Celebrity chefs and bakers continue to enter or expand their presence in consumer products, with several announcing new initiatives within the last year or so. Many of these have used one or more of the following tactics to separate themselves from their competitors in this already crowded arena: Ethnic focus. Maria Loi, who is a […]
Adding A Little Flavor
Consumers’ embrace of flavored alcoholic beverages brings opportunities for licensors of brands associated with fruit, sweets, or other taste treats. Flavored beers accounted for 27% of total new beer launches in 2015, according to researcher Mintel. That compares to 15% five years earlier. In addition, 20% of U.S. beer drinkers (and 39% of female beer […]
Looking Good
Licensed properties of all types, from celebrities to characters to corporate brands, continue to enter the men’s grooming and toiletries market. Since we last covered this topic in October 2015, new deals announced in the category have included: • A Ryan Seacrest-branded skincare line to launch in late 2016, in conjunction with Lancer Skincare. The […]
Working Out
Licensors of gyms and fitness brands represent an energetic sector for licensing, launching functional apparel, exercise equipment, fitness trackers, and other product lines closely related to their core mission. Recent activity includes: New licensing programs. Last year, Hard Candy Fitness, a chain of boutique gyms founded by Madonna and named after one of her albums, […]
Clean and Pristine
Corporate brand extension historically has been the primary form of licensing when it comes to household-cleaning products in spray, powder, or liquid form (e.g., laundry detergents, stain removers, window and multi-surface sprays, carpet and upholstery cleaners, and the like). Home Care Industries, for example, offers a Febreze line of formulas for deep-cleaning carpet machines, as […]
Peddling Pedals
As bike culture grows around the globe, especially in urban areas, licensing in the bicycle category is expanding outside of its historical boundaries. The U.K. market over the last year or so has served as the epicenter for several deals illustrating how bike-related licensing can stretch beyond conventional bike-licensing boundaries. For instance: Bike-culture brands are […]
Spinning Some Tunes
Wherever there is a consumer trend, licensing will follow. The presence of licensed examples among the exclusive vinyl releases for Record Store Day, the 2016 edition of which took place on Saturday (April 17), illustrates this truism. Record Store Day was launched as a way to support independent stores that continue to offer new and […]
Behind the Makeup
Celebrity makeup artists and hair stylists have been extending their names into cosmetics and other beauty products in a big way since at least the mid-1990s, well before social media and reality TV made them recognizable to a broad swath of consumers. The trend continues today, as several announcements in the last six to nine […]
Out of Sight But Not Out of Mind
Camouflage licensing, an already-significant sector that encompasses proprietary camouflage designs and brand names such as Realtree and Mossy Oak, has continued to evolve and grow in a number of ways over time: New brands. Camouflage suppliers beyond the big two have entered licensing, as U.S. military specialist Tennier Industries did when it retained The Brand […]
More Than Memoirs
Bookstore and book department shelves have long been filled with celebrity-penned memoirs, humor titles, cookbooks, picture books, and lifestyle tomes. A more recent development, however, is for celebrities to launch entire publishing imprints tied to their names or lifestyle brands. The imprints serve as a trade name or umbrella for not only the celebrity’s own […]