Wednesday, August 20, 2014

“The Right Fit”

How often do we hear this term in life.   IS it the right fit?   Well never has a term meant more to success in Brand Licensing than “The Right Fit”.  The marriage of the right brand with the right product category with the right Licensee in the right channels at the right price. All must be “right” to achieve a successful licensed product entry for your brand.  But how do you as a brand owner insure that all is “right” with the world for your licensed property.  One word:  RESEARCH.

If you want to have a successful licensing program one where your brand is the right fit for every product category you enter, you need to take the time, have the discipline and invest the money to conduct both primary and secondary market research on the product categories that you are considering licensing your brand into.  You also need to invest in brand perception research upfront to understand what your brand means to target customers through the attributes it elicits and the awareness it has.  

Once you understand what your brand attributes are, you can engage in fielding Brand Extension Research to understand if the people in the market to purchase in a prospective product category give your brand “permission” to enter that category.  By that I mean that your research needs to uncover whether the target customer would 1) consider your brand when purchasing a product in the category and 2) actually purchase your brand over the competitive brands in that category.    By checking in with the actual “in-market” customers through research, you gain an understanding of whether your brand will “fit” well in that prospective licensing category.

Once you answer the brand fit question, you can use the many sources out there of secondary industry research to answer questions like market size & growth rate, royalty rates and market share to prioritize what licensing categories and what licensees to go after first and how to negotiate the best royalty rates and minimums possible.  And your research results will also help you sell the best potential licensees out there on why they want your brand on their product.  Why? Because you can prove it fits!

If you are unsure of how to tackle either primary or secondary market research in product extension categories, then consider getting help from a reasonably priced brand licensing firm like mine,  Brandar Consulting, LLC

Insure your success by spending the time and money to do the research to find the RIGHT FIT for your brand in a licensed product category.  The cost of this research will pay itself back ten-fold by drastically increasing your probability of success.  You get only one chance to build a great licensing program; don’t squander it.  

Mike Slusar

Managing Director & Owner
Brandar Consulting, LLC
“Helping Brands Reach for The Stars”

email: mike@brandar.com

http://www.brandar.com/

copyright © 2014 Brandar Consulting, LLC  All Rights Reserved

2 comments:

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