NEW YORK — The top licenses for kids were revealed at the Licensing International Expo 2007 here yesterday with Pirates of the Caribbean topping the gender-neutral list, Spider-Man leading the boys’ list and Hannah Montana the favorite among girls. Nancy Zwiers, chief executive officer of children’s marketing and design firm Funosophy, Long Beach, Calif., reported the findings of the KidzEyes/Funosophy Spring 2007 License Tracker Survey, conducted in May 2007 by C&R Research, Chicago, Ill., in partnership with Funosophy. The companies surveyed a nationally representative sample of 8,000 kids 6 to 17 years old, with ages 6-11 represented in the findings. Children were asked, “How popular do you think products featuring these are going to be among kids your age in the next several months?” The choices were: “very,” “sort of” and “not at all.” Nickelodeon was No. 2 for gender-neutral, followed by the Disney Channel, SpongeBob SquarePants and the Suite Life of Zack and Cody. Second for boys was Star Wars, followed by Hot Wheels, Fantastic Four and Superman. Cheetah Girls was second for girls, followed by Build-A-Bear, That’s So Raven and Ashley Tisdale. Zwier noted that all of the top 5 girls’ choices except for Build-A-Bear are Disney Channel properties. “With girls, toy brand licenses are losing ground to entertainment-based properties due in part to what the Disney Channel has been doing, which is making stars out of kids.”

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