outsource?

One company i work with has just outsourced its outsourcing department... heaven help them

intro to latest article...

So you’re sitting in your office looking at the jars of product in the exhibition display cabinet. You know you’ve got a great brand with huge awareness and masses of customer affection. You’ve probably got a 50 year history of advertising and in your reception area is a specially sleeved copy of The Superbrands Book from 1994. Suddenly, after hours of scratching your head about ways to generate revenue and build customer awareness, in a blinding moment of inspiration, you stand up at your desk and, as if the light has suddenly dawned on you shout ‘Eureka! Licensing’ startling your embattled P.A. But before you can spread the word across the whole of your organisation, think carefully. What steps should you take to embark on the road to licensing enlightenment? When should you present your ideas to the board? Why might it be a good idea to retire at this point in your illustrious career? How come this part of the introduction has more questions than answers? Don’t worry dear reader, this road is well trodden and all will become clear.

more to come in the next edition of the Brand Licensing Source Book

interesting fact number 3256

In 1800 there were 6 million people living in England. Now there are 58 million. No wonder we all work in virtual space these days.

a new sport?

How long before carrying the olympic torch past rioting protesters becomes an Olympic sport...

from facebook to linkedin

Just as fluctuating shares in one company affect the entire industry sector, so it is with the internet. The success of Facebook now looks like a shooting star compared to the slow steady burn of linkedin. Whilst Facebook was for fun ,and advertising driven; linkedin is for business and charges for heavy use.

The main benefit of Facebook's success for linkedin is the proof of attractiveness of social networks, and the increase of users who have broken through the fear of trust barrier. I can see a future where email's blocked unless it comes from a trusted source (just like phonecalls are now) and linkedin provides a viable form of spam police. Where you are available to people because someone you trust introduces you.

Apparently Bill Gates has deleted his Facebook entry and joined Linkedin, what else do you need to know...

Top 10 ways to make a licensing deal go with a zing

1) Get everyone behind the licensing strategy - from the top to the bottom
2) Give the product an enormous PR and marketing launch
3) Support the product all the way into retail
4) Feature the product on all branded marketing
5) make the product look the same as the branded product
6) make sure the legals don't get in the way of renewals
7) incentivize success, don't punish it
8) celebrate success
9) be generous, not mean spirited
10) deliver on the brand promise

how to screw up a licensing deal?

Top 10 Surefire ways to screw up a licensing deal:

1) heavy handed lawyers
2) poor chemistry
3) failure to have a strategy approved at the highest level
4) someone leaves the company
5) noone asked a retailer if they'd stock the product
6) someone gets ill
7) the company is sold
8) the brand goes into melt down
9) too many agents closing on the deal
10) slow approval process

anyone got any others?

the downside of risk / reward fee structures

The worst thing about earning a share of a deal that may or may not happen is when, at the cusp of signature, something goes wrong. In the case of two deals that have recently floundered, one fell apart when the other side's negotiator was put on 9 month's gardening leave, and the other has given up the ghost after the other side fell tragically ill.

As the man in the middle there's no greater feeling of powerlessness than watching one half of the puzzle dissolve into mush. From now on I resolve to only work with healthy people who can never be fired!

From hall 5 to hall 20 and back again

Yes, it's www.Springfair.com, where the world unites under one roof to celebrate another year of ranging and stock updating. The paradox is that we crave both variety and stability, which means that buyers have to look for something that is both recognisable and new.

Best part of Spring Fair: seeing mass innovation both good and bad

Worst part of Spring Fair: definitely the awful (and creepy) life-size, robot singing Santa Claus's - i have to tiptoe past them... brrrrrrr

If you're there on Monday and Tuesday then we probably have an appointment already!

fun with lawyers

Why do lawyers spend months sitting on a contract and then send it back with enough red ink for it to virtually unrecognisable. Do they honestly think this is conducive to reaching an agreement?

product of the year

Definitely one of the most succesful licensing programmes around is Product of the Year. This global organisation is instantly recognisable for its ability to generate cash out of brandowners' desires to win awards. At a ceremony that resembles the Oscars (think Air Freshener instead of Brad Pitt), P&G, Unilever, SC Johnson, Nestle and L'Oreal divide up the rights to use the red quadrangle on their products for another 12 months - paying a hefty £75k for the privilege.

