The Short-Lived Memory Of Dead Brands

At Licensing International trade shows dating back twenty years, I hear the same adage repeated - everything old is new again.??I used to agree. I don’t anymore.??Trade exhibitors say one thing; the marketplace says another.??The resurrection of dead brands through licensing frequently fails.?

Yes, there are exceptions. So many creative ways to mitigate this challenge for owners of nostalgic equities.??Plus the strategy did flourish several decades ago.??Conclusively – I could be dead wrong.

They’re Tough To Bring Back

More often than not, we see owners of dead trademarks struggling to find a partner whose commitment wavers with buyer interests (and sometimes not even that).??That struggle is vexing, and not a sustainable way for an I/P owner to run a licensing business.

I regret this. My company has tried repeatedly, across clients, and with such effort to honor that goosebump of consumer memory to bring dead brands back through licensed executions. We’ve heard the revival anecdotes of White Cloud and Magic Chef so often.??Those next generation inceptions have become urban folklore.??

What About Sharper Image

Let us be clear. The??Sharper Image bankruptcy filing, and its decision to exit core shopping mall operations in 2008, did NOT mean the brand had deceased.??No way.??There was an updated data set featuring door locations, traffic, sales, and primary awareness research indicating that a) Sharper Image remained fresh in consumers’ minds, b) they were shopping at Sharper Image nationwide through store closure, and c) consumers agreed that Sharper Image has a distinct point of superiority in its promise to help solve consumer problems.?

That’s a brand alive and well.??And subsequent owners proved it. Consumer perceptions of brand promise are not driving by internal financial dysfunction.??Perceptions are driven by product quality and customer experience.?

If They Can Do It, We Can Do It

With brand reinvention success, there’s new competition.??Entrepreneurs abound navigate USPTO to uncover treasured trademarks abandoned, unused, and ripe for the picking.??We’ve tried it.??But.??If a brand long dissolved from the marketplace.??And no resources were invested in continued consumer awareness.??And it was long replaced by competitors at retail.??AND if no sufficient sales data exist, proving that brand would be selected by consumers over others to solve their problems.??Then it’s dead.?

When I cofounded my agency years ago, I daydreamed about bringing these trademarks back to life. I longed for the hair care brands from the 80s.??The difference between me and most consumers:??I wasn’t born after 1990, and my memory is a steel trap.??My business idea sounded interesting to some.??I was really encouraged.??However, expecting a third-party license manufacture to do it for you is a much bigger challenge.

Too Many Fish In The Sea

Contrary to when I started in licensing - so many more equities are seeking licensees, targeting a contracting number of licensed manufacturers. Licensees have so many more brands to choose from.?

Licensees MUST choose the brands they know will drive their business in an incremental way others can’t. Convincing them to choose a brand no longer on shelf versus the brand in an adjacent aisle is a tall order.??

Buyers Can’t Take Chances Anymore

The next issue is the merchant itself. Any trademark owner looking to tap into the nostalgia of a buyer will be disillusioned.???Too many buyers just don’t care. Whether the trademark was created in 1894, 1984, or three months ago,??buyers will ask if the trademark can outspend competitors in slotting fees.??Buyers will. Evaluate if the “dead brand” can generate more sales per square foot than slow movers they’re trying to get rid of.??Which leads to the biggest challenge that I directly experienced.?

Show Me The Numbers

Brands from twenty or thirty years ago – without active corporate ownership and investment – have a lack of data to support just how large that brand may have been. Compelling Nielsen data???Good luck with that.??Retailers were fragmented and not scanning purchases but a generation ago.??Any sales tracking from even ten years on is extremely expensive, and still unreliable since retailers have come and gone – and, retailers agreeing to allow their sales to be scanned have come and gone.?

Trademark owners relying on the licensure of dead brands must hope for subjective nostalgia from licensees and merchants, who were around and loyal enough to understand what that brand meant.??It’s a needle in a haystack.

This is a painful truth for the Licensing industry. I believe it to be the case. I’m not alone, but I know not everyone agrees.

If You Own Those Equities,??Don’t Let Them Go

Now are their business models that owners of dead brands can tap into to increase the value of their assets and launch consumer goods into the marketplace???The answer is absolutely yes. In fact, the blurring of channel boundaries, and ability to marshal generations of that brand’s fans, is easier now than it has ever been.??But it requires more elbow grease, ingenuity, and patience than the traditional licensing business model.

And that is the subject of an upcoming newsletter. Stay tuned.