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- Aug 4, 2014
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I'll be following this for updates! Is this particular deal for a client, or for yourself?
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Free registration at the forum removes this block.So your friend will hopefully use it...Sent this thread to a good friend of mine. Hopefully he uses it to take action.
So your friend will hopefully use it...
What about you?
How are you going to use it?
What was the outcome @Vigilante ?
I'm not that into celebrity gossip, but I like him. What happened? Google doesnt want to tell me.The same Liam Neeson that revealed himself to weeks ago to be a huge jackass.
Keep in mind that when you license a celebrity, you take the good and bad that come with that celebrity.
When we licensed Dale Earnhardt Jr for the GPS that we made with his voice, right after we launched the product we put it on QVC. We had QVC come to a NASCAR event and do a broadcast live with Dale on QVC. He gets on TV, and they ask him about the GPS. He downplays it, says he doesn't know if it is a good GPS or not, and in wanting to play it cool actually hurts the sales on the live television spot. So, any time you hook your wagon onto someone else's horses, you roll with the good and the bad. Your celebrity gets in a scandal or says something stupid, and you can basically kiss your investment goodbye.
Last week, Liam Neeson chose to use the terrorist attacks in France to lambast the UNITED STATES for having too many guns in the streets of the U.S. Ironically, his movie Tak3n (Taken 3) was hot in the theaters. France has extremely tight controls on guns, and the police first on the scene in France arrived on bicycles with billy clubs. The tragedy that befell France has nothing to do with the United States, but perhaps if someone had been allowed to be armed in France, the outcome might have been different. It made national news here and continues to.
And just like that, a license deal with a Liam Neeson can take a major change in direction.
Brands are somewhat better subjects than people for licensing, but keep in mind that one of Stephen Key's first major break throughs was his license deal he did with Taylor Swift for guitar pics bearing her likeness.
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My first question is what would you say, information wise, is needed to be communicated in the first contact phone call - what answers need to be ready?
They're not experts in what you do. Non-disclosure agreements don't do much. I have yet to find a big company interested in stealing an idea, getting into the manufacturing business of a product they're not familiar with, and cutting you out of the deal. So... I don't really worry about that.
Snoop Dog doesn't want to manufacture soap-on-a-rope. He wants YOU to do it, and send him a check.
A. We always answer the questions as YES, and then we figure out how to make things happen because NO is not in our vocabulary
B. As long as the artist is currently trending, the retailers have "open to listen"
C. You get the license deal done first, and then you work the retailers. No need to talk to the retailers until you have something to sell them.
D. You might want to use reps to sell the retailers
E. You might want to use distributors to sell retailers
F. Retailers will want to make 60%+ margin on this. Make sure there is enough room
G. The dirty secret about retail is that if THEY are in retail (i.e. the artist's cd's are on their shelves) it is much easier to get in. If his CD's are NOT on their shelves, then doubt it will happen. Those things usually go hand in hand, and you can literally ride in on their coat tails.
H. Just like law is based on law, license agreements are usually based on other license agreements. When we did NASCAR, they knew what they wanted because they knew what they had before. And, the answer to your question is it is like a well played poker hand. Some times you are bluffing, some times you hold cards. Theres no set formula answer to your question (unfortunately.)
Your job is to pay as little as possible. Their job is to get you to pay as much as possible. You swap no upfront money for higher license %. You swap no annual commitment (or small annual commitment) for higher %. It's all relative, and... by the way... it all can be renegotiated when Wal-Mart says YES. Wal-Mart may say "we'll take a million units, but at $4.00). Then, it all pushes back to working backwards against the big retailers cost requirements. If it costs you $3.00 to manufacture, and Wal-Mart wants to buy at $4, there's not much room. Thus, the negotiations begin again.
So, YES you can sell the big retailers, assuming the royalty % keeps the retail price reasonable.
And, it's not likely a test. The only answer a rapper understands about your deal is he wants MORE. MORE is his license %.
And, if you sell units on eBay, they know you can sell 1,000. If you sell to Wal-Mart, you might sell 2,000,000. That's why they are asking NOW how big you can scale this.
And, the only thing bigger than who we are is WHO WE SAY WE ARE because... you can become. You can do this. If the product and price are right, you can sell Best Buy.
I have a distributor I will connect you with when you are ready. They will front the cash, and sell Wal-Mart for you. They probably do $400m with Wal-Mart alone. And they will take an egregious % from you. But it's a super shortcut to the hundreds of thousands of units.
Length of contract will rarely be beyond a year from launch date, with the possibility of renewal. And, if the celeb is on the downward slide do NOT do the deal, as you can't be what helps save them.
For example, today I would do Pharrel, Gwen Stefani, Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton, Maroon 5. I would look for A list celebs, or artists rapidly moving from the B list to the A list.
I would not do Celo Green, Snoop Dog, or anyone moving from the A list to the B list. Even with high name recognition, retailers won't buy inventory on declining brand names.
We caught Susan Komen a little too late on a deal I did recently. We shouldn't have done the deal, although on the upside we did raise a TON of money for breast cancer research, so from that standpoint it was awesome. However, we should have done it while the brand was peaking, not after it was past the crest and on the downward slide.
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