It blended space populated by exhibitors like Emma Lawrence, OddBalls and art licensing agency Jehane with a theatre space that played host to a well-curated programme of panels and interviews. The emphasis on these sessions was providing further insights into the world of licensing and participants included Aardman Animations, the V&A Museum and Liberty.

Part of the rationale for including an educational element in the Licensing Lab was to build on the growing role licensing is playing in the gift industry – and the show floor featured a host of companies that include licensed products in their product portfolios.

Ian Downes from Start Licensing hosted a panel discussion featuring Ian Wickham from Licensing Link, Sandra Vanstan from William Lamb and Matthew Gibson from Oddballs. The topic for the panel discussion was: ‘Demystifying the Price Point: How to Value and Sell Licensed Products.’

The panel touched on a number of areas connected to this topic, including product development and how retailers can benefit from licensed products. The panel also highlighted that rights owners are more willing than ever to engage with retailers – big and small – to create promotional activity focused on driving up customer engagement.

Below is a recap from the panel on some of the key points raised in the discussion:

Should retailers be concerned about the price of licensed products?
Matthew Gibson, Head of Partnerships & Licensing, OddBalls: No! It’s something to be considered but not feared. It’s not a secret that licensed products can be more expensive as they include MGs, royalties and often marketing spend commitment. The key is to forecast accurately and understand the overall financial undertaking if taking a license themselves. Or, when looking to buy in a licensed range, make sure their customers are willing to pay the price point.

Sandra Vanstan, Head of Licensing, William Lamb: Retailers should naturally be concerned about price points to remain competitive. However, buyers are under enormous internal pressure to focus on margins, and often, sadly, it’s the product that suffers.

Ian Wickham, Co-Founder, Licensing Link: Licensed products come with the perception of being slightly more expensive than generic products for a number of reasons… The value associated with the license, the quality associated with the license, consumers wanting to own a ‘piece’ of a license and the additional costs that have gone in to creating the products – like rigorous QA testing to hit the licensor’s brand requirements.

“There’s a credibility and gravitas associated with some licenses.”

Plus, there’s an expectation that the licensed product – because of all the above – will last longer than a generic one. All of this comes with a cost associated with it. So retailers should not be concerned with marking their licensed products up with a premium within their overall offer to consumers.

For retailers, what are the benefits of licensed products?
Sandra Vanstan, William Lamb: If you have ever experienced a child’s tantrum over a Frozen doll, then you will understand the benefits of selling licensed products!

Matthew Gibson, OddBalls: The reputation of the brand itself is a huge pull to purchase for the customer. It will allow a retailer to trial a new category or product, before bringing in a wider range in that category. All because the licensed brand will have an existing following and strong fanbase to purchase new product. Licensing a new design of an existing range will add great value for minimal cost.

Ian Wickham, Licensing Link: By supporting licensed products, retailers have the ability to increase their basket spend – as well as build on a loyal shopper that wants to come back and purchase further into a range of licenses. Additionally, there’s the benefit of offering consumers a point of difference as well as choice – this all enhances their shopper experience.

On top of this, there’s the credibility and gravitas that can be associated with some licenses which can lead to additional sales and up-selling, as well as building the retailers credibility about their offering too.

“For bricks-and-mortar stores, it’s about selling around an event or experience…”

The sale of licensed products could also encourage retailers to expand their offer into additional categories that have synergy with their current lines and what the license can deliver. This further enhances their credibility as well as repeat footfall with consumers coming back to buy into the extended ranges.

How can retailers highlight the added value licensed products deliver in their stores?
Ian Wickham, Licensing Link: Great use of POS in store to communicate the arrival of licensed product is a great way of explaining and educating the consumer all about the products and range. Most licensors have pre-approved toolkits for retailers to use in store, so the effort to deliver this is fairly minimal from the retailer’s perspective – an easy win.

I’d also suggest using social platforms too. Do mail outs explaining the value associated with licensed products in-store or online, and social media posts communicating the features, benefits and the additional points of difference to entice a consumer. Website takeovers are also a very easy win for retailers to communicate the value associated with the products.

If relevant, character visits to the store can generate additional theatre, atmosphere and occasion. It’s great for families, magical for children and a great way of delivering added value around a particular license.

Finally, cross category promotions and merchandising various items together can make a statement in store. Have licensees work together to make the offer cover a multitude of purchase occasions.

Matthew Gibson, OddBalls: I’d suggest small POS assets like ‘Official Merchandise’ and using social media constantly to show people what is in store. Retailers who tap into super fans through clever marketing will also see significant value when retailing licensed products.

