Festival of Licensing

Brands Flock to the Festival

Adapting nimbly to the ever-changing times, many well-known and new brands will take booths at the virtual show, bringing exciting licensing and extension opportunities.

Caroline Mickler Limited is bringing some new representations – and some famous established clients – to the 2020 Festival of Licensing. The line-up includes new signings The Masked Singer and Norman Parkinson, along with Paul McCartney’s children’s book Hey Grandude! and long-term Caroline Mickler successes The Beatles, Yellow Submarine and Fifty Shades of Grey. The Beatles and Yellow Submarine have remained strongly performing brands over many years and are constantly being discovered and embraced by new generations. The licensing programmes are tiered to appeal to all ages and price ranges, but quality is the constant. Lego Art, the latest collaboration with The Beatles, allows fans to create pop art

portraits of the Fab Four, and was the focal point of a retail installation in Harrods. Norman Parkinson is one of the most important and celebrated fashion photographers of the twentieth century, with a portfolio of wonderfully elegant and instantly recognisable photos. His more than 30 years at the top – from the 1950s to the 1980s – included a long and legendary collaboration with Vogue Magazine.

Lifestyle brands licensing agency Art Ask Agency are exhibiting at the first edition of The Festival of Licensing, launching its new representation of the Nordic lifestyle brand Finlayson. Beautiful patterns and iconic designs give this lifestyle brand huge scope across all categories. The Uniqlo launch of apparel ranges for women, girls and babies in 2020 gave the brand a flying start in licensing out. Finlayson is a leading Finnish design company since 1820 with roots in social responsibility, innovation and striking design. In its early days, Finlayson rapidly became the largest industrial company in the Nordics with its own church, hospital, school and fire brigade. Finlayson was the first company in Finland to employ women and offer them an opportunity for an independent livelihood. Finlayson continues to bear responsibility for society by focusing on sustainable business operations and taking a firm stand on behalf of a better world. In addition, Art Ask Agency will be showcasing its other top lifestyle brands, namely Anne Stokes Collection, Frida Kahlo, Brandalised, TVBOY, Pets Rock, IA London, The

Camden Collection, VisseVasse, Route 66 and Marie-Antoinette.

Banijay will be bringing an extensive slate to this year’s Festival of Licensing, following its recent acquisition of Endemol Shine Group. With the largest international content catalogue, comprising 88,000+ hours, Banijay holds brand licensing rights working in a number of categories including consumer products, gaming and gambling initiatives. The Banijay portfolio now includes the world’s most successful cookery television format, Masterchef, which airs in over 200 territories and is watched by over 300 million people globally; Temptation Island; Peaky Blinders; Survivor; Deal or No Deal; Big Brother; Tipping Point; Operation Triunfo; Eat Well for Less’ Simon’s Cat; Mr Bean; recently refreshed heritage cookery brand, Ready Steady Cook; Black Mirror; local French beauty series, Miss France; gameshow classic, Wipeout, and physical gameshow, Crystal Maze.

Brainbase is a technology company that helps globally recognized brands manage and monetize their intellectual property. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles and is backed by leading investors in San Francisco, LA, New York, and Europe. Brainbase’s flagship platform, Brainbase Assist, helps companies manage any licensing, partnership or sponsorship agreement from end-to-end in a single platform. With unlimited user seats, Assist allows you to collaborate with all of your colleagues and licensing partners and handle the legal, financial and creative touch

points all in one place. Key features include contract management, royalty reporting, creative approvals, digital asset management and analytics. Assist can integrate with your existing apps, is built on the latest tech stack, lives on the cloud and is available on any browser and device. Brainbase’s global customer base includes some of the largest brands and licensing agencies in the world including Sanrio, BuzzFeed, kathy ireland Worldwide, MDR Brand Management, Rights and Brands and IMC Licensing.

