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The Licensing Exchange is a podcast about the business of creativity — where brands, artists, and innovators meet at the intersection of commerce and culture.
Hosted by David Schnider and Greg Pan, partners at Nolan Heimann LLP, each episode dives into the world of licensing, brand strategy, and pop culture partnerships through candid conversations with industry leaders who have shaped global trends.
From retail pioneers to entertainment executives, guests share how licensing has evolved from handshake deals to billion-dollar franchises — and why creativity, collaboration, and courage remain at the heart of every successful brand.
💡 Part of The LOOK.Legal Pods from Nolan Heimann LLP — lawyers for creative business makers.
You're listening to the Licensing Exchange, part of the Look Legal pods from the law firm Nolan Heimann, lawyers for creative business makers. And now, here are your hosts, attorneys David Schnider and Greg Pan.
David Schnider: Today we've got with us Stu Seltzer, who is the head of Seltzer Licensing Group. Stu has been in the licensing industry for over 30 years. He's been teaching licensing at NYU for over 20 years. In 2024, he was inducted into the Licensing Hall of Fame. He recently co-authored the book, Licensing for Dummies with Stephen Ekstract. Stu, it’s good to have you on the show.
Stu Seltzer: Thank you. Thanks, David.
David Schnider: So, to start out, tell us how you got involved in the licensing industry.
Stu Seltzer: How I got involved. Okay, let me go way back to 1991. I was actually in business school and graduating school, looking for a job. they came, you know, they had interviews on campus and I had gotten a few offers, got an offer at big Colgate, you know, company. And then an interesting opportunity came to campus to interview at Yves Saint Laurent, the fashion house. And they came onto campus, threw my resume into the black box and took an interview and got the job at Yves Saint Laurent. Little did I know that I would end up doing licensing. Their goal at the time when I met them at the time Yves was alive and well and his business partner was running the company, guy named Pierre Berger, their goal was to grow the company, clean up the company and sell the company. And they had an amazing brand name, amazing operation and joined the company. And within the first six months, we ended up shutting down most of their retail stores. They had 26 retail stores around America. And after that, we focused on licensing. We were looking for growth, looking for other opportunities and ended up doing a lot of licensing deals. First deal I worked on was with Luxottica, the eye work company. Little did I know that this would be the key to their growth. It's funny because there wasn't much written, not many classes about licensing. And so, I looked to find some book. I read the biography of like Pierre Cardin to figure out, right, what, what is the story? then read a lot at the time. Halston was in the news a lot around his licensing empire. And so, Yves Saint Laurent didn't have nearly as many as Pierre Cardin, but we had 15 licensees. And that's really where I learned this business worked with Exotica. And what's fascinating is you do this deal and it wasn't just one deal in one territory. It was 60 territories with Luxottica. And then we had Schwartz & Benjamin making shoes, Cartier making our jewelry, Luc Benoit doing handbags. I mean, it was a tremendous, business empire. And it was fascinating because that these brands like Yves Saint Laurent would sell worldwide. And with only 15 licensees, they were generating tremendous royalty revenue. And that's really where, how I got into this business, and where I learned this business.
Greg Pan: What was it like when you started seeing products and deals you negotiated on store shelves?
Stu Seltzer: I mean, that's definitely one of the joys of the job is to actually see the products come to life. You know, you're in a business meeting or you have a concept and you're thinking, okay, let me call this guy. Here's an idea. Let's put this brand on that product. But to see it on the shelf and to stand in the back and watch somebody actually buy it or try it on is definitely one of the pleasures of this industry, of being in this industry.
David Schnider: Just so we get a little better idea of your background. I know you left YSL at some point. What was your path after that? How did you end up where you are now?
