how do you use brand licensing to extend your brand?
TRANSCRIPT
How Do You Use Brand Licensing to
Extend Your Brand?
Contributed by Pete Canalichio on January 7, 2015 in Strategy, Marketing, & Sales
Few companies use brand licensing to extend their brands into
new categories. Those that do, including Coleman, Newell
Rubbermaid, and P&G, have successfully delivered millions of
products a year into the marketplace by leveraging the
competencies, resources and distribution networks of hundreds of
manufacturers throughout the globe.
Up until now, licensing has been a nice to have tactic for
companies to extend their brands. With the recent recession and
dynamic changes in the retail landscape, it is now an economic
necessity for companies who plan to grow profitably in the 21 st
century. Before any successful licensor like P&G enters a new
category with their brand, they go through a disciplined and systematic process to
determine the categories in which their brand should play and what approach–
manufacturing, sourcing, acquisition, or licensing–they should employ to enter the
marketplace. Of course, brands owned by Coleman, Newell Rubbermaid and P&G are rich
in brand equity , making them desirable by consumers and manufacturers alike, a
prerequisite before launching any brand licensing program .
So, have you ever considered extending your brand via licensing? If you have, you may
have considered the benefits of brand licensing and felt strongly about taking advantage of
these benefits. After all, what brand owners would choose not to connect with their
consumers faster than they could organically? Or, who wouldn’t want to leverage a licensee
’s resources to market their brand? What about the opportunity to protect your brand’s
trademark in a particular category that would otherwise be at risk? That’s important, too.
Right? And, of course, the chance to earn royalty revenue to reinvest in marketing or to
strengthen the company’s operating income is compelling all by itself. But, how do you
really know whether your brand is ready to be licensed before you commit the time and
resources to launch a brand licensing program?
Based on our experience and industry knowledge having extended the world’s greatest
brands into new categories via licensing, we have developed a highly facilitated, day-long
workshop designed to assist you in getting the clarity you need before moving forward. We
start by determining what categories your brand is ready to be extended into and then
utilizing our proprietary evaluation process, we assist you in selecting which of these
categories is best suited to be extended via licensing. As success of any brand licensing
program is contingent upon you, we have structured our program to gain consensus
amongst your organization’s management and marketing leadership. That way you can
begin implementing your findings immediately.
Our workshop makes certain your brand’s positioning, architecture and consumer
perceptions are the focal point in making brand licensing decisions. We do this by:
Determining the value of your brand from an awareness and perception perspective
Identifying and or verifying categories your brand has permission to extend into
Evaluating which of these categories should be extended through licensing
Prioritizing the categories to ensure you are capitalizing on your best market
opportunities
Specific research is a critical and necessary input to this workshop. Accordingly, we build
the research into the workshop’s pre-work phase so that the workshop can be utilized to
build consensus and make key decisions. The research is designed to answer the following
questions:
What is the awareness level of the brand?
What are the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the brand, by target segment?
What new categories does the target segment want to see the brand in?
What is the market attractiveness of these categories?
We include educational components throughout the day so that all participants are speaking
a common language. For example, we make sure participants understand the brand’s
architecture and its components including: product attributes , functional benefits,
emotional benefits and higher order brand identity . We also ensure participants are clear
and aligned on their brand’s positioning statement. Finally, we review:
What is brand licensing?
What are its benefits?
What are the common pitfalls?
What is the brand licensing process?
The deliverable is a consensus on whether the brand is ready to be licensed into new
categories and if so, provides a list of the top categories that represent the best opportunity
to extend the brand through licensing. That way you know how to extend your brand via
licensing so you can take advantage of this critical go to market tactic. And, because the
brand’s vitality and essence are critical to its long- term health we work with the team
throughout the workshop to ensure that every category selected by definition reinforces the
brand’s position. While the group can be larger, we generally plan for attendance by 8 to 10
key organization stakeholders, including the organization’s leadership. This workshop is
lead by renowned brand licensing expert Pete Canalichio .
About Pete Canalichio
Pete Canalichio is an expert with over 20 years of global experience in the areas of Brand Strategy and
Brand Licensing, working with brands such as The Coca-Cola Company and Newell Rubbermaid.
Recognized as a leading expert, he is frequently asked to speak at branding and licensing conferences
and leading business schools globally. He is a series of brand licensing and strategy frameworks and
webinars available on Flevy here .
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