Brand Central are showcasing their roster of industry-leading clients at this year’s virtual Festival of Licensing. Brand Central works with world class brands to create powerful brand extensions that spark cultural conversations, build brand love and generate significant revenue for their clients. Their portfolio of clients range from food and beverage brands (Tapatio Hot Sauce, Cap’n Crunch, SONIC Drive-In Restaurants, Kraft Heinz and Mondelez brands), to popular entertainment and digital brands to trending lifestyle brands. Their mission is to help clients unlock the full potential of their brands to enhance value while generating substantial revenue. This year, the agency will also feature Brand Central Insights, their customized trend intelligence service that provides up-to-date insight reports on the latest industry trends for leading licensors, media companies, manufacturers and retailers. Brand Central Insights offers actionable recommendations to clients based on deep industry knowledge on how trends emerge, evolve and achieve resonance. It also provides features such as extensive retail analysis and industry insights about the “next big thing.”

It’s been exciting year for Brandgenuity in Europe. G2 Esports, one of the leading entertainment brands in esports, partnered with Brandgenuity to strategically expand its global licensing program, and has since signed 2 new licensees. The first is Difuzed, for a line of apparel that will have multiple design drops. G2 has also partnered with The Koyo Store for a range of collectible logo and player cards, pins, keychains and coins. 2020 has been another strong year for the NFL Players Association in Europe with 2 new partners, Dein Design and Butterfly Effected. Dein Design will produce NFL player branded mobile phone cases and Butterfly Effected has launched mobile themes across all android mobile theme stores. Finally, Panini launched the 2020 NFL/NFLPA sticker book collection at Asda, Sainsbury’s and WHSmith’s stores across the UK. Brandgenuity has partnered with global FMCG company, Unilever, to represent their Heartbrand ice cream portfolio as part of a new licensing program. Licensed product will feature assets from the vast portfolio of Heartbrand ice creams including favourites Cornetto, Twister, Calippo and more. Recently, two new partners were signed on, Bro Licensing and Sabor. Bro Licensing will develop fun and vibrant apparel ranges for young adults to launch in 2021, while Sabor will focus on Algida branded apparel and nightwear for high street in the Italian market.

The Brand Liaison has announced its recent representation of Luxury Floral Illustrator Grace Ciao. She is a renowned social influencer and illustrator known for her many collaborations with luxury brands, has appointed The Brand Liaison to lead its licensing business in North America. Featuring her distinctive watercolor style incorporated with multi-dimensional floral petals, Grace Ciao art brings colorful, mood-lifting designs to life. Collaboration partners that have featured Grace Ciao art on consumer products and ad campaigns include international brands such as Estee Lauder, L’Oreal, JW Marriott and many more. Grace has also been invited to illustrate at the luxury events of Chanel, Dior and Jaeger-LeCoultre. More recently, Grace Ciao partnered with Korean skincare brand, Yehwadam on their limited edition skincare sets that are sold in TheFaceShop stores worldwide. Now, as part of its tiered licensing strategy, the Grace Ciao brand has appointed The Brand Liaison as its licensing agent to manage its licensing program in North America. The Brand Liaison will continue to feature prestigious luxury collaborations as well as licensed products designed for department and specialty stores, off price and mid-tier retailers, and mass merchants in various categories such as home goods, tabletops, gifts, wall art, social stationery, greetings cards.

The new Master licensee for global celebrity Brigitte Bardot, one of the most beautiful women of the world is at the Festival this year. B.B embodies strong values: joyous sensuality, at once authentic and bold, and her respect of nature and animals is resolutely inspiring. The company is looking for licens-

ees in a wide range of fashionable and quality products.

Bulldog works with a number of the world’s leading brand owners to develop merchandise programmes ready for the international and domestic licensing markets. Working with both the owners of existing brands to develop and enhance their consumer products programmes, and with the owners of more nascent IPs to help create brands that are fit for purpose in the highly competitive world of brand licensing. Bulldog has grown since its foundation in 2007 to become one of the leading agencies in Europe. Bulldog has an excellent reputation and contacts throughout the world of retailing and licensing in the UK and the Managing Director is a regular contributor to industry trade press articles and seminars. The company works with a network of the world’s leading licensing agents to ensure a cohesive approach to branding and product quality.

