On Valentine's Day make a match...

The interesting thing about being in the middle between brand owners and manufacturers is trying to find brands and licensees with matching promiscuity.... I suppose in some weird way that makes me a dating consultant?

The reason that few companies have a brand licensing strategy is that once the wrong licensing mentality has taken hold of a brand, it can lead to a slow death. Big fashion brands like Paco Rabanne and Yves Sant Laurent used to be the worst offenders (I remember an Yves Sant Laurent that was so poorly made it actually burnt my nipples). Like a lot of previously over-licensed brands, YSL’s owners are now attempting to reinvigorate the brand by killing off licenses and restablishing a high quality mentality. One thing’s for sure, at some point in the process the company stopped looking at licensing as anything other than the chance to make a quick buck. The reality is that licensing requires as stringent a new product development process as any other brand extension.

Licensees are no better! A typical new product development process is to identify a gap in market or some new technology that gives a competitive advantage, design a suitable product, market research the product, develop a marketing plan, market research the marketing plan and then execute a sales & marketing strategy. The majority of licensees circumvent this process by sourcing a product, looking at brands they'd like to license, attempting to license in a brand and, if this attempt is successful, adding the new brand to their existing product and relying on the product’s new design to convince retail buyers and consumers that there is a market opportunity.

The difficult role of the dating consultant is to convince both sides to make the necessary effort to make the other party feel valued. Given that we're paid on results it's tempting to advise our clients to take on every deal possible, however, the only way to gain credibility is to be honest. We've all seen what happens when a licensee just slaps a logo on something- it's no fun and the money's no good - so my advice, for what it's worth, is stay chaste and keep waiting for Mr Right, even if I get nothing for saying this (at least I don't have to be the one chasing down the bad date who abused my client and didn't even pay for the privilege). Choosing the wrong partner leads to tears before bed-time.