Stu Seltzer: So, after Yves Saint Laurent, I was working at Yves Saint Laurent, really enjoyed it. Then it was bought. It's now today, it's part of the Kering group, which also owns Gucci and many other fashion houses. But when the company was sold, I started to look around and got recruited to work at Warner Brothers and worked at the DC Comics division and right here in New York City. And really enjoyed working there, working on the Batman brand, working on the Superman brand. This is when...I worked on two of the movies, the Batman Forever movie and the Batman or Robin movie. And instead of working with just 15 licensing partners, as you may know, Greg certainly knows having him being at Marvel, that just on the Batman brand, there were 450 different licensing partners. And this was during the peak of Looney Tunes craze and Looney Tunes had like 500 of their own licensees. And then you had Harry Potter was coming on strong, you know, towards the end of my tenure there and many other brands were around as well. But I focused on the DC comic brands and worked on all types, everything from trading cards to toys to some video games and really enjoyed the people there and enjoyed the brands and so forth. And that was my path.
And then after a couple of years there, decided I was offered an opportunity – I was based in their New York City office – I was offered an opportunity to move out west and to work at Warner Brothers in their corporate office in the main office out in LA, decided not to make the move, primarily a lot of family reasons. You know, my wife was in that business here in New York and most of my family was here. We had my parents and my in-laws, only grandchild or kid was here in New York and then both our parents and in-laws were here in New York, but didn't make the move.
And that's when I left the company and shortly after started my own agency to actually work as a consultant at first and then an agent at second and then primarily doing both. We are a licensing agency, a global licensing agency and also a consultancy helping companies grow. The way I look at it is we're really here to help companies grow using licensing as the strategy.
David Schnider: So, what do you see as kind of the benefit of licensing for companies? Why would companies get into it? What's the upside for them?
Stu Seltzer: The upside to sales is growth. That is the growth. You're in it to grow. you know, overall, there's one of the key theories that I've seen happen time and time again, is that licensing can make a good product great. Meaning, here it is. You know, we had a company we were working with that made inflatable furniture that they sold to trailer parks and we work with them. We get them the NFL license and bam.
All of sudden they're selling to college bookstores and they're selling to sports stores and they're selling at stadiums. and all of a sudden, they are, instead of a, I don't know, making these numbers up, but maybe they were a $20 million company. All of a sudden, they're a, you know, $60, $70 million company with the all four sport leagues and the top 30 college brands. you know, it just took their basic product. That was an inflatable chair and just exploded it by using the power of licensing. And we have seen that time and time again, which is great. And the power of licensing is really helping these companies grow. We see it with a lot of our clients where they take a basic confection product or a frozen dessert product and add one of the popular entertainment brands and bam, the demand is there. And you will see that spike in sales. A real growth driver.
Greg Pan: For people who don't know or are less familiar, can you talk a little bit about what does a licensing agent do? What kind of brands and clients would get the most out of a licensing agent? And then also, what was different in what you had to do versus what you're doing at Warner Brothers as a licensor?
Stu Seltzer: All right. So, a lot there to dissect. So, first question is what does an agent do? So, a lot of big companies, you know, like Warner Brothers or Disney or Universal, they will have, or Marvel where you used to work, they will have a full licensing department. I'm talking about, you know, upwards of 80 to a hundred people.
Greg Pan: Alright.
Stu Seltzer: They would have the lawyers, they will have the creative department, they will have the sales team, they will have the approvals team, they'll have the finance team, because all these functions are really important for your brand. But there are so many other brands that need all of those services, but their brands really don't warrant having a full department. I mean, when you think of Disney, and I believe they have over 3,000 licensing partners, Warner Brothers, when I was there, had well over 1500 licensing, but they probably have over 3000 licensing partners today. But when you talk about some of the smaller brands, we work today with the American Red Cross is a, is a client or the National Parks or Scott's Miracle Grow. These are awesome brands, leaders in their, in their respective categories and industries. Alone, Scott's Miracle Grow is the number one lawn and garden brand. But these brands aren't, you know, they have about 18 licensing partners.