Celebrities Entertainment GmbH, a full service agency, specialized in Licensing and Brand Extension and with a strong expertise in iconic Rock n Roll licensing, will exhibit at this year’s Festival of Licensing. The German-based licensing specialists will showcase their portfolio which is loaded with the who’s who in music history. For example, AC/DC – the veterans of Rock n Roll - are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their album Highway to Hell, which turned out to be singers Bon Scott’s last studio album. And the next anniversary – 40 years Back in Black in 2020 – the bands most successful studio album is just around the corner. In addition to AC/DC, Celebrities Entertainment represents a wide range of truly iconic IP’s for the European territories including David Bowie, Pink Floyd, Genesis, The Police, Kiss, Def Leppard, The Cavern Club and Woodstock. Further properties include Godzilla, Route 66, Atari and Football’s Coming Home.

Dependable Solutions is avidly participating in the Festival of Licensing as it aims to connect, learn and do business on an international stage. From a digital supplement of Brand Licensing Europe, FOL has now transformed into a month-long initiative and the most anticipated event of the year. In addition to feeding educational and regional specific content and having attendees engaged in activities, we are confident that FOL is going to be a seamless platform to celebrate brand licensing industry with colleagues, coming from every part of the world. The teams are excited with the opportunity to showcase the company’s services, connect with professionals and strike deals, in key territories, throughout the event. Dependable Solutions is the the Gold sponsor of Global C-suite summit.

The Joester Loria Group is a global licensing agency recognized for executing award-winning brand extension program, delivering dynamic brands collaborations and for pioneering experiential licensed programs. JLG’s diverse roster of client includes McDonald’s, Pepsi-Cola North America beverage brands Pepsi, Mountain Dew and Aquafina; Frito-Lay’s Cheetos and Doritos brand; Constellation Brands Beer portfolio including, Corona Extra and Modelo Especial; Kellogg’s portfolio of cereal and snack brands including Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, Cheez-It and Pringles; Entenmann’s baked goods; Jack Link’s meat snacks; WeWearCute, TikTok’s leading kid content creators, and children’s literary and entertainment properties including The World of Eric Carle featuring The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Dick Bruna’s Miffy; Rainbow’s 44 Cats.

LMCA is a global brand extension licensing agency. With over $7.25 billion in annual retail licensed sales and more $100+ million licensing programs than any other firm, LMCA has been helping the world’s leading brands grow and generate new revenue in the United States and around the world for over 3 decades. Brands to be showcased include Compaq, Sharper Image, Admiral, George Foreman, Westinghouse, Fruit of the Loom, among many others.

Metrostar has signed up for the Festival of Licensing and will be working with a new client, Kraft Heinz to use the event as a platform for a hard launch of its brands into licensing. (Please see the separate interview with Claire Potter in this magazine!) The two companies, along with agent, Brand Central, have been working with Kraft Heinz brand teams on strategies for each of the brands in the UK and have identified their key priorities for the show. A variety of Heinz sub-brands will be on show, including Tomato Ketchup, Baked Beans, Salad Cream, Cream of Tomato Soup, Spaghetti Hoops, as well as other brands in the portfolio such as HP Sauce, Lea & Perrins, Amoy and Bull’s Eye.

The National Gallery Company is the commercial arm of the National Gallery. Their purpose is to generate income for the Gallery, enhance the visitor experience in the Gallery and reach markets beyond the Gallery, so that future generations are able to enjoy the paintings. Every licensing deal supports the National Gallery. They like to partner with licensees to create the best possible products and experiences, including international cafes and pop up shops, all showcasing images of some of the best-known paintings ever created. They have over 40 partners in the following categories - gifting, art prints, accessories, jewellery, homewares and interiors, apparel, flowers and book publishing, and are always looking for new categories and opportunities to bring master paintings to life in a contem-

porary way. They also have a strong licensing programme in the Far East and would like to build on this success in other international regions, across key categories and also food and beverage with their Delicious Art sub-brand.

