Turning Up the Music

Musical instrument, equipment, and accessories brands used by professionals and amateurs alike have long been active in the business of licensing and collaborations. While they continue to represent a small part of the corporate licensing landscape overall, several new licensing deals and agency representation agreements announced over the last few years suggest that their presence in the business is growing:

• This past April, Wurlitzer retained LMCA to oversee a global brand-extension licensing program. The nearly 170-year-old brand’s history has included the making of pianos, electric pianos and organs, and jukeboxes. The licensing program will focus on audio, music, and entertainment products and services.

• Fender, which sells guitars, amps, and other music equipment and celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, has been active as both a licensee and licensor for some time. As a licensor, it partnered with Wrangler Jeans in 2022, starting with a line of denim and graphic t-shirts and expanding into denim accessories including straps, cases, and picks. Other collaborations in recent years have included Poetic Brands for apparel in Europe and Uniqlo for t-shirts in the U.K. and Southeast Asia. As a licensee, Fender’s recent activities have included creating 16 colorful Hot Wheels guitars this spring, across a variety of models, and working with Lexus on a custom Stratocaster guitar model last year.

• Hohner, a maker of harmonicas, accordions, and melodicas, secured the rights in 2021 to make Beatles and Yellow Submarine harmonicas, in a global deal, with products hitting the market this year. Over the decades, the company has entered into collaborations with a diverse roster of partners, including Bob Dylan in the late 2000s for a limited-edition collection of seven different harmonicas, each co-designed, played, and/or hand-signed by the artist; luxury lifestyle label Supreme in 2017 for a limited-edition melodica in its signature red and white; and others ranging from luxury retailer Tiffany to piano man (and harmonica player) Billy Joel.

• Shure, a marketer of microphones and other musical electronics, launched a global licensing program in 2021, hiring agency Licensing Matters Global to represent it in its efforts. Target categories include home goods, fashion and accessories, travel, and tech equipment and related products (e.g, equipment cases and microphone stands).

• Martin Guitar announced its latest signature-guitar collaboration with a musician earlier this year, consisting of two models with Brooke Ligertwood, an artist and producer specializing in Christian music. Its brand collaborations have ranged from a pairing with luxury watch maker RGM a few years ago that yielded both a limited-edition watch and a limited-edition guitar, to a special edition guitar in collaboration with Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum, to this year’s partnership with Werkheiser Jewelers for a jewel-encrusted one-off billed as the 2.5 millionth guitar made by Martin in its 188-year history. Martin also has an outbound licensing deal with Thalia for guitar accessories and phone cases.

• Synthesizer brand Moog partnered with visual artist Wyatt Grant this year for its first Artist Series capsule collection of apparel and collectibles, including hats, shirts, onesies, and other items. Grant and Moog Music are both based in Asheville, North Carolina, and Grant created a mural for the company’s studio space and Moog Sound Lab as well. The artist has created capsules for a variety of musicians and is a musician himself.

• Steinway, the well-known piano brand, has created many limited-edition pianos over the years, including with musician and designer Lenny Kravitz, London’s Royal Albert Hall, and many other designers, musicians, and luxury brands. As for outbound licensing, Steinway created a luxury watch collection for men and women with RC Watches, with one model having a movement inspired by a metronome. It also partners with influencers, both from the music industry and from other fields, to promote its brand to younger consumers, who are less likely to have a piano in their homes than families in years past.

• Gibson Guitars has long been involved in both inbound and outbound collaborations. Among its outbound-licensing activities since coming out of bankruptcy in 2018 have been deals with Axe Heaven for a line of collectible miniature guitars; Thalia for a line of co-branded phone cases and guitar accessories; Echopark Guitars, Banker Custom Guitars, and Jimmy Wallace Guitars, for the first Gibson-branded instruments not made by the company itself; and just this year a one-off Gibson-inspired Triumph Bonneville car, for charity. Also earlier this year, it reportedly filed trademark registrations that suggest it is planning to sell NFTs of its famous guitar models. As for inbound licensing, it has recently made custom guitars for music educator School of Rock and added to its long list of artist-signature guitars through a deal with musicians Amythyst Kiah, Nikki Lane, and Scarypoolparty.

• Yamaha, the Japanese company that makes musical instruments and equipment, among many other products, collaborated late last year with Kyoto Animation, producer of the music-themed anime Sound! Euphonium, for live-streamed and in-store events in Japan. One of the many experiences during the two-month partnership consisted of a real maestro conducting the animated orchestra from the series, in an event the Yamaha store in Ginza. Note that this is purely a promotional partnership involving content and events, without any licensed merchandise involved.

This sampling of deals is limited, but it gives a sense of the wide variety of brands in the music industry active in licensing and collaborations, and the range of initiatives with which they are involved, from one-of-a-kind luxury products to mass market graphic t-shirts.

A heads-up that Raugust Communications’ monthly e-newsletter comes out tomorrow, Tuesday August 16, 2022. The Licensing Topic of the Month takes a look at retailers’ recent financial results and operational moves and the key takeaways for licensing, while the Datapoint research spotlight examines the scope of capsule collections and how they have changed over the past few years. If you are not yet a subscriber to this free publication, you can sign up here.