That doesn't warrant a full licensing department with legal support and creative support and financial support and on and on. So that is where companies will turn to a licensing agency to really help with all those functions. Because we are thinking, we are living and breathing licensing every day. That's all we do. So, when we work with our clients, whether it's Scots, whether it's doing work with Blue Diamond or some of the Unilever brands are Kellanova, or UPS, we love it all, but we are just focused in that field of licensing and we have the full service. We have the sales teams and we have the finance team and we have the approvals expert and facilitators and all the right systems. So, we're able to really add a lot of value and really efficiently and effectively drive revenue growth through licensing by outsourcing this function to our agency.
Greg Pan: Yeah, that's a good point. So, Unilever, you and I have worked deals together with them. They're a massive company where we're buying their products every single day, but people will be surprised they don't have a licensing department. That's not what their core competency is. So, when they work with you with a brand like Popsicle, you can find partnerships, you can find retail partners, licensees, as well as come up with the campaigns and the design aesthetics to kind of handle that side of the licensing business for them.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, I mean, our function really is focused on making sure that they are working with the best-in-class partners and really being the conduit to say, OK, this is what's going on in the licensing industry today. These are the hottest properties you want to keep working with and also help facilitate. They have control over the whole process. They are the ones that are that are making the final decisions. They are the ones - whether it's Popsicle, whether it's any of our clients, they are the ones actually approving, making the final approval also. But we just help turnkey. We help make this easier for them. We help facilitate this. And really, we're there to really make sure that they are working with the best partners out there and getting the best terms and making sure that all those terms and those contracts, especially those Disney contracts, used to be part of all those terms ,are being that everybody's keeping up on the compliance on them.
Greg Pan: Mm-hmm.
Stu Seltzer: Because there's a lot of things that need to be done to keep all the licensors happy. And the licensees have their own goals of growth and, approval deadlines and sales meetings and all that. And we're really here to make sure it all works. And we're really here to make sure that relationship, that relationship between the licensee, whether it's Popsicle or the licensor whether it's Spider-Man, Marvel, that that relationship stays strong and that they stay really with a solid relationship working together. And we're here to kind of work in the background and facilitate all that.
Greg Pan: That's a good point. As you mentioned, lots of licensors will have hundreds, sometimes thousands of licensees. It's hard to stay in view of your licensing contacts. having them be aware of what you're doing and making sure they're happy with what you're doing and you're following all the terms of your agreement and trying to use the license as much as possible, I agree, is very, important. You have to make sure you have visibility with your licensors.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah. And as you know, especially with the bigger brands, you know, the biggest risk in licensing is of course, potentially damage the brand, you know, that, there's some brand risk. And so, these big companies, whether it's Disney, Universal, you know, they all have a lot of compliance in there - that you need your factory inspected. You need to have certain, you know, certificates and, and labor requirements. There's a lot to comply with, which is all fine because we've been fortunate because a lot of our clients are also best-in-class and have all that. But we just make sure, we have to make sure that all those requirements and all those certificates that are that are needed are sent and are, you know, royalty reports are sent on time and in the format and uploaded in the right system and all that. So, by working with the clients, we can actually turnkey all of that because we have experts who work on all those items.
David Schnider: You talked about relationships and compliance. I think there's sometimes a perception among the licensees that really what matters is the money and what you're willing to pay for a license. But do you think that there are other factors that are equally or maybe more important than the money that a licensee is willing to pay?
Stu Seltzer: One way to answer one of the hot areas today are these fashion collaborations. And so, you know, that is a real big deal, meaning that, you know, I'm just there's a deal that we had done years ago with Kate Spade and where we did a collab between that brand, Kate Spade and our client with Klondike. And it was an amazing product. They made five thousand units of a beautiful looking handbag with the Klondike on it in the silver to match the foil of Klondike and a lot of fun. Now, when we were looking at different opportunities and that's one that doesn't really follow that pattern because it's not like, all right, is Kate Spade going to give us the biggest royalty or the biggest guarantee or tip, you know, some of the deal points you typically look at today, one of the key deal points when you're measuring things is all right, what kind of brand impressions, how will this really reflect on my brand. Will it have a real halo effect on my brand? And some of these fashion collabs do that. And that is more important than the basic dollars of the deal these days.