The Natural History Museum is both a world-leading science research centre and the most visited natural history museum in Europe. With a vision of a future in which both people and the planet thrive, it is uniquely positioned to be a powerful champion for balancing humanity’s needs with those of the natural world. In January 2020, the Museum launched a new strategy in which it outlined its mission to create advocates for the planet: individuals who feel sufficiently informed, confident and motivated to make a positive difference to the global future. The Museum’s licensing programme is closely aligned with this strategy and its recent capsule collection with Finisterre is a great example. Other recent successes include the launch of The Dinosauria Collection, a collaboration with The Royal Mint that saw dinosaurs featured on UK coins for the first time, and a childrenswear collection with Japanese global retailer Uniqlo. This year at the Festival of Licensing the team are launching the Wildlife Photographer of the Year brand, an international showcase of the very best in nature photography; a brand that invites people to experience the uniquely emotive power of photography. The team are keen to meet with potential new partners to discuss the exciting activities planned at the Museum over the next three years, to share their brand-new style guides, and to explore how together they can work to build on an already successful licensing programme.

Independent agency Sagoo will be exhibiting its wide range of properties ranging from children’s brands such as Rilakkuma, through to adult properties including three newly represented Endemol series and innovative art brand, Keith Haring. In a recent deal, Sagoo was named as the French agent for three global properties from Endemol Shine Group, including culinary talent show, MasterChef; multi award-winning BBC post-war British drama, Peaky Blinders and popular animation, Simon’s Cat. The first licensees are due to be revealed shortly. Sagoo also works with Miffy. On the music front, Sagoo is proud to add to its portfolio of legendary artists such as The Beatles, AC/DC, Blondie or David Bowie, the iconic Jazz and Soul Legends: Aretha Franklin, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.

The Smiley Company has carefully crafted a unique business based on co-creation with like-minded partners who share its passion for creativity and positivity. Partners looking to utilise Smiley’s original position as one of the leading cultural icons of the last century and leveraging Smiley’s ‘always on’ design studio. Today The Smiley Company works with over 420 licensees, brands and retailers across its portfolio of IPs that include; SmileyOriginals, SmileyWorld, Smiley Baby, The Smileys, Newmoji and Rubik’s Brand Ltd.

As a full subsidiary of tesa, Tesa Scribos is a part of Tesa SE within the Beiersdorf Group. Beiersdorf works in nternational brand management with its own global brands such as Nivea, Hansaplast and Eucerin, with strong experience as licensors of Walt Disney or football clubs like Paris St. Germain plus the expertise of Tesa with market-leading adhesive solutions, merged with the pioneering expertise in intelligent marking solutions and digital tools of tesa scribos. Clients include world-leading companies such as Peugeot, Bosch, Castel, Danone and Chloé.

TSBA Group is one of the UK’s leading sport and brand licensing agencies. Their team of licensing experts work on a global basis to deliver award-winning licensing programmes for brands including Transport for London, FIA Formula E, The Open, Jaguar Racing, Extreme E, Nissan Nismo, DS Techeetah, FIA World Touring Cars and the National Portrait Gallery.

The award-winning licensing programme of the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) offers an almost infinite source of design inspiration for a multitude of product categories. Despite its challenges, 2020 has seen some fantastic launches for the V&A. After an amazing reaction to the V&A’s March launch with Blinds 2Go in the UK, there was a further launch with Tuiss Décor Japan over the summer. The collections of made-to-measure blinds and curtains feature 8 beautiful William Morris patterns. Plans are now underway to introduce the range in Europe this year. Exciting debut ranges in the UK this autumn include Cherry Glass Design’s bespoke decorative glass panels for bathrooms and kitchens, crafting fabrics with Visage, and The Branded Tile Company who are reintroducing the popular V&A wall and floor tiles. Meanwhile, ethical fashion licensee People Tree will launch a new capsule collection inspired by the Museum’s textile archive. Asia is still a key focus area and the team continue to work with their licensing agents in China (Alfilo Brands) and South Korea (Infiniss) on expanding product categories, launching new ranges and growing brand recognition. Collaborations in China include a cosmetics range with beauty brand Lansur, accessories with She’s, and a collection of Alice in Won-

derland themed tableware with ceramics specialist Joyye. Whilst in South Korea the team launched a range of women’s apparel with premium fashion brand Michaa. With over 85 licensees, the long-established programme shows no signs of stopping and continues to welcome opportunities to broaden its offering and create new collaborations.

