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/

Latest article

This article was recently published in the brand and sports licensing source book. I think i need a new photo though.

Quarterly newsletter

http://tiny.cc/DcypQ

Benchmarking exercise gets off to a flyer

We now have a number of companies expressing an interest in the benchmarking exercise including;

Hewlett Packard

Church Dwight

Xerox

LaCoste

General Electric

Watch this space

Corporate Licensing Benchmarking Exercise

Announcing the opening of a new initiative. Ever since Golden Goose started up we've been looking into how marketing departments can harness licensing as a way to build brands and grow revenue. It seems that, in the current climate, more and more brandowners are waking up to the opportunities to exploit their Intellectual Property through third-party agreements.

To help paint a picture of the current marketing resources going into licensing, we're now looking for companies to participate in a Licensor Benchmarking Exercise. To participate in the exercise that we are planning to complete before the end of September 2009, please join the associated Linked In group

Donnington Park BTCC Day out

some thoughts on cars

My car is a second home

it moves me to drive

this portable roadside life

through ever changing scenes

played out in temporary domesticity

My car is the way i am

organised, meticulous

a well-oiled sense of continuous pride. 

Passengers respect my code

as I pilot them to a fixed point. 

My car is an office

delivering lectures, conferences, and sales

a workhorse steed

shining up the motorway

gallantly troving the distances

between failure and success. 

My car is a source of knowledge

of mysterious parts

greater than the sum of the whole. 

A creature that responds to

wrench, drench, dabble and tweak

with torque and turbo

and increased know-how. 

My car is a necessary evil

putting personal needs above

community, planet, and nature. 

I can reduce consumption

and collateral damage

but can't stop shopping, school runs and outings.

My car is a fantasy and a weapon of death

a journey that last a lifetime

beginning with a single spark

a miracle of modern engineering

the mixed blessing 

of human ingenuity, 

The source of the question and the answer.

Golden Goose appointed by RAC

We are delighted to announce that Golden Goose has been appointed by The RAC to manage their licensing programme. Work is underway to take this already successful licensing programme to the next level. For more information about the RAC visit: www.rac.co.uk

Metaphors for licensing No. 231: IP rag and bone man

Cycling to work this fine spring morning i saw a 'rag and bone man', which is someone who picks up old valuables and then sells them, realising value that was previously unknown. Now i know this is probably stretching it but it occurred to me that i do roughly the same thing only with intellectual property....

Brand immersion at the London Fire Brigade

Very enlightening work.....

banks

All I can say is, that if I was currently running a bank, I would pull all advertising immediately. 

New client

Golden Goose is delighted to announce our appointment by the London Fire Brigade to develop and execute a licensing strategy. We look forward to working with them to deliver successful products in a wide range of categories.

the perfect gift this valentines

Obviously, the perfect gift this valentine's day is a charm bracelet from www.page3diamonds.com, only £99 for a silver bracelet and four diamond and ruby set charms. What else would your page 3 dream girl want?