David Schnider: I'm curious with something like Klondike and Kate Spade. It's not something that naturally seems like a fit to me, but obviously it did really well. Do you have situations like that? When did you see that as from the beginning? Did you recognize that that was something that would be a big hit? And do you have others? Have you had situations where there's maybe a product where you didn't think it was a good fit and ended up doing well?
Stu Seltzer: That's a really good question. And it's funny because I always ask that question when I have guests come to my NYU class, because I love to hear the answers of, right, what was it that really exceeded all your expectations? We have done some work with most recently, I'll talk about a deal with Popsicle and C4, C4 energy drink. C4 energy drink is one of the top energy drinks out there. they added the C4, they added the Popsicle flavoring.
And it blew up. I mean, tremendous sales and tremendous demand. And it's been a lot of fun and so much demand that the licensee said, you know, we're going to keep this going. We're going to actually even do some TV ads to support this with some celebrities in the TV ad. So that kind of stuff is a lot of fun when that really clicks and takes off on the flip side. We have seen over the years, different products -this goes back to that first saying, that first quote where I said, hey, licensing can make a good product great. However, the second part of this is that licensing cannot make a bad product good. So, we have seen people try and I'll share one story that almost happened, didn't happen. I remember there was a company that we were working with, electronics company, they had this little bug zapper.
And they said, it's like the size of the old beeper and you're going to wear it while you're fishing. And it'll, it'll emit some high pitch type of, of a sound that will keep all the mosquitoes away. And that market that products actually still in the market anyway. So, I'm like, this pretty well-known electronic company had this in their roster. They said, yeah, along with all these other things, give me a license for this product. So, we did, we reached out to field and stream and met with the publishers and the editors and they're like, great, we love the product. And you know, we're all going on our company fishing trip. We're going to, you know, give me a dozen. So, they took a dozen, they came back and they said, no deal. These products do not work. And the efficacy is not there. And we all got bitten up and we tried this every type and, and a spray is what we'll stick with. But that is just one type of example of how licensing, cannot make a bad product good.
David Schnider: Are there situations you can think of where you have seen a product on the market that you were amazed that the collaboration worked and was a really unique or interesting twist on a brand?
Stu Seltzer: Lately there have been a lot of wacky ones out there. I love what Crocs has done with some of their footwork collabs, whether it's the creative one they did with Shrek or with KFC.
Greg Pan: I think that they did one with Post Malone. That one was out of left field, but that one was, you know, getting a certain generation.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah. Oreo has been really creative lately with theirs. We've been working with Dove and they did a collab with Crumble Cookies this past December as a Walmart exclusive. And there's been a lot written about that in the mainstream press. And Wall Street Journal wrote an article about it and it was definitely different. And a tremendous success. definitely exceeded everybody's expectations, which things like that are a lot of fun when that works. And it's just different. And the best part, and they made this public, they've written about this in the newspapers now is that now I have to remember the exact numbers, but something like 30 % of the Dove buyers were new to a Dove. They were these young people who were loving, you know, Crumbl Cookies and they just got inspired buy this collab and they said, well, let me go try Dove. usually use a different brand, but I'm to try this one. And the same thing happened for Crumble, Crumble had a whole new slew of people say, you know what? I'm, I'm a big loyal Dove user. if they're doing something with Crumble I always heard of that. I got to go try that myself. And so, they had a nice bump as well. And it's really an amazing what Crumbl has done their model for cookies.
