Brand Expansion Licensing: The Story of Jeff Lotman, Founder and CEO of Global Icons

• Pages: 30-33

Published in Landslide, Volume 14, Number 4, 2022. © 2022 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion

thereof may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the

American Bar Association.

30

Jennifer L. Rodriguez, Landslide® magazine editor,

contributed to this article.

Whether in-house or within an intellectual property (IP)

practice group, trademark practice is usually based on

clients seeking out counsel regarding how to effectively

protect their brands. Sometimes branding ideas originate within

the business. Other times branding ideas come from outside the

business in the form of a branding pitch, and the player throw-

ing the pitch is often a professional brand licensing agent. Brand

licensing agents are rarely seen in the hallways of an IP practice

group but often are behind-the-scenes inuencers in the work

performed in the ofces.

A brand licensing agent actively seeks out businesses to pres-

ent branding opportunities. This can be particularly benecial to

a brand owner since some opportunities can only be seen from a

third-party perspective. The business is, understandably, focused

on marketing its business in its lane, between the lines of its prod-

uct categories. However, a branding agent isn’t constrained by

focusing solely on the current product lineup. Therefore, a licens-

ing agent can look for creative opportunities to expand the breadth

of a brand.

A well-conceived brand expansion licensing deal can be a huge

win for everyone involved, often providing a relatively unknown

licensee the ability to quickly gain traction in a category outside

the primary business of the licensor, while providing more brand

awareness and exposure for the licensor—not to mention licensing

revenue. Ford sells cars, but it also licenses its brand to nonauto-

motive markets such as apparel, toys, power tools, and art. The

licensee benets from the immediate brand recognition associated

Brand Expansion Licensing

The Story of Je Lotman, Founder

and CEO of Global Icons

Images: Getty Images; image manipulation: Jill Tedhams