Party planning is starting to emerge as an area of interest within the licensing business, both in terms of properties available and as a category/theme for licensed merchandise. Celebrity wedding planners have been extending their names into bridal categories for a few years now, but the landscape is changing as they are increasingly positioned not […]
Specialty Stores Still Struggle
As we near the end of 2014, three bankruptcies disclosed at the end of last week—Mexx, Delia’s, and Deb Shops—illustrate the continuing challenges faced by many retailers, particularly in the specialty fashion tier. Each of these chains varies in its scope, strategy, and target audience, and in the role played by licensed products. Netherlands-based Mexx […]
Crafting a New Entertainment Genre
Licensors in the sectors of art, sports, fashion, and especially character and entertainment have, over the past several years, increasingly been licensing their properties into the arts and crafts category. A more recent trend is for arts and crafts to be the central theme of entertainment content: Air Crafters is a CG and mixed media […]
Collegiate Course Correction
The collegiate licensing agency landscape continues to change, as IMG Worldwide announced earlier this week it would lay off 3% of its workforce this month, spread evenly across all its divisions, which include IMG College and the Collegiate Licensing Company. The contraction occurs a year after talent agency William Morris Endeavor acquired IMG. In July […]
A Cold One With Character
Licensed beers have represented a growth area within the food and beverage sector over the last year or two, with properties that have dabbled in the category ranging from apparel brands (e.g. Carhartt) to musicians (Grateful Dead). A particularly active niche of late has consisted of beers tied to entertainment properties. This is especially true […]
Timeless Appeal
At one time, many pundits were predicting that the growing ubiquity of the smartphone—which many consumers use as their primary means of telling time these days—would mean the demise of the wristwatch. But a flurry of deals over the last year or so shows that traditional watches remain a robust area for licensing: Fashion brand […]