We didn't put a soap brand on a cookie, but their model is doing co-labs all the time. I mean, it's fascinating what they're doing. They even did a Kardashian branded line of cookies. So, every week or so they're launching another co-lab with cookies. But Oreo, of course, has done, and we've done some work with Oreo on some of our brands, whether our client’s brands, whether it's the Creamsicle Oreo that Creamsicle is a Unilever brand, usually Rice Crumb brand that did well. Or the Gushimira story shortcake collab with Oreo cookie that did well. But Oreo has certainly been very creative with their Post Malone, with their Lady Gaga, with all their Star Wars and they keep going. And now their newest one launched is the Reese's, which is a lot of fun because it's a double. There's a Reese's Oreo and there's also an Oreo Reese's, launched at the same time. Yeah.
David Schnider: It's interesting, I haven't seen that. I know you do a lot of work with food and beverage companies. Thinking of Oreo, I was reading about a collaboration they did with Coca-Cola, you had an Oreo flavored Coca-Cola. It seems to me like just in the last couple of years, there've been a lot more of those types of food and beverage collaborations. And I'm wondering if you see that as a trend, and if so, what's driving it?
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, definitely a trend. And what's driving are all the Instagram influencers who are having more and more influence and people just want to see and try something different. And they buy into this. Now it's funny because it looks like they're huge sellers and sometimes they aren't, even all the Oreo cookies, those are primarily a four week drop and they're in the store and then they're not, but some of these real wacky ones look great, get a lot of press, which primarily is their goal, but then they don't really deliver the big sales lift on the main product side that you're thinking of. And I'm thinking of something like a Van Lewen ice cream with Kraft mac and cheese that got a lot of buzz. But when I spoke to a couple of people in the industry, said, you know what the actual sales are of that - were not very strong. There wasn't any repeat purchase and so forth. But it accomplished perhaps their goal, which we're seeing more and more. A lot of these companies' goals is to create a buzz and create those brand impressions. And that's what licensing can do. We've always known licensing to be a great revenue driver. This royalty revenue is fantastic. Or if you're a licensee can give you a nice boost on the sales side. But another added value that people are really appreciating and really taking advantage of is the enhanced brand impressions.
Greg Pan: Right. And in many situations that could be a Coke motion where one of the parties is paying to do that collaboration and that to pay for marketing and, and ads and for the rights to do that. In your case with licensing, there's royalties to be made by one of the parties it's merging the audiences together. So, there's a growth opportunity there. I see sometimes better than Coke promotions because you know, the royalties are going to center to sell product, but you have a massive marketing benefit that comes out of it as well.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, For sure.
David Schnider: So, switching gears a little bit, you've obviously been teaching licensing for quite a while. I don't think that's a common part of any college's curriculum. Is that a fairly unique class that you're teaching?
Stu Seltzer: It is now going on year 22 at NYU. And it is, as far as I could tell, the only class of its kind in the country, in the world actually, that has been around that long now. I know there's been a lot of different starts and stops at some of the other schools, but it's really been a mainstay down at NYU. And what's interesting also is about, I don't know, 10 years ago, they made my class, which is brand licensing, they made my class a required class for anybody who is a sports management major. Which is one of their optional options there, or a sports marketing major. with those majors. And my class is now a required class, which is kind of nice. So, we have, I don't know, 60%, 70 % of the students are all focused on the sports business.
Which is great. And we're in New York City. So, there's a lot of the executives in New York that will now come to the class. We took our entire class to the NFL office last year. We've taken them all to the NBA office. We've had Major League Baseball executives come. We've had NFL, PEA people come. So, it's great because they're all here in New York City.
Greg Pan: What's your approach to demystify to students what the licensing world is? Because I think for whenever we talk to people who are outside of our industry, sometimes they have no idea what it is and how it actually works.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, actually, that's part of my favorite part of the class. Like the first day of class, I'll put out a survey to say, all right, how many people know what these terms are and licensing and, joint ventures and these marketing partnerships and, what do think of these pictures and all? And most of them don't know. And most of them, when I say, why are you taking this class? They heard, yeah, I heard it's a good class or I heard it's just fit in my schedule or it's a required class if they're sports major.
