Encore: Food Licensing Tip #3: Licensing vs. Promotions Part 1

Food Licensing 101: Licensing vs. Promotions-- Part 1 of 2

Smart marketing executives often misunderstand licensing, confusing it with promotions. The two are very different strategically and in how they’re implemented.

Licensing means leveraging your brand into another category, channel or product. For example, Burger King asked our company to help them move from the restaurant channel into retail food products. Their goals were:

1.) Increase brand impressions
2.) Interact with a different demographic
3.) Drive traffic back to the restaurants
4.) Generate revenue

The Burger King-branded snack chips licensed by The Inventure Group we've talked about in this series (there are other products coming, but I'd have to kill each and every one of you if I told) in a deal we brokered for our client meant hundreds of thousands of new brand impressions, often in places like vending machines, colleges and even drugstores like Walgreen (see ad circular below). All of them are places where the Burger King brand isn’t.

What's more, with most grocery store buying decisions made by moms, the chips put the brand in front of a vastly different demographic than their core consumer base of young men (the "Super Fan" who can't get enough Whoppers). Favorable brand impressions and couponing drive traffic back to BK’s core business, too: consumers who aren’t regular customers now have a more-favorable impression of Burger King (especially as new frozen products come on-line), and regular fans can "Have It Your Way" anytime they want to.

Finally at $50MM in projected annual sales, the chips alone are a money-maker.

But not all licensing generates revenue, so tomorrow I’ll talk about promotional licensing.


For information about licensing, contact Broad Street Licensing Group (tel. 973-655-0598)
Excerpted from BSLG's weekly subscription news reader service Food Business News. To subscribe or for information about licensing, contact Broad Street Licensing Group (tel. 973-655-0598)