Angry Birds creators scoop merchandising award

Finnish games group Rovio was awarded for its brand expansion business on Friday at the 12th annual Toy of the Year Awards.

The studio picked the Property of the Year prize in recognition of the company’s commercial leveraging of the Angry Birds IP.

Following its trailblazing success as an iOS game, the Angry Birds brand has been used to sell various plush toys, apparel, backpacks and mobile phone cases.

Rovio is one of few game companies to achieve commercial success through an expanded merchandise business – a enterprise which Hollywood film companies have mastered with extensive toy ranges based on hit movies.

London games studio Mind Candy has also broken tradition with licensed magazines and plush toys.

“Our physical goods business has great momentum just now,” said Ville Heijari (pictured), Rovio’s VP of franchise development.

“It’s especially interesting to see many app & social game devs emulate the merchandising strategy that Rovio has been pushing with Angry Birds for the last two years,” her told Develop.