LicensingSource chats to Kingston Myles, head of commercial development at English Heritage about how its licensing programme continues to develop, challenges and focuses for 2022.
“For all heritage and cultural institutions 2021 has been a challenge and particularly as a charity, English Heritage has felt its impact. However, we’ve been welcoming back members and visitors to our sites in line with government guidance and it’s great to see the sites come to life as people spend more time exploring on domestic holidays and adventures.
2021 has been an exciting year for our licensing programme – the appointment of Golden Goose as our primary licensing agent late in 2020 has meant several concept meetings, discussions with new brands and prospective licensees. We’ve planned a roadmap for the licensing programme which will see several new products begin to launch in SS22 and very much hope to see these broaden the reach of the English Heritage brand.
The focus for the remainder of the year is to continue sharing the depth of our collection with Golden Goose, prospective licensees and the new licensees we have signed. With a licensing programme re-kindling as a business, there is a hugely exciting opportunity for us to bring to life elements of the national heritage collection that might be otherwise missed, especially where those assets are in more remote sites. It’s about learning as much as we can to ensure the programme showcases as much as is possible.
Immersive events offer a unique storytelling experience which we hope to expand into in the near future. We care for over 400 sites and each of these has an incredible array of stories to tell; as the market for immersive experiences expands we hope to use these to bring these stories to life.
I would highly encourage heritage institutions to explore their assets and collections in the context of a licensing programme – the licensing sector still has a vast capacity for the heritage sector to reach into and the more credible heritage-inspired products are released across the board, the more robust our brands will all become as an option for licensees to work with.”
This feature originally appeared in the autumn 2021 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
