fully animated feature film from Warner Bros. Feature Animation, a new set of animated heroes and heroines will join the irreverent family of Warner Bros. licensed characters. The property, aimed at boys and girls age four to 15, stars the teenage girl Kayley in an action adventure set during the days of young King Arthur.

Mary Yedlin, vice president of marketing for DC Comics and theatricals at Warner Bros. Consumer Products, suggests that the property’s appeal to both boys and girls, critical to the licensing campaign, comes from the combination of action, adventure, humor and the female lead, adding that ‘this is a movie that can and should drive business both ways.’

Licensor: Warner Bros. Consumer Products

Licensees: With a boys and girls target audience in mind, master toy licensee Hasbro has launched a line that includes fashion dolls Dream Seeker Kayley and Brave Knight Garrett, as well as Kayley, Garrett and Arthur action figures. Its plush line includes Talking Devon and Cornwall, fashioned after the film’s two-headed dragon, whose phrases supply much of the film’s humor. The entire toy line is aimed at boys and girls age four and up.

Other key licensees include Armitron, with a line of children’s digital watches; Freeze, with a line of girls and boys T-shirts and fleece; S. Goldberg, offering children’s footwear and slippers; Fruit of the Loom, with boys and girls underwear; and The Bibb Company, with bedding and sheets.

Promotional Partners: Six promotional partners-Wendy’s Restaurants, Tyson Chicken, Kraft Foods, Frito-Lay, Kodak and Act II Popcorn-add up to a heavyweight campaign. Promo offers include a Happy Meal from Wendy’s and print ads on 200 million of Kodak’s photo processing envelopes.

Media Support: The property’s unique multimedia campaign, aimed at children and parents, includes a Quest for Camelot Web site (www.quest4camelot.com), music videos of soundtrack songs from LeAnn Rimes and Steve Perry, a nine-foot-tall Devon and Cornwall character touring hospitals, malls and theaters across the U.S. and Canada, and a cross-over presence of the Devon and Cornwall character as it hosts the Warner Bros. network Saturday morning lineup on May 9. Rimes’s single ‘Looking Through Your Eyes’ has already climbed the charts and, according to a media spokesperson at Warner Bros.,: ‘Having a hit single two weeks before the movie opens is a tremendous plus.’

Retail: Most licensed products were released at the beginning of May, just in advance of the movie’s opening.

The Final Word: For Yedlin, previous working relationships between the licensees and earlier Warner Bros. properties is a huge asset for the property. ‘They are real pros at the licensing industry. . . . [They] have the channels of distribution and understand the dynamics to really be able to drive the product.’

For Jordan Sollitto, vice president of promotions and branded foods at Warner Bros. Consumer Products, the promotional campaign offers new marketing inroads for Warner Bros. ‘We are thrilled to have six partners that reach consumers in a lot of different venues-at mass market, in grocery stores, in restaurants, at photo processing venues. . . . That really helps extend the message of the movie . . . into a lot of places that we, as a studio, don’t necessarily typically advertise.’