46-47 Face coverings 2020_muk.qxp_NEW LSB 2008 GRID 22/09/2020 18:46 Page 46
INDUSTRY TREND: FACE COVERINGS
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Inset: MaskClub boasts a vast offering of licensed designs across its US and European ecommerce sites. Below left: Robert Ling, marketing executive, Pyramid International. Bottom: MaskClub founder Trevor George, with his wife Morgan and their son, Hudson.
It’s the new must-have accessory that no one saw coming and, while the pandemic has caused much devastation and uncertainty, face coverings are helping to provide licensees with an incremental revenue stream at a much-needed time. LSB covers up to find out more.
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t’s maybe not the industry trend that we expected to be talking about in 2020, but face coverings have become the epitome of the ‘must-have’ accessory. With pretty much every country across the globe mandating their use, consumers have quickly moved on from the plain, throwaway coverings, to reusable ones, adorned with various patterns, characters and artwork in a bid to help express their personalities and inject some colour. US-based wholesale licensed apparel specialist, Trevco was first off the blocks, with ceo Trevor George establishing MaskClub in April solely to provide protective facial wear following the global pandemic. Following success in the US – a million visitors headed to the site in the first four weeks – MaskClub launched in Europe, with the UK being the first port of call, in June. The company donates 10% of sales to frontline workers in each country a mask is sold, with NHS Charities Together being the beneficiary in the UK. As
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LICENSING SOURCE BOOK EUROPE 2020
well as individual masks, the company also offers a mask subscription model, where customers receive a new mask every month from their favourite brand. “It was my wife, Morgan, who first said to me that we should be doing face coverings while we were at home during the first few weeks of quarantine,” Trevor tells Source. “We launched on April 10 in the US and on April 11 we went viral… we had something like two billion media impressions in two months including being on national TV.” MaskClub has licences from Warner Bros. Consumer Products, DC, Nickelodeon, Universal, WWE and emoji, plus brands such as Hello Kitty, Peanuts, Angry Birds and Crayola among others. “We reached out to our existing licensors first, so we could take pre-existing art which was already approved for apparel and put it on face masks,” Trevor explains. “Since then, we’ve taken on some new licences and we’re also working with 35 colleges in the US right now. We wanted to be a destination for licensed face coverings, and we’ve certainly done that.” In the UK, Pyramid