License to Create – Part 1

Posted on June 13th, 2008 by Joel Kirstein

The 2008 Licensing International Expo just wrapped up last week in New York City and this show was marked by a few significant factors. As a creative, we love getting out of the office and out from behind our Macs to seek out visual inspiration, practical application and what directions creative work is going in. The entertainment category is one of the most creatively opportune categories to work in. In 25 years of being in the business, the entertainment world always seems to offer the widest berth for doing great work. After all, what’s better than doing creative work for a creative entity like a movie? They speak our language, walk a shared road and their process is similar. I’ve done work in entertainment since the mid-1980s and the thrill has never diminished, only increased. Seeing an ad for a band you designed or an in-store display you created with a one of your favorite childhood superheroes is the best! A show that is fueled by creative excellence at its best. It’s a primer for branding, packaging, dimensional problem solving, positioning, innovation, product development, brand launches, brand extension, strategic thinking, production values, execution and most of all: conceptual thinking. These are the impressions that I came away with from this year’s Licensing Show:

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the Javitz! In the ten years that I have been attending The Licensing Show at the The Javitz Center, only once did I not have an experience that didn’t resemble taking a shower with my clothes on. I can’t believe that June in New York heatwave comes as a surprise to the people who run the facility? Here’s why: Many show exhibitors brought up the fact that when they were setting up on Sunday and Monday prior to the show opening on Tuesday, June 10, there was no air conditioning at all. These comments were were communicated to me unsolicited as I tried not to drip sweat on a their wares. When the doors opened at 9 am, in 5 minutes I was drenched from head to toe and in fairness to the Javitz Center (one of the best facilities in the country for trade shows) my internal thermostat has always been set much higher than most and I’ve been a big schvitzer since way back in the day. I’m not saying that they didn’t have the a/c on, it just didn’t help. Add in the fact that foyer is all glass walls and ceilings, thousands of people emitting a ton of BTUs and enough mood lighting to make a movie set drool, it was no surprise some people were overcome by the heat. Not good. If a room full of people are going to be all covered in sweat, attending a trade show isn’t the way anyone is interested in getting to that liquid state. Especially when you are all dressed up. I came prepared wearing super thin cotton pants and short sleeve shirt. It didn’t help one bit.

What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas: Next year, the 2009 Licensing Show is moving to Las Vegas and I would set the odds against the show returning to New York City at 25-1. If the show is a hit? 1000-1. Who knows how to improve the higher perceived value of anything better than even the best copy writer and art director? Las Vegas, that’s who. The show has really come down a lot in the past 4 years and this is a big step in the right direction. The fact that the show will be held at Mandalay Bay Casino next June 2-4, there won’t be a lot of arm twisting necessary to get people in the industry excited about attending. The crowd at this year’s show was off a lot. Plus Vegas knows how to keep a room filled thousands of people cool and crisp. The proximity to Hollywood won’t hurt either to get a bigger draw from more entertainment industry entities. As the number one destination location for business travel. Las Vegas will certainly add a lot necessary flash and splash to a mega-event that really needs an infusion of wow! Las Vegas has always been a visual assault on my awareness in a good way because as a creative, it provides an endless source of inspiration, branding, use of color psychology, visual integrity, communication problem solving and the huge, massive signage and bulkheads have always been pop to me, on the grandest scale. The Las Vegas Tourist Board has a huge booth at the show talking up next year’s show. They had a lot to smile about…

What I Didn’t See! Got an hour? The 2008 Licensing Show was a disappointment from another standpoint. The lack of presence of entertainment studios like Sony and NBC Universal. Music labels were non-existent. CBS was the only “network” that had a presence. No ABC, no ESPN, no FOX. No on-line entertainment. No sports leagues other than NASCAR. WWE was there. I’m not a wrestling fan, but I have tremendous respect for what the have accomplished in the last 25 years reinventing themselves from a creative perspective in every sense. The ownership of that success is the WWE’s commitment to creative brand integrity. They are a case study in doing it right. When I see pro sports leagues like the NHL and Major League Baseball with major league identity and p.r. issues respectively, why aren’t they at the show to get their message out? I also saw the presence of ethnic-based properties explode onto the scene in licensing in the past ten years, dwindle down to hardly any this year. I am anticipating that next year’s show in Las Vegas will introduce the Casino Industry as a licensed entity unto itself. As a mixed lifestyle/entertainment hybrid, the Casino category has the luxury of not having the cash flow issues other industries are struggling with in this economy.

C-C-C-Changes: Like most industries, the licensing world is not immune to the paradigm shifts adversely affecting other categories that creatives come in contact with. Money! As the studios cut back on production due to increased costs, especially all things involving travel and transportation, creatives lose out as a result like anyone else in that category. In 1999, the first time I went to the Licensing Show, all the studios, big and small were there and you couldn’t keep track of all the new movies, shows, music, that were in the pipeline getting ready to go live. At this year’s show I counted all the “new” movies I learned about. Combined all together they numbered less that what one big studio like Universal used to pump out on their own in one year. So when people say that poor quality is what has reduced the volume of movies getting produced in the past 5-10 years, not so. Even crappy schlock movies need us creatives to design the main theme logos, create style guides, the movie posters, the dvd wraps & labels, displays, etc. Remember back in the day (the 1970s) when the three tv networks launched a massive amount of new fall season tv shows? No? go ask your parents… Even though many never saw the light of day past mid-season, they all had visual identities created by people like us who developed a texture and state-of-mind to the shows that still resonate on the airwaves decades after they left first-run. Consider the fact that when the 2008-2009 Fall TV Season launch begins (talk about a blurred line) there are so many broadcast networks, it is mind boggling that all these networks combined produce less shows, than one of the original 3 networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) used to produce. So as a result, we have less opportunity to create iconic pop culture staples like tv show logos, etc. This is a goal/dream of mine and I’m proud to admit it! Then if I can get it on a lunch box? How cool is that?

What I Did See: When I walked into the show floor, I saw M. Night Shyamalan and his family attending the show. I said hello and got a pleasant hello in return. Leonard Nimoy was there touting the Star Trek collection that includes every single Star Trek series… ever. He looks damn good for a guy pushing 80 in human years, but I’ve come to expect a lot from Vulcans. The thrill for me was when I met a childhood icon of mine, the original Bozo The Clown, Larry Harmon. No, he wasn’t in full make up. Cut him some slack, he’s 82. A real gentleman and you can tell that he truly loved doing what he did – making kids laugh. I talked with him for 5 minutes and it’s obvious that he’s a genuinely happy person. Nothing worse than an angry, bitter, clown who hates kids…

Part 2 is next….

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