Brand Squared Licensing | Strategic Brand Licensing

DETERMINING WHETHER STRATEGIC LICENSING IS APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR BRAND

Any brand owner pursuing strategic licensing must remember that it is asking a manufacturer to pay a royalty per unit sold, in exchange for use of the brand. If such manufacturers are allocating a significant portion of their profit to a brand they are licensing in, the execution will benefit that manufacturer as much as the brand owner. In this economic climate, manufacturers are also looking at any number of brands at the same time. To ensure your brand has a compelling point of difference for manufacturers – more so than other brands such manufacturers might consider - your brand is best positioned when satisfying the following criteria. If your brand doesn’t have obvious strengths among all of these variables, it still may be well positioned for licensing. An experienced advisor in the function can help provide further guidance.

STRONG AWARENESS

Brand names add significant value to third-party manufacturers when they are already universally known with a specific consumer audience before such license agreement is considered.

UNIQUE POINT OF DIFFERENCE

Brand names that stand for a set of distinct features and benefits, or a consistent emotional response, or a tacit and guaranteed level of consumer satisfaction, are very attractive to third-party manufacturers who are looking to acquire built-in consumer acceptance as much as consumer knowledge that the brand exists.

VISUAL ICONOGRAPHY AND AESTHETIC

Brands that enjoy immediate associations with its corporate identity, logo, slogan, campaign, color, or even the design of its core product, in the minds of its stakeholders, give manufacturers in new categories immediate product and package development direction. Invariably this leads to stronger incremental impressions for the brand owner, and increased confidence among manufacturers in the strength of the equity they are no representing in their lines of business.

DISTRIBUTION PROWESS

Brands that have ubiquitous presence in key regions – or, ideally, nationwide – excite manufacturers facing a retail environment in which the majority of their business is dependent on buying decisions for national chains. Brands need not already have placement in such retailers to enjoy “distribution prowess.” Many brands enjoy excellent on-line, television, theatrical or live-event coverage, and while they may not occupy the traditional retail space that consumer packaged goods brands have, they can still make a case for strong distribution and a valuable brand to license among third-party manufacturers.

LONGEVITY

Brands that have been in the consumer sphere for years or decades imply longstanding trust with its consumer base, as well as a potential to attract multiple generations of purchasers who shop the categories of third-party manufacturers under consideration.