But at the end, that's the most satisfying part of reading the feedback where they're like, this was one of my favorite classes ever at NYU, favorite class of the year. I love hearing all that. And then some of the students decide that they're going to focus their career on licensing. So, there's a number of people in the industry now. And that's another fun part to be at the Licensing Expo and have somebody come by, hey, professor, how are you? That's always fun.
But as far as how to demystify it, the way I base my class, it's 15 weeks long. We do a three-hour seminar at night since I'm working by day. So, we're teaching six to nine. And the first seven classes are really theory based where we're talking about, the theory of licensing and licensing is a marketing function. And we have one class just about the finances. And then we have another class just about the retail landscape. Then another class just about the law, law, And Greg, I think you came in once to talk about some of the, contracts and trademarks and trademark laws and filing trademarks and protecting trademarks. And then we go through all those basics in the first seven weeks. Then we have our midterm. We also take the entire class to Toy Fair and, and to other trade shows. We have taken the entire class to Toy Fair, to Magic when it's in New York City, to the Vision Expo here in New York City which is another added plus, so they can see firsthand how these concepts come to life.
And then the fun part is the second half of the class, primarily we have guest speakers. We build our class around guest speakers. We'll have a class about the NFL and we'll go visit the NFL and have an executive from the NFL talk. We'll build a class around Nickelodeon and go visit the Nickelodeon offices and Pam Kauffman will give a talk to them. We'll have a class based around the...so where else have we gone - we've gone to Madison Square Garden and Gail Stern had us sit in the skybox because it was empty and we sat in the skybox to hear a lecture on how Licensing works in the Madison Square Garden with the New York Knicks and the Rangers and during the Linsanity days and visit and we take a walk and visit all the gift shops and see how that works so it's really fun and so they get a real hands-on experience and see how what they learned the first half of the classes is put into practice and they're able to meet these professionals, ask them smart questions and start even developing a relationship with them. You know, I love it like we had Dan Romanelli come to class a couple of times and what's fascinating, know, and he is a legend in the industry having run Warner Brothers and he told me that, yeah, I have three students that I've been keeping in touch with that they have emailed him questions and they set up times to talk, which is great, which I love, it's like these guest speakers are not only guest speakers, some of them get turned into mentors for these students.
Greg Pan: It’s an amazing opportunity for the students. Not only are you extremely well-connected industry, but they're in New York City where a lot of these brands, their home offices, the kind of main players in the licensing space, they're here. know, tons of people would love to have the opportunity to talk to Pam Kaufman about licensing and Paramount, but your students get to do that for you.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, no, it's great. it's one of the advantages, I guess, of going to school in New York City.
Greg Pan: Switching to conventions, you're quite a popular guy at lots of shows and conventions in the licensing world. So, I two questions on this. One is, what's your overall plan going into like licensing? What are you trying to accomplish? And second question is, are there any shows that you think are underrated that you think more people should be attending?
Stu Seltzer: So, I'll start with the Licensing Show because that is the juggernaut. That is an awesome show. And one thing for those who are listening who don't know is that we've been going to shows forever, but our company goes to maybe, I think last year we went to 18 trade shows, which is crazy. It sounds like a lot and it is a lot. But what we've been doing when we go to these trade shows now is that we do them many times with our clients in mind and our clients want to know, hey, what happened at that trade show? You know, how did the meetings go and what's the trend at the trade show? So instead of just doing a PowerPoint or writing a word document, we started putting together a two-minute video recap video of what we see at the show. And we will look at trends. We'll look at kind of wacky products that we see and we'll see, also highlight a lot of the licensed products that we see at these shows and we started doing that a couple of years ago and we've gotten some nice traction. And, you know, we have, you go to our YouTube website or YouTube channel, which is just @Seltzerlicensing, you'll see we have about 40 of these videos up there now. And so, you can go and see what's going on at Toy Fair or one of the more recent ones was a fancy food show in New York, or expo West out in Anaheim or CES. And in just two minutes, you can get a sense -oh, I could feel like I was there. So of course, the Licensing Expo is the biggest because we actually, that's the only one we exhibit at. And that's also one that I've been speaking at for many, many years for over 20 years. And it's been a great honor to be able to speak there. And I do a seminar on the basics, but we have a lot of our clients out there. There's also so many fun activities. have, you know, licensed LIMA or licensing International has a bunch of fun events.