WildBrain CPLG was appointed as the licensing agent for Harvard University in Europe, Middle East and Russia earlier this year. Under its dedicated Lifestyle division, the agency is now developing a strategic licensing programme targeting adults, teens and kids across categories including apparel, accessories, bags and stationery, which will be inspired by the university’s heritage and iconic global status. WildBrain CPLG has launched the brand into fashion retailers including Stradivarius and Zara. The agency is in discussions on further deals for apparel, bags and homewares to tap into the on-going retail and pop culture trend for products inspired by universities. Yale licensed merchandise is an important part of the Yale mission, serving to help promote the Yale brand throughout the world. Committed to working with licensees that share the institutions vision of product excellence, the merchandise range speaks to the rich traditions of this university. The global approach to licensing includes working closely with each partner, to help ensure their Yale experience is mutually successful for the university and licensee.

Bethan Garton, Commercial Director talks exclusively to us about retailers and licensing agents - creating a relationship that works for everyone. The Point.1888 is exhibiting at Festival of Licensing. Bethan will be taking part in two ‘Ask Me Anything’ sessions being held live on Tuesday 6 October & Thursday 8 October from 11-12pm.

The Covid-19 pandemic may have hit the retail industry hard, but this isn’t the first challenge the sector has had to overcome. As history has shown us, retailers are masters of resilience and agility, evolving their approaches and goals for survival as well as success. Part of this comes down to the relationships they’ve fostered with experts in supporting industries - such as brand licensing - who they can rely on for honest advice and assistance in seeking out the best opportunities. Retail buyers have their day job to do and also the added job of working out which brands to back – it’s a minefield that we at The Point.1888 are only too happy to help them with, ensuring they don’t overbuy on certain brands. We don’t want retailers sitting on stock they cannot sell; we want product at the right stock levels which sell through and get a repeat order. Because retailers are having to move the goalposts so often, it’s a job in itself for brand licensing agents to keep up. You have to work with them very closely to ensure your plans stay aligned with theirs. Gone are the days when you can just speak to a retailer once or twice a year to understand their strategy - you have to be in constant dialogue, whilst being careful not to waste their time. To make it work, licensing agents need to have a dedicated resource for retail - we wouldn’t be without this. While the entire team engage and have relationships with buyers and two of our senior team are ex-buyers, that’s not enough these days. Our Head of Retail, Hannah Stevens, understands retail more than anyone else in our team and she works tirelessly to ensure retail buyers at all levels feel valued and that every stage of the product process is working as it should. You may not be able to see the benefit of a retail head count on your P&L but for us it’s a MUST. It’s a lot of work getting around all of the retailers and multiple buyers, week after week. Having expertise within the team is key. Retailers find it hard to sign up new suppliers and we feel this is vital as new partners bring innovation and fresh

perspective. We’re not afraid to go back to basics when needed either. It’s wrong to assume everyone understands brand licensing which is why Hannah runs regular sessions with retailers to talk them through how it all works. In fact, we offer retailer buyers the opportunity at any time of the year to spend the day with us so we can bring them up to speed on all things licensing. We also take part in the Licensing International (BLE) Retail Mentor scheme. With the current restrictions on face-to-face contact, it may seem hard to build relationships but that shouldn’t be an excuse. The last few months have actually been good for our retailer relationships as we’ve been able to talk to four or five per day rather than one previously. Instead of spending hours on the road, we’re strategising on a Google Meet or Microsoft Teams meeting, saving us and the buyers so much time. You can’t beat a face to face every now and then but until that’s possible, we’ll make this work. And you can too.