Start Licensing’s Ian Downes takes a trip to the home of The Beatles this week.
This week I returned to one of my favourite cities in the UK. I first visited Liverpool in 1983 as a fresh faced student. I arrived in a city that was going through a tough time and one that was economically challenged. Even in tough times it was a city that smiled and found humour on dark days. It was also a city that was very proud of The Beatles.
I lived in my first year very near Penny Lane and judging by the amount of tourists who stopped to snap a photo of the street sign, The Beatles were great salesmen for the city even in those challenging times of the mid 80s.
Shuttle forward to 2018 and Liverpool is a much changed city especially in and around the city centre, the Docks and the shopping complex of Liverpool One. The change has been dramatic and seems to be having a positive effect on the city’s economy. My taxi driver reckoned Liverpool is the second most visited city in England outside of London. Not sure how accurate this is, but what it does show is that the city is very upbeat and tuned into the potential that tourism provides.
A central plank of the Visit Liverpool experience remains The Beatles. The Fab Four are a core component of the city and a real industry has grown up around them that services consumer interest in the group. Licensing plays its part in this industry.
The Beatles are celebrated in a range of ways in the city – one good example of their place in pop culture is that The Beatles Sergeant Pepper’s graphics were used on a Lambanana design – these were public art statues produced some years ago for an art trail. A hybrid of a sheep and a banana apparently. The Beatles one is now on permanent show outside a Liverpool restaurant.
Many of the city’s gift shops and visitor attraction sell products featuring The Beatles even if these places aren’t entirely Beatles-focused.
Highlights include Hype Associates’ range of photographic greetings cards which are stocked in outlets such as the Museum of Liverpool Gift Shop. This is a good example of a licensee being focused on a sales strategy that embraces a broad church of outlets and establishing a sales model that allows it to deal with multiple accounts even when individually the accounts may place small orders. A key fact here is repeat business and protecting sales margins as product purchase is not primarily price driven.
Another example of a licensee with products featured in a range of retailers was Spike Leisurewear. It has developed a range of Beatles t-shirts but also developed more novelty items such as baby’s bibs – a way of tapping into gifting with an original product.
Having a solid base of licensees which can service the gift and souvenir outlets is also a good strategy by The Beatles rights owners, as it helps to minimise unlicensed products and makes it harder for infringers to gain a foothold. You sense that there is a community of suppliers and retailers which are aware of the rights situation. My experience was that the available product was of a good standard and all official. No mean feat in a busy market.
There are a number of shops that trade on a Beatles identity including Sergeant Peppers and The Beatles Shop on the historic Mathew Street, which is the site of The Cavern. I guess these are not official stores but are tolerated as long as they support the licensee supply chain.
Within the standard product offerings it is great to see some stand out products such as a LEGO set that allows you to build a LEGO version of the Yellow Submarine. A reminder that a music licensing programme can reach beyond the standard merchandise ranges.
There are a number of experiential uses of The Beatles in Liverpool which all add to the sense of the band being a vivid part of the fabric of the city. As an outsider it is not clear on what basis some of these activities trade in regards to licensing.
Highlights include The Hard Day’s Night Hotel. This is a Beatles-themed hotel. Very much part of the visitor experience. I stayed there once and remember going down to breakfast one morning and sharing a lift with six young men from Japan all immaculately dressed in matching grey Beatles suits along with mop top haircuts. They were living their Beatles dream and all before breakfast!
There is also a dedicated Beatles Story visitor attraction. I haven’t visited it myself but it seems to be a core part of the Liverpool Beatles circuit.
Another interesting aspect of ‘Brand Beatles’ is a coach tour – The Magical Mystery Tour – it is quite eyecatching as it tours the city. Not really a mystery though as the route is pre-publicised. Again I am not clear where this sits rights wise, but it does contribute to the feeling that you are in a Beatles theme park. I did take this bus once and it actually broke down. Not so Magical…
Liverpool’s celebration of its musical heritage is not all about The Beatles though.
Liverpool is now home of the British Music Experience which celebrates the UK’s contribution to pop music. It is a really interesting place to visit. It has a well stocked gift shop that features a lot of licensed products including a range of Land of Lost Content gifts – featuring music-themed designs sourced from the pop culture archive and a wide range of t-shirts featuring iconic designs from bands such as the Rolling Stones and Queen. And of course The Beatles.
Other Liverpudlian music stars such as Billy Fury and Cilla Black are celebrated with statues in the city.
The Cavern Club and its sister venue, The Cavern Pub, trade on the Cavern’s part in the history of Merseybeat and, of course, The Beatles part in this story. It offers a great range of Cavern merchandise featuring artwork from sources such as old posters and tickets, coupled with items bought in from licensees such as die-cast vehicles. It also has signature items such as a limited edition book celebrating the venue’s history and a special edition Cavern Ale.
The latter is another example of breweries recognising the value in pre-existing brands when creating new products. The beer is sold in gift packs as a take home souvenir.
Liverpool One features a great selection of shops including outlets for brands such as Lambretta Clothing, Pretty Green, Fred Perry and Dr Martens. All of these shops and brands were using music in some shape or form to market products.
Lambretta’s window display celebrated Mod friendly music with a backdrop of album covers, while the Fred Perry shop was showcasing a collab with the Amy Winehouse Foundation. It has developed a bespoke range of products influenced by Amy and her music incorporating details such as embroidered hearts on collar lines.
Mainstream stores like Waterstones – the Liverpool One store is a super sized outlet worth a visit in its own right – have dedicated Beatles sections recognising the pulling power of the brand in Liverpool.
Liverpool and The Beatles are joined at the hip – it is a case study of how a city can use part of its cultural heritage to create a legacy for the city and build business around it. Licensees have seized on this well and have tapped into a unique market that seems to be constantly renewed.
A measure of this is the never ending queue to be pictured with The Beatles statue at Pier Head… as I get older the fans seem to get younger.
The other big change in Liverpool from the Penny Lane days is that the photos are now taken on phones not cameras. But even in the hi tech digital age we live in people want to see where The Beatles came from and experience it for themselves.
It is good to see licensing playing such a big part in this success story.
Ian Downes runs Start Licensing, an independent brand licensing agency. His Twitter handle is @startlicensing – he would welcome your suggestions for what to look out for.
