Sometimes you have to make your own luck, explains Pink Key Consulting’s Richard Pink.
Many moons ago when I was running a Walking with Beasts promotions on Kellogg’s kids packs (aaahhhh, those were the days….) we faced an issue to add some value to larger packs related to the licence, that we could execute on pack in four weeks time. I can’t give you a sense of how much of a challenge this was for a company that works at least a year in advance on anything.
To cut a long story short, the solution had arrived that morning from a man who had, on spec, sent me a paper model that came flat, but could be assembled into something 3D. I literally had to fish it out of my bin to call him. It was one of those conversations:
‘Hi, I’m the Promotions Controller at Kellogg’s’
‘Yes and I’m the Queen of Sheba…’
He told me later that he fell off his seat when I told him I needed five million of the things in two weeks time.
‘What’s your point Pinky?’ Well I’m glad you asked – my point is that he got lucky, very very lucky. Most of us in licensing land will never get that lucky. I was on the other end of that kind of luck once when I was called by an ad agency that was after one of our lesser-used characters for a series of TV ads. They had client approval and a script but just hadn’t realised they needed licence owner’s permission to use the character – you can imagine THAT discussion!
However I believe that you can, to a certain extent, make your own luck and all it takes is a bit of desk research.
To land a promotion it’s pretty pointless casting the net wide – promoters and their brands are sophisticated things:
- They have demographics, target markets, shopper as well as consumer targets
- They have objectives such as trial, awareness, market share, return on investment
- They have promotional mechanics at their disposal to help them achieve these objectives – band ons, inserts, competitions, free mail-ins, coupons
- They have communication channels they can use – on-pack, in-pack, social media, outdoor media, direct mail, experiential, etc
If you try casting your licence out at as many people as you can, then the vast majority (if not all of them) will say ‘so what?’
You have to narrow the field and narrow the odds; think about how you can help them achieve their objectives – that’s moving from a ‘lucky break’ to a meaningful discussion.
So what’s the best way through this jungle? Well in the first instance just have a look in the market right now and see what these brands are doing. Are they promoting? What are their objectives? Do they already use licences?
I’m lucky enough to be the head of awards at the Institute of Promotional Marketing, and right now we have a fantastic array of campaigns flooding in from last year. A great place to start is the IPM website. Here you can see loads of case studies from previous years that will show you what brands are doing and might give you a really good idea of how you can help these brands enhance their campaigns with the potential of additional awareness or even a very welcome fee for the use of your licence.
Yes you can be lucky – but you can make your own luck too.
Richard Pink is md of Pink Key Consulting – an agency specialising in licensing and promotions. He can be contacted on richard@pinkkey.co.uk.
