Footwear brands, designers, and 3D printing manufacturers have been collaborating on 3D-printed shoes for at least a decade, and the number of examples has slowly been growing over time. This year designer collaborations have been notable enough on the runways that 3D-printed footwear has been called out by fashion watchers as a key trend of […]
Archive | Innovation
And Now For Something Completely Different
Every once in a while, licensing initiatives come about that seem to be wholly new, at least within their segment of the licensing business. While it is always difficult to determine whether something is really a “first,” here are a few examples from recent months that are innovative in some way: Christian Dior Paris paired […]
FMX 2021: Insights on AR, VR, and LBE
By Karen Raugust on May 17, 2021 in Digital, Experiential licensing, Innovation, Interactive gaming, Licensing
FMX 2021, a conference focusing on animation, visual effects, games, and immersive media, was held May 4-6, 2021. The digital event featured three case studies of interest to the licensing community: the Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge theme park land; Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix-Up, an app-centric augmented-reality, multiuser, multimedia experience with a live community […]
Eco-Friendly Fungus
On this Earth Day 2021, it seems like a good time to take a look at the rising popularity of mushrooms as a focal point of sustainability initiatives. Mushrooms and mycelium, the vegetative branching filaments (akin to a root system) of a fungus, are viable not only as eco-friendly food ingredients but as materials to […]
First Impressions
Every once in a while, we shine a spotlight on recent deals involving products and categories that have rarely been a focus for licensing and may offer white space for licensors with relevant IP. Our first post of 2021 seems like a good time to take stock of some of the new and unusual licensed […]
Looking Beyond Face Coverings
Properties of all types have gotten into the face covering game in a big way since just after the start of the pandemic, with cloth masks, gaiters, balaclavas, and other protective facewear quickly becoming a standard category for licensing. Meanwhile, the pandemic has also given rise to other new opportunities related to avoiding the COVID-19 […]
The Rise of Anti-COVID Soft Goods
Since April, when it started to become evident that the coronavirus would likely stay around for a while, technology companies, fabric suppliers, and research institutions, as well as soft goods brands, began introducing anti-viral fabrics to repel SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—for use in apparel and home textiles. Anti-viral, anti-microbial, and anti-fungal fabrics have been […]
Pandemic Products with Partnership Potential
The COVID-19 crisis, for all the disruption and challenges it has brought to the licensing business, has also given rise to some wholly new opportunities. Face coverings are a notable example, of course, with the category going from zero to ubiquitous almost instantaneously. As the pandemic has worn on, additional brand-new categories are springing up […]
Clothing for the COVID Era
Populations around the world are slowly starting to test a post-COVID daily routine that involves some form of work, school, shopping, and leisure. But the reopening of society has shown that the coronavirus is still a threat, as illustrated by the recent spikes in the number of cases in the U.S. and some other countries. […]
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Licensing has become more data-driven over time, as the tools used to analyze sales and other information at a granular level improve, giving licensors and licensees insights into what is working and not working and enhancing the ability to tweak strategies quickly. Licensing executives have also increasingly been enhancing sales history with other more forward-looking […]