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Licensing Lookout
Two Way
Traffic Walt Disney was at it for years, Beatrix Potter wasted no time in getting in on the act, and today’s greeting card publishers are going at it hammer and tong in both directions. Yes, the interest in licensing characters, brands and artwork onto greeting cards, and likewise the activity of card publishers licensing their artwork for use by other companies, is growing like topsy. With the Brand Licensing Europe trade exhibition fast looming (October 1-3, taking place at London’s ExCel for the first time), PG considers the proliferation of licensing in the greeting card arena. It was a shock when the news broke at the start of June that Gemma International was to cease trading after 34 years. However the demise of the licensed card and partyware business is rather at odds with how the shape of licensing, both within the greeting card sector and way beyond its parameters, has changed beyond all recognition. Gemma International can and should be held up as a
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PROGRESSIVE GREETINGS WORLDWIDE
trailblazer. The founders’ toy retail roots led to them spotting an opportunity to translate characters that had proved popular on toys onto greeting cards, but since those early days, when My Little Pony first trotted onto the card racks, licensing has galloped ahead at some pace and in all manner of directions. The UK is right up near the top when it comes to the purchasing of licensed merchandise, second place only to the US,
Above: Hallmark first licensed Disney for cards back in the 1930s! Left: A new Peppa design from Danilo. Below left: One of the designs in Ling’s new Prue range, that features a recipe for beetroot and aubergine risotto on the rear of the card by the culinary maestro, Prue Leith. Below right: EastWest’s licensing agreement with Tache covers its Krafty (pictured), Lashes and London ranges.Bottom left: Museums & Galleries’ signing with fashion icon Dame Zandra Rhodes was launched by the ‘Punk Princess’ herself at PG Live.
according to the findings of the 2019 Annual Global Licensing Industry Survey released recently by Licensing International, the licensing industry’s trade association. That said, although $146 billion is a lot of money to spend on products that bear the nation’s fave characters, art, sports, celebrity and branded IP, us Brits still have some way to go to come anywhere close to the $1,543 billion appetite of the American consumers. Certainly, prominent character/ entertainment brands remain an attractive prize for licensees (worth over $9.5 billion at retail in the UK), hence the recent jubilation of Danilo, IG Design Group and Amscan being able to reveal they had sealed the deal for eOne’s Peppa and PJ Masks programmes for cards, wrap and partyware respectively (as the rights for the brands reverted as soon as Gemma ceased trading). However, interestingly, according to the recent market report, the UK consumer spends more on products based on licensed collaborations with fashion names ($12 billion), sports marques (approaching $13 billion) and FMCG/corporate brands ($14 billion), but it is just that many of these tieups are less visible, such is the tightness of the fit between the two parties. Ted Baker’s