Ode to Italy

Italy is to England

what colour is to grey.

Suspicion, mistrust and inhibition

give way to passion, thunder, exotic emotions,

shoes, leather, luxury and lace.

A modest vulnerability

bursting buttons with pulchritude,

an epic conquering history

rich in Roman tragedy and gods,

bountifully spreading lore and progress

from delicacy laden sacks.

The peasant's simple fare

raw, authentic, uncultivated

the marching foundations

for this modern supremacy,

sustaining noble ideas

with rustic flavours and textures.

The taste of the street

history and hot dust combined

as the world flows past

pollinating the atmosphere

with a fine layer of flour.

new client coming soon

So good they named it twice....

Pizza and Pasta Research

This is what 6 hours of researching the pizza and pasta market looks like...

Gamechanger

Just thought i'd share a new word from the lexicon of management speak... i suppose you could call the Iphone a gamechanger in mobile communications...

the end of google?

Google has copied Bing... in a case of the tail wagging the dog, someone within Google has fearfully decided that they need a left hand nav, after the search results... single handedly undoing the founding principle of the company - don't clutter the screen... why copy your imitator unless you've run out of ideas...is this the beginning of the end?

licensing.biz profile

Nice profile on Licensing.biz....

lifespans and volcanos

The average ant lives for approximately 90 days. By my reckoning that makes a 4 hour picnic last about 0.18% of an ant's life. If you take the average human lifespan of 75 years and calculate the same percentage you come to around 49 days... by that reckoning, if the Volcano is to humans what a picnic is to ants, it should be safe to fly over Europe again by June 3rd

RAC Publishing

Veloce Publishing Ltd becomes RAC’s publishing partner

Leading British automotive publisher, Veloce Publishing, is delighted to announce that it has teamed up with one of Britain's oldest and most esteemed motoring organisations, RAC, to produce books carrying the RAC brand.

The first fruits of the new relationship will appear in the Summer of 2010 in the form of -

"Electric Cars - The future is now"
Are electric cars a feasible alternative to conventionally powered cars? Here's a comprehensive guide - aimed squarely at the man and woman in the street - to the cars you can buy now, and what the future holds, priced at £12.99

"The Efficient Driver's Handbook"
With fuel prices at record levels, here's a timely guide to fuel efficient driving techniques and car choice, priced at £9.99

"Roads with a view - - England's greatest views and how to find them by road"
A beautifully produced large format hardback featuring 44 breathtaking views, and how to get to them by road. Priced at £24.99

Many more books are in the pipeline, including technical books based on RAC's extensive automotive experience and data.

Rod Grainger, Publisher at Veloce, says: "This is a really exciting development for our company. It's a prestigious association with a hugely respected organisation which not only marks a coming of age for Veloce, but presents a huge range of potential publications which can be created in association with RAC

Article about licensing for leading brands

Have just finished an article about licensing for leading brands... please mail me if you'd like a copy.

Intro to latest article due for publication in October

With the world cup now over and the Olympics looming on the sporting horizon, perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves, “what’s the big deal about being number one?” Why the fascination with winning? Like a lot of British people I’ve got a soft spot for the underdog, the heroic failure who cares more about the taking part. And yet, from a straight licensing point of view, sales of the Eddie the Eagle T-shirts are unlikely to eclipse Bode Miller’s Alpine Skiing for PlayStation 2. So perhaps the reason for the obsession with winning is most obvious in the world of business – to the victor go the spoils.

In their legendary book ‘The 22 Immutable laws of marketing’ marketing legends Jack Trout and Al Ries explain that “The main rule is to be number one…the second [man to arrive on the moon] will not be remembered. Being number one is not always possible and certainly not always easy. Number one will need to look ahead to continue its strategy but will also have to look back, to verify what the followers will do. It is difficult to stay number one.”

For many brands leadership is a valuable positioning statement, and for good reason according to David Aaker in Brand Leadership: “Leadership… can inspire employees and partners by setting a high brand aspiration level… for many customers a leadership brand provides reassurance…implies quality...and/or innovation that translates into solid functional benefits.“

But the most direct relationship between leadership and the bottom line is indicated by a piece of research by British marketing scientist Andrew Ehrenberg which suggests that customer loyalty is proportional to market penetration. From this, Jean Noel Kapferer concludes that ‘it is difficult to generate increased loyalty in the long term without also increasing market penetration … the future of a brand thus depends on its … ongoing ability to attract new customers in order to increase its market penetration and in the meantime demonstrate its relevance to a changing world.“

Restating this in more simplistic terms, an increase in market penetration achieves a double whammy driving new customer acquisition and growing existing customer loyalty. Most licensors get very excited about the first part of this sentence - ‘wow’ they say, ‘New customers! New revenue! New business! New profit!’ failing to appreciate the importance of the second part.

For a leading brand licensing will only every generate a minute fraction of the value that would be achieved by a growth in market share, so why do it? what’s the attraction? You might as well ask Roger Federer what’s the appeal of winning another grand slam title? Surely you’ve won enough Roger, why keep doing the training, the work, the effort. After making the obligatory references to Switzerland his family, and his sponsors, Roger would probably reply – “I’ve made all the effort to get here, to be the best in the world, and now I want to make the most of it while I can, before my crown inevitably falls I want to win everything I can. And that’s the essence of my brand.”

