Aquarius is ready to rock Europe with new licensed gifts

Aquarius has launched an innovative new range of rock music-themed products to the European market. Featuring some of the world’s most celebrated acts, the range has been designed to help retailers reach a dedicated and engaged audience of music fans.

The line-up includes a host of interesting takes on traditional formats including games, playing cards and puzzles for the range’s key licences: David Bowie, AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash, and Grateful Dead. Plus, the collection’s hero product, a brand-new KISS-themed board game approved by Gene Simmons himself, will join the range this autumn.


The Board Game that Rocks

New for autumn 2022, the KISS Tour Board Game invites players to put on the best shows, collect tonnes of cash, and leave rock and mayhem in their wake. The first player to hold a concert in each city on the cross-country tour wins. For 2-4 players, ages 12+. Available for pre-order now.

 

 450pc Picture Disc Puzzles

Emulating a classic vinyl disc, Aquarius’ line-up of classic rock picture discs are the ultimate gifts for music fans. Each puzzle uses a precision cutting technique to ensure a perfect fit for all puzzle pieces, leaving virtually no puzzle dust behind. The thick quality paper is glare-free allowing the completed puzzle to be shown off with pride. Available now.

Playing Cards

These full 54-card-deck playing card sets feature beautiful artwork of music icons to make the perfect memorabilia to add to any fan collection. The playing cards are perfect for game nights, birthdays, and stocking fillers. Available now.

 

Funky Chunky Magnets

The Aquarius magnets are perfectly detailed and are sure to ignite debate over which rock band is the best. Whether they are stuck on a whiteboard, in a game room, held in a collection case, or simply on the kitchen fridge, these officially licenced magnets are an ideal gifting item. Available now.

Konrad Hoenig, CEO at Aquarius, says: “Our line-up of music products is unique, offering retailers the opportunity to tap into an uncharted space in the market and support growth. We know that music fans are incredibly engaged and love high-quality memorabilia of their favourite bands and artists. Our innovative twists on classic formats are perfect for gifting and collectors alike.”

For more information on Aquarius’ product range, visit: https://www.nmrbrands.com/aquarius/.

Spotlight on brands: Richard Pink on where The Laughing Cow is heading next

There’s more to The Laughing Cow than the iconic red image. We caught up with Richard Pink of Pink Key Licensing – exclusive licensing agent for the brand in the UK – to talk pink cows, pop art and plans for the future.

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Hi Richard, how has the last year been for you, business-wise?

It’s been a tough year for everyone: we’ve tried to work with our licensees and support them through the problems they have had to deal with, including Covid, and the ensuing challenges of fractured supply chains and increased freight costs, and to be as flexible as we can. The Laughing Cow and some of the other brands we have such as Kellogg’s, Pringles, Vimto and SLUSH PUPPiE are the kind of brands that people gravitate to in troubled times because they’re so familiar; they’re ones we’ve all grown up with. Consequently, things have not been too bad, but I think the licensing industry more than any other thrives on social interaction and we’ve all missed that enormously.

So, we’re all looking for things to cheer us up?

Definitely. After being locked down for so long, all we were hearing from people was ‘We really need a laugh’, and we can’t think of a licence that conveys laughter better than The Laughing Cow does. So, while we’ve hopefully come through the worst, the brand has a certain resonance about it for these times.

The red cow image is instantly recognisable. But what else is there to the brand?

The red cow itself is iconic, but outside of that, there’s so much imagery to play with. You’ve got vintage artwork that dates back to when the brand first came to fruition a century ago, right the way through to pop art and contemporary imagery – there’s such a vast range available and it works on so many different levels.

Some brands don’t have the flexibility to allow you to adapt the imagery, they have quite stringent rules in terms of what you can and can’t do. But we love The Bel Group (owners of The Laughing Cow) because they are so open to ideas. When we first took on The Laughing Cow and we said to them, ‘We’d love a pink cow’, they had no problem with that!