This is textbook marketing judo as these branding collosi are thrown by a flyweight with leverage.

how much is your bottleneck?

A bottleneck in the wrong place can be lethal. If an artery clogs the heart can stop working and you die. So too in organisations - how much work is not even attempted because of the slow progress of existing projects. Inefficiency will kill opportunity every time mainly because, as humans, we lose interest if we're ignored.

With licensing, as with any project that requires continuous buy-in, it's all about striking while the iron is hot (or in most cases, luke warm). If the flow of deals is constrained by legal and administrative chin stroking, then there are deals that will either go stagnant or not be attempted purely because the box-tickers pens move slowly.

Many companies use administrative stagnation as a failsafe, protecting the company from bad ideas by creating obstacles so that only really persistent ideas survive. This creates a protectionist state where the idea-killers rule and the frustrated persistent entrepreneur moves on to the next project.

Effective management is about supporting the taking of calculated risks, not maintaining the status quo.

NPD and Viagra!

Never throw away R&D, even if it flops. “Remember, Viagra was a cardiac drug that failed,” notes Julie Hennessy, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. “But for some reason, people didn’t want to return their samples.”

let's get one thing straight

Well, 2008 certainly opens up a whole new set of rhyming opportunities.... great, straight, fate, mate... but mostly the year opens with a refreshing sense of foreboding rather than the usual optimism. With an American credit crunch, threatening to wipe millions of dollars off anything that moves, there's a sense that the current economic climate is distinctly stormy. What a great name though, the credit crunch... a fabulously doom-laden moniker.

In tough times, brands tend to polarise around either mass or luxury, which is going to make things difficult for products clinging to the magnetic middle and offering 'massclusivity.' More, no doubt much more, on this in the weeks to come

greetings of the season

Well another year passes by and it ends on a strong note... I only have promises and intuition to base this on but 2008 feels like it's going to be a strong contender for year of the year.

Best wishes to everyone and happy shopping

ingredients of a great brand licensing consultancy

15% advertising agency
10% design agency
15% sales team
10% retail sales team
5% law firm
10% brand consultancy
5% strategic consultancy
5% accountancy firm
25% licensing agency

a long term waiting game

Waiting to finalise an agency agreement is a test of nerve. Whilst the work has been done and the business case is proven, there's always time for the lawyers to make a mess of things. Better to hang the 'gone fishing' sign on the door and wait until someone notices you're not there than go mad jumping up and down with impatience. From now on, there's going to be an unappointed fee and an appointed fee, and you can guess which one will be higher.

call centre website loop

When websites stop working they refer you to the call centre they replaced which start with a telephone message referring you to the website... does this just happen in order to upset me?

from the internet to the smarternet

So, i'm trying to buy a train ticket from Paddington to Bracknell and the consumer experience is kind of bleuch. There's no help line any more because they want me to use their on-line system, but the on-line system is kind of rubbish. It's slow, i can buy but i have to enter my details, remember login, push the buttons and what am i, some kind of administrator? Sure, the internet means i don't have to talk to anyone who might be inefficient, but what if i'm busy, do i have to pay someone to do this for me?

Given the fact that updating a website is expensive, i can see the case for a smart piece of software that stores all my online requests and carries them out for me - i'd like to say to my computer - book me a theatre ticket next Thursday and have it come back to me with availability and booking times so that all i have to do is make the decision. Basically i want the internet to be more and more like a concierge service rather than something where i have to do all the work.... and i can see that being the future because more and more purchasing is coming online and whilst there might be some excitement left for the huge swathe of late adopters, the rest of us are bored watching little blue circles rotate and questioning the speed of broadband.

My experience with software generally is that anything that works is pushed to the limit and anything that doesn't is seen as redundant and abused. There's zero consumer satisfaction. So why not develop a user interface that does the searching and purchasing for you from a local level... you could even charge participating services a fee for the privilege - in fact with affiliate marketing, the business model already exists....

Watch your PC - i would expect it to be ready to take vague orders within about 6 months....

another great quote

Was re-reading Strategic Brand Management by Jean Noel-Kapferer - favourite quote so far:

“the order in which intermediate extensions are made affects consumer reaction to the final extension.”