Poor world cup licensees

One thought that occurred to me as I strolled the halls at Spring Fair last week was the unfortunate plight of any licensee selling World Cup Merchandise. Has the sudden change in England Captain destroyed the hopes of the calendar, tablecloth and flag manufacturers? Someone needs to send his agent a bill for lost earnings!

Tori Spelling and Thomas Crapper, an obvious connection

"Tori Spelling And Dean McDermott Celebrate Thomas Crapper Day" - now there's a headline I didn't think I'd ever see...other coverage was on Newsnight, Sunday Breakfast, Radio 2 drivetime & Radio 4.

Thomas Crapper Day

Yes, it's official, all over the world people are celebrating Thomas Crapper Dayhttp://news10now.com/cny-news-1013-content/top_stories/494419/corning-celebrates-thomas-crapper-day

New Apple on the branch?

really looking forward to the new Apple product coming out shortly... apparently retailers have them in store but aren't allowed to open the box on pain of being sued.... talk about tantalising....

http://www.macrumors.com/

Golden Goose takes on Crapper

Golden Goose takes on Crapper

Heritage bathroom brand Thomas Crapper set for category extension

Brand consultancy Golden Goose has signed heritage bathroom brand Thomas Crapper & Co for an exclusive 3 year licensing deal covering the UK, USA, and other International territories.

The brand, launched by the eponymous plumber at the height of the British Empire in 1861, introduced plumbed bathrooms and luxury bathroom fittings to the world – and picked up a number of Royal Warrants along the way. It opened the first ever bathroom showroom, on King’s Road in Chelsea, and made sanitaryware fashionable and aspirational.

Now Thomas Crapper is set to launch across a range of consumer products from toiletries and gifts to bathroom accessories and paper goods. The deal covers a range of IP assets including the brand’s decorative finishes archive, advertising archive as well as the iconic logo and registered trademark.

Golden Goose director Adam Bass said: “Thomas Crapper is a world renowned brand name that has very little presence outside of the sanitaryware business where it is sold through a small number of top end suppliers. The brand is ripe for development and we are already talking to a number of potential licensees.”

Bass says: “The brand name itself will enable us to come up with some great creative concepts that will be fun and firmly tongue in cheek.”

Thomas Crapper continued as a family business from its Victorian roots until the mid-1960s when it was taken over and later fell out of use. Today, it is owned by historian and collector of antique bathroom fittings Simon Kirby. The firm is now based in Stratford-upon-Avon from where it supplies its authentic heritage bathroom sanitaryware, fittings and accessories.

A tribute to Sir Thomas Crapper

A tribute to Sir Thomas Crapper

A sanitary saviour

His bowl shall never overflow

The empire’s gratitude

Is expressed in moments of relief.

A collective sigh of

Pleasure and comfort

On the great leveller

The throne of peasants

An unsavoury treat.

An engineering miracle

Makes inconvenience disappear

Leaving the unspoken unsmelt

Recycling in its purest sense

With a lavish flourish

And sleeves of running water.

A sudden change in history

An unacknowledged chapter

Unchampioned, uncelebrated

Relegated to a footnote

Of cataclysmic improvements

A daily ablution

Taken for granted

Like breathing

But its absence

Plunges civilisation

Back into the dark ages.

top 10 things i say in meetings

If you're in a meeting with me, please feel to play meeting bingo. Just shout bingo if you hear any five of the following phrases:

1) Any product consists of product, identity and distribution, but these are multiples so if you don't have distribution, you have nothing.

2) Any sales that are made by the brand are the icing on the cake

3) We're not looking to set royalty rates so high that the product doesn't sell

4) You have to offer value for royalty

5) Licensing is a quick quick, slow slow business

6) Licensing is another propeller in the water, just make sure it's facing the right way

7) The brand is the theme park, the product is the souvenir

8) Licensing is a win-win business

9) As an agency, we're like the first licensee

10) We like to put your entire licensing programme in a box that includes everything a licensee needs.

ready for brand licensing

After much chopping up of board, the stand for brand licensing is finally ready. If you're coming, please drop by and pick up a copy of the licensor benchmarking exercise.

report from top drawer

Just back from visiting Top Drawer where once again, the in-show desire to buy something made me walk away with another useless object. The show's two enduring trends are:

1) really really retro things - not just bagpuss and the clangers now but really old things like metal boxes, air mail lettters, old school games, and pre-war toys seem to be the inspiration for a large range of products

2) eco eco eco - sustainability. boxes made of rolles up paper, ceramic paper coffee cups

3) union jack - an idea that seems to have spread like wild-fire... if you do an object, make one with an alternatively coloured union jack.

4) another take - objects are no longer just objects, they're decorative. A candlestick can also be a radio. A bag can be a cassette... it's all about quirky talking points... that phillipe starck has a lot to answer for!

licensing show

Well, work now starts in all seriousness for the licensing show at the end of the month!

http://www.brandlicensing.eu/