There's a fun run that we help organize that gets a big attraction. There's a lot of our clients are there. So, we're having big client dinners. And so, we capture that all and put that in our little recap video. But that, that show is fantastic, especially if you are a licensee, because all the brands exhibiting are licensors. So, you can walk around and shop and see what's happening and meet everybody. And, if you were dying to get a deal with, you know, a big company…well, you can go to that show and most likely meet somebody from that company and make your pitch. So that's a great added value. For us, we are actually finding a lot of opportunities at other trade shows.
The hardware show is something we've gone to every year for the past 10 years. And we find they are really efficient ways for us to do our business. Meaning that if we're working, for example, for Scott's Miracle Grow, and we want to find licensees, well, all those licensees are exhibiting at the hardware show. So, we will then go to the hardware show and spend the full three days there and meet with 50 companies. And today we're lucky. have, you know, about 18 licensees. Those licensees are there exhibiting and so forth. But to answer your question now, that's the background is are there any trade shows that are underrated? So, I would say, I don't know if you would consider this underrated, but my favorite food show right now is Expo West, which is a show happens in Anaheim.
And it is unbelievable. It is, my opinion, the best food show in the country. And you see all these up-and-coming brands. You see all these big brands there as well. You the Mondelez and Unilever and some of their brands. And then you see, all these up-and-coming brands that that are trending and great for, the collabs and new partnership deals and so forth.
So, all these big and small companies are there. It's a fun show. They also do like early morning yoga at six thirty outside with the celebrity yoga teacher. So, they make it a lot of fun as well. Not in the fun, like, oh, let's stay out of drinking. They do things in their genre because it is bent to the all-natural space that show. And so that's, that's one of my favorites. And I've actually even spoken there. had a really nice seminar on, on licensing in the food business that we did out there. We had executives from Newman's Own, which is out there and was on the panel along with Paramount and somebody from Unilever and so forth. So that that's one of my favorite underrated.
I'll also say the New York Now Show - that is the opposite. That's a show that used to be tremendous used to be all of the first floor, and the third floor, know, two full floors at Javits, today it is kind of a shell of itself. It's but…
Greg Pan: Yeah, I was surprised it was quiet, but think also the summer one is a little bit lighter than the winter one.
Stu Seltzer: Yep.
Greg Pan: Yeah. Well, whenever I work with kind of with clients that are kind of new in the licensing space and they catch a licensing bug, I always say go to a convention, whether it's licensing show or an industry specific one, because I mean, one, thankfully the world's gotten a lot more digitized, but I still think conventions are, like you said, one of the best places to learn about the industry, learn what the big players are, see what's up and coming and trends. And it's a place where you can go and just really meet every single company that's there. You have an opportunity to set a meeting, go to the booth and try to talk to someone, which is something you can't always do from a desk.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, because at the end of the day, our industry is still very much a relationship business. And yes, you can meet these people on Zoom and so forth. But if you're trusting your brand with another company, I think you want to see them in person and look at them eye to eye, maybe have a coffee with them or have a sit down with them or eventually go to visit their office. But to do that first meeting in person, we find that to be a great way to start to do that first meeting in person at a trade show.
David Schnider: I'm curious have you started to see AI have an impact on your business or the way your clients handