Exporting fun and fictional characters

New Zealand author Joy Cowley's character Mrs Wishy-Washy is a big export!  According to the Success feature writer Nick Smith in the New Zealand Herald last week Chinese children know who Mrs Wishy-Washy is; but not only is she known in China but in the United Arab Emirates, Korea, Canada and the US.
The Mrs Wishy-Washy series of readers for children are published by Clean Slate Press an Auckland company  New Zealand owned and operated company which publishes high-quality educational resources, both for New Zealand schools and the international market.  See http://cleanslatepress.com/
Clean Slate is now a multi-million dollar business selling titles primarily to early education markets in the US, Canada and  Australia.
Obviously the value of the export of these early education readers can be quantified, but what can't be put into dollar terms is the value of the character and its creator, Joy Cowley, for its promotion of New Zealand's creative industries.

Source: Smith, N. (2012) Lovable character key to publisher's success. In The Business Herald p.11 published Friday February 24, 2012.