Sandra Vanstan, William Lamb: For retailers trading in ecommerce, high-quality photography and video are essential, with aspirational lifestyle shots helping to showcase products at their very best. For bricks-and-mortar stores, it’s about selling around an event or experience… Whether that’s supporting a key anniversary or capitalising on a much-anticipated movie release with merchandise that customers can quite literally dress themselves in from head to toe.

Finally, which licensed product of yours would you highlight as a good example of licensing?
Matthew Gibson, OddBalls: I’d highlight our most recent licensed range with Aardman’s Wallace & Gromit. Launched in a timely manner at the start of Aardman’s 50th anniversary, the range captures the personality and charisma of the iconic duo. The design is on brand and relatable for fans. Seeing Wallace in his dressing gown enjoying a brew, Gromit sewing and his cute but often puzzle facial expressions make for a superb first design for the collection!

The range launched at a topical time, used great design assets and was marketed strategically to the fanatical fan using Wallace & Gromit branded slogans, other characters and a wide range of well know icons from the show.

“Retailers who tap into super fans through clever marketing will see significant value.”

It’s a wonderful example of the amalgamation of two brands creating one superb range of desirable products! Not to mention the high percentage of returning customers who bought, showing the brand fit was incredibly accurate but, also a 99.93% sell through in just three weeks…

Ian Wickham, Licensing Link: I’d go for the Floral Street Sunflower Pop and Sweet Almond Blossom parfum. Created using 100% vegan ingredients, the formulation for both was created using inspiration from where Vincent van Gogh painted in Arles, France.

Floral Street themselves are a disruptor in the fragrance category, just as Vincent was in the art world. The business was set up by one very driven lady – just as Vincent was self taught, getting knock backs as he improved his designs and signature brushstrokes. Floral Street are trailblazing in the category they operate in, as Vincent was too – so it’s a great match.

The use of storytelling is key to the overall execution which fits in with the Van Gogh Museum’s strategy to get the message out about Vincent and his art. ‘If one loves nature, one finds beauty everywhere’ is what Vincent wrote to his brother Theo. This is the overall message and carrier for the Floral Street x Van Gogh Museum range which is pertinent to the use of natural ingredients as well as Floral Street’s use of flowers. As is the overall strapline of ‘Where fine art meets fine fragrance’, cementing together the relationship between licensor and licensee.

Sandra Vanstan, William Lamb: One of my proudest product launches was an Enormous Crocodile slipper set we developed for Start-Rite, which included Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile book alongside a beautifully crafted, premium pair of slippers. The crocodile’s appliqued mouth stretched across the vamp of both feet, forming the full character when placed together. Seeing the product in store was an absolute squeal moment.

The post OddBalls, Licensing Link and William Lamb discuss valuing and selling licensed products appeared first on Brands Untapped.

The range spans men’s and women’s underwear, including men’s boxer shorts, goolies, briefs, and women’s bralettes, briefs, and boxer shorts. Each features signature Love Hearts messages and ‘eye-catching colours’.

“I’m delighted to see the collection come to life,” said Matthew Gibson, Head of Partnerships and Licensing at OddBalls.

“It’s been a pleasure to work with the teams at Swizzels and Blonde Sheep Licensing to make this super fun collection a reality! The range represents both brands perfectly; it’s fun, colourful, and of course, unbelievably comfy. Thank you to everyone who worked on this project!”

Natasha Dyson, Founder & CEO at Blonde Sheep Licensing, added: “Love Hearts is a brand built on positivity and connection, so partnering with OddBalls is a natural match. The team has created a really fresh, eye-catching collection that brings the joy of Love Hearts to life in an entirely new way. We’re delighted to launch this collaboration in time for Valentine’s Day.”

The range is available exclusively via OddBalls’ website. Check it out here.

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And for what is Oddballs best known?
Oddballs is best known for its loud, bright, fun designs. Our brand persona is all about being disruptive and fun with high-quality products that make a lot of noise…

For example?
When we started eleven years ago, we began raising money and awareness of testicular cancer through the sale of our comfy, bright boxers. They help address the stigma of a disease that many people don’t want to talk about… We made it glaringly obvious. Well, that model worked and we’ve since developed a whole charitable range and donated over a million pounds to various charities…

Currently, on the website are RNLI, Movember, My Name’s Doddie and Dogs Trust, but we’ve done others! We create product with the same influences and high quality as our other designs… Then sell them on the website and make a per-purchase donation to those charities. So very much like a licensing model. We always organise a minimum donation, and then the charities also give a percentage based on their own sales.

That’s amazing. The company didn’t start out with licensing in mind, did it?
No, not really. it was more about our subscription model and comfy oddball stock designs. We started getting new kits for the new England and Wales Football and Rugby Teams, mimicking them in boxer shorts and bringing them out for Christmas. Once they sold through, we’d wait for next year’s kits. Two years ago, the Managing Director and I had a conversation about doing more in entertainment, character and brands. And it’s been a massive success since then.

Well, let’s talk about that… What are some of the licenses you hold?
We’ve got everything from The Beano and Sesame Street to Kellogg’s, Pringles and Mr. Men and Little Miss… We’ve got AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Emoji… All sorts! We’ve got a fantastic deal with Paramount that spans eight brands – seven of which have already been on sale. There’s Star Trek, Garfield, South Park, Ninja Turtles, Grease, SpongeBob and Top Gun.

That’s quite a range! You won an award from Paramount, did you not?
Yes! Wow… We recently won Paramount’s Newcomer of the Year. That’s massive for us; it was a real honour to be invited to the summit down there and win… Because we’re not a licensing brand – we’re a brand that does licensing – and a relatively small company when it comes to the amount we’re doing. Critically, though, we have a big mission – and it’s great to see all our departments really understanding what we want out of these licenses, and even have Paramount recognise us.

I was also interested to see a very positive news story about Oddballs featuring real bodies in their adverts…
Yes, we had a phrase to the effect, ‘Every body is beautiful’. We were thrilled that that got attention because it was a very healthy, helpful thing. The brutal truth of how it came about, though, is that when we were a much smaller company, the marketing team were the models.

Ha!
Ha! In fact, when I did my interview, I had to do a marketing campaign to launch a new design called Underground. As you might imagine, Underground was based around a very a vague metro tube map with various different colours. I thought it would be a good idea to film myself getting on the tube in a pair of black boxers, then go along the train, get off in the underground and so on! So I pitched that, and they loved it. Once I got the job, they said, “Right. Off you go!”

No?! You had to do it?!
Yes! I had to travel a couple of metro stops in my boxers! I got ready in the car park in the rain with an umbrella and a matching pair of pants. And my wife was like, “Sorry… What is it you work as now? What do you do?”

Ha! I’m not surprised! Ha!
But being unapologetically authentic is an important part of our brand. We don’t ham things up for various campaigns; we don’t try and make things gimmicky – although fun underwear can become quite a gimmicky; they’re quite a novelty purchase for people.

And on that, Matthew, I have a delicate question… I think it would be easy for somebody to sneer, thinking: ‘Oh, right – they do novelty pants!” Right? With another company, the product could deteriorate into tat pretty quickly…
Ha! You’re totally right!

Ha! You took that well! So what separates you? What lifts you up?
The root of what we do has always been great design and really high quality – and those factors will never change… Whether it’s a pair of plain black boxers for classic, a multipack of five or a brand-new Ninja Turtle line, we give it the same attention. Now, we do our biggest sales in Q4, of course, because we sit in the gifting category. But our customers aren’t looking for a one-and-done novelty purchase.

It sounds like you’ve got a pretty good handle on this in a very short time…
It’s been such a fantastic journey into licensing over the last two years. You know, three years ago we did £300,000 in license sales. Two years ago, we did 1.7 million and last year, we did over 3 million. A lot of that is down to volume because we’ve gone from eight licensed designs to over 40. We also put about 30 to 35% of our sales back into marketing; we invest heavily in our designs and really push things on our own channels.

Well, you’re obviously doing something very right! Now, we’ve talked about nostalgia, quality and your demographics. What other qualities unite all your partners, though? What makes them right for you?
Good question! I think reputation is the word that sums it up… Kellogg’s, for example, has a great reputation… Mr. Men, Sesame Street; you name it – they all have a great reputation in that gifting area. If a brand has a great reputation, and we can align with how they do things, then the conversation becomes very easy… Conversely, we’ve had conversations with brands ranging from heavy metal to fast-moving consumer goods that just wouldn’t work for us because they don’t yet have that reputation.

I know you have some news for us! What are some of your recent signings?
The Who has just launched recently with Bravado, and we’ve welcomed Elvis to the portfolio with the team at Authentic. We’re also bringing in new designs across Sesame Street, Paramount and AC/DC… And we have some great things coming in early 2026, too!

Amazing! We need to start wrapping things up, Matthew, but I can’t let you go without finding out if you personally have a dream license?
Personally, I would love to do something with Warner Bros.! Purely because I think they’re emphatic… We did Superman as a brand partnership recently, which only made me want to work with them from a licensed point of view even more. The scope of the brands they have is a really strong fit for us: Looney Tunes, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and DC… There’s a lot of really high quality in that for our consumers.

That’s a great answer! Is there anything else I could’ve asked about today?
No, I don’t think so! This has been great; I appreciate you reaching out. It’s an exciting time at Oddballs for all things licensed and we’ve got some really fun stuff coming up. Then I think it’s a case of being able to upscale what we’re doing to move into retail and expand the net a little – and move further into Europe with the licensed product as a vessel.

Fantastic. Thanks, Matthew.

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