What plans do you have for The Laughing Cow in the UK?

It’s had a solid licencing programme in Europe for quite some time and one of the reasons we wanted to take it on is because even though it’s a French brand it has an enormous affinity with the UK consumer. It’s got a great history in the UK and is very recognisable, so we knew it would work.

Because of the close association with food The Laughing Cow is always going to lend itself to kitchen and food related products, but if you start looking at some of the Laughing Cow’s quirky imagery, it also really lends itself to apparel and gifting. In a similar way to Kellogg’s, it can potentially benefit from being part of a number of trends that seem to come and go such as vintage, logos and – most obviously – food.

And in the long term?

We are still keen to sign new brands, but you can see from our portfolio that they have to fit what we do. We are lucky enough to represent the rights of some brands that are distributed globally. They all have longevity and great stories behind them, and they’re going to be around for a long time. We only work with brands that we love, and they have to be brands that need to be managed the way we do it.  We try and build brand programmes in a methodical way, going for the ‘bullseye’ products and categories that fit the nature of the brand most closely, because we think that this is the best way to manage the type of brands we have for the long term.

If you are interested in talking to Pink Key about licensing The Laughing Cow you can contact Richard at richard@pinkkey.co.uk

Spotlight on Brands I Pink Key gets Vim!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spotlight on brands: Richard Pink on where The Laughing Cow is heading next

There’s more to The Laughing Cow than the iconic red image. We caught up with Richard Pink of Pink Key Licensing – exclusive licensing agent for the brand in the UK – to talk pink cows, pop art and plans for the future.

[divider style=”solid” top=”20″ bottom=”20″]

Hi Richard, how has the last year been for you, business-wise?

It’s been a tough year for everyone: we’ve tried to work with our licensees and support them through the problems they have had to deal with, including Covid, and the ensuing challenges of fractured supply chains and increased freight costs, and to be as flexible as we can. The Laughing Cow and some of the other brands we have such as Kellogg’s, Pringles, Vimto and SLUSH PUPPiE are the kind of brands that people gravitate to in troubled times because they’re so familiar; they’re ones we’ve all grown up with. Consequently, things have not been too bad, but I think the licensing industry more than any other thrives on social interaction and we’ve all missed that enormously.

So, we’re all looking for things to cheer us up?

Definitely. After being locked down for so long, all we were hearing from people was ‘We really need a laugh’, and we can’t think of a licence that conveys laughter better than The Laughing Cow does. So, while we’ve hopefully come through the worst, the brand has a certain resonance about it for these times.

The red cow image is instantly recognisable. But what else is there to the brand?

The red cow itself is iconic, but outside of that, there’s so much imagery to play with. You’ve got vintage artwork that dates back to when the brand first came to fruition a century ago, right the way through to pop art and contemporary imagery – there’s such a vast range available and it works on so many different levels.

Some brands don’t have the flexibility to allow you to adapt the imagery, they have quite stringent rules in terms of what you can and can’t do. But we love The Bel Group (owners of The Laughing Cow) because they are so open to ideas. When we first took on The Laughing Cow and we said to them, ‘We’d love a pink cow’, they had no problem with that!

What plans do you have for The Laughing Cow in the UK?

It’s had a solid licencing programme in Europe for quite some time and one of the reasons we wanted to take it on is because even though it’s a French brand it has an enormous affinity with the UK consumer. It’s got a great history in the UK and is very recognisable, so we knew it would work.

Because of the close association with food The Laughing Cow is always going to lend itself to kitchen and food related products, but if you start looking at some of the Laughing Cow’s quirky imagery, it also really lends itself to apparel and gifting. In a similar way to Kellogg’s, it can potentially benefit from being part of a number of trends that seem to come and go such as vintage, logos and – most obviously – food.

And in the long term?

We are still keen to sign new brands, but you can see from our portfolio that they have to fit what we do. We are lucky enough to represent the rights of some brands that are distributed globally. They all have longevity and great stories behind them, and they’re going to be around for a long time. We only work with brands that we love, and they have to be brands that need to be managed the way we do it.  We try and build brand programmes in a methodical way, going for the ‘bullseye’ products and categories that fit the nature of the brand most closely, because we think that this is the best way to manage the type of brands we have for the long term.

If you are interested in talking to Pink Key about licensing The Laughing Cow you can contact Richard at richard@pinkkey.co.uk

Spotlight on Brands I Pink Key gets Vim!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papa’s got a brand new bag | How Rocksax is having fun and finding growth in the digital age of music

The music merchandise specialist, Rocksax, has undergone somewhat of a transformation over the course of the pandemic. Nothing quite as drastic as a full-blown Jefferson Airplane to Starship transition, but noteworthy all the same.

Click through to the Rocksax online platform and you’ll be met with an engaging product showcase that spans its collection of music artist and band-branded bags, accessories, and bar stools. It’s been the company’s lockdown mission to build its digital presence, and it’s an effort that has paid off.

This time last year, outside of its retail and distribution business – the primary source of business for Rocksax still to this day – this was an outfit that was bringing in around £1 a day via its consumer-facing online operation. Today, Rocksax is doing between £1 and £2 a minute on the platform, selling luggage, backpacks, and vinyl carriers featuring artists and band artwork that spans the genres.

Within the Rocksax portfolio sits every artist to have made a mark on the music merchandise space, from legacy acts such as Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, to contemporary artists like Billie Eilish. Then there’s the wealth of talent that sits in between; whether you’re into your Madchester sounds of Oasis or your Bowie image, or perhaps, even, the artwork of legacy record labels, like Blue Note or Motown.

Surprisingly, despite the gig and touring industry being ‘decimated’ by the pandemic, the music merchandise sector is going steady. Whether it’s music fans choosing to place their support of musicians elsewhere this past year, or simply that consumers have had time to re-engage with their music collections, and therefore their fandom, it’s for the likes of Rocksax, that business has actually grown.

But then again, music consumption hasn’t abated, but steamed ahead, and today, Rocksax’s license line-up is as varied as the modern day music lover’s Spotify playlist. If eclecticism defines today’s consumer – whether they are pop culture fans, gamers, or music-lovers –  and fuels today’s streaming culture, then Rocksax is having fun tapping into the opportunities that come along with that.  

What you won’t find among the company’s long list of licences, mind you, is Ed Sheeran. No matter how many Glastonburys he does.

“He just doesn’t resonate with consumers in terms of merch,” laughs Ian Hopkins, investor and business development manager at Rocksax. “Likewise, not many people walk around with an Adele t-shirt. Not every artist appeals to merch, there has to be a certain style, and a catalogue of artwork.”

With a more than 20 year career spent enveloped in the music merch scene, whether heading up new business at Virgin or in his role as the founding director of Pulp, it’s fair to say that Hopkins has an eye – and an ear – for what works. Currently, what’s working for Rocksax is its portfolio of bags, and with Hopkins and his business partner now in control of the young start-up, it’s where the focus will remain for the company.

“What’s exciting and what we are having fun with is tapping into how eclectic consumers’ music tastes are these days,” Hopkins tells Licensing.biz. “The digitisation of music is a lot of things, but it has definitely given music fans a bigger field. 

 “When I was growing up, you didn’t buy vinyl or products from anything other than the genre you were into. If you were a mod or a rocker, you were stuck in one genre because you could only buy one single or one album a month, because of the money,” Ian Hopkins,  investor and business development management at Rocksax, tells Licensing.biz.

“But now, because of Spotify, people are multi-genre, and when you look at their phones they have Metallica, Take That, Katy Perry… they listen to it all. And that’s brilliant, because it allows us so much to play with.”

As well, of course, music merchandising has become a new way for music fans to reconnect with their favourite artists. CDs are no longer the go-to purchase for engaging with music, therefore tactility with music is being sought through other means.

It’s certainly why the music licensing space has exploded over the last few years, with the likes of Bravado – Universal Music group’s own licensing division – spearheading innovative leaps forward in the business of licensing bands and artists. 

Likewise, artists have begun creating their own brands, too. Hopkins gives the example of Kanye and his Pablo and Yeezy brands, but plenty others are in on the act, too. The physicality of music is being redefined in branding, and whether its a Motorhead cycling jersey from Milltag, or a Blink 182 backpack from Rocksax, it’s a vibrantly exciting space.

“The music merch business has moved around a bit since I have been involved in it about 20 years now,” says Hopkins. “Where it was traditionally touring merch and what was stocked in HMV or Vertical Tower, it’s moved into fast fashion in Primark, and beyond that with capsule collections going into Selfridges.

“You hear of hip hop artists opening pop-up stores now, and the numbers they are doing through them is phenomenal.”

Like any industry, the music merch space is about finding a point of difference. With Rocksax, that takes the form of its line-up of bags; a range that itself has undergone development and re-development at the hands of Hopkins’ investment that has elevated its quality and design as the firm looks to extend its retail distribution network beyond the HMVs and international outlets it currently works with.

“We want to get these to the likes of Urban Outfitters, and those other Gen Z retailers,” says Hopkins. “It’s why we’ve made a lot developments over this pandemic, revisited the design, moved factories, just elevated the business in general.

“We have opened up our own subsidiary in the US and we have set up two distributors in the US and one in Canada, it’s all been about spotting the opportunities in different markets as they arise.”

One such opportunity spotted was in the resurgence of the vinyl, a movement that breathed life into Rocksax’s own collection of vinyl carry bags – each of them making use of the artwork not of artists but of record labels themselves, tapping – suggests Hopkins – into the more musically educated market of the record collector.

“We looked at the music market and no one was doing much with the old record label artwork, so we thought that, for the slightly more musically educated fan, maybe slightly older, we would develop this range of record label vinyl carriers that you can take your records around to your mates in,” he says.

“For us, it’s about discovering the trends within our primary focus. We could easily get distracted by other things – like gaming, for instance – but we don’t want that. For us, it is about bringing in genres into the bag business.”

Hip hop is a major focus for the team right now. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but the truth is, many of the genre-defining hip hop artists themselves are becoming legacy acts as the 30 year lag starts to come around again.

“It makes me feel ancient,” confesses Hopkins, “that this generation is now finding out about these artists and buying their merch. Dr Dre, Death Row Records, all of that stuff. What will come next – along with hip hop – will be grunge and the ‘80s/’90s grunge, Nirvana and the beginning of Foo Fighters, which will all start feeding in over the next few years.”

One to keep his ear close to his own Spotify in order to tap into the music trends, Hopkins is aware of the need to remain current. The youth of the Rocksax team helps keep the firm on trend, while the closeness with which Hopkings works with licensors goes the distance to help the business stay tuned in.

And the modern scene isn’t all about the music that consumers are engaging with, but the means through which they get their merchandise, too. It’s why the print on demand sector has become one of particular interest to Hopkins over recent months, so much so, that Rocksax is in the early stage talks with print on demand services to bolt onto its own platform.

“We are working with one of the big printers to create a bag that you can out into a printer and it will print out in two or three minutes,” he says. “That’s something we can then create – a load of bags, bring it over from China, and have them here as blanks for people to print what they want, when they want.

“The potential for print on demand in the music merch business, as well as wider licensing, is huge. It’s quite interesting in music merch because you always see the same three designs for a band, who may actually have a library of art work from their albums etc. There’s a long tail which is never seen.

“Put that in front of the consumer, let them choose, and you’ll find some odd winners that a buyer wouldn’t have thought of. Print on demand is putting the power back in the hands of the consumer, and I think that’s a great thing, because the buyer doesn’t always make the right choices.”