It is often easy to overlook the fact that a significant proportion of the licensing industry is underpinned by service relationships between brand owners and licensing agents.

Brand owners will often have invested significant amounts of money, time and emotion in the development of their brand; licensing agents offer them an expert service in managing the next steps of the brand's development and the sourcing and exploitation of revenue.

At the more sophisticated end of the licensing industry these two roles are often combined – "end-to-end" brand owners will, with the licensing potential in mind, specifically create brands for exploitation by their internal sales teams. But for a smaller brand owner, starting out in the industry, the process may be fraught with danger – get this relationship wrong and the brand will go nowhere.

To read the full feature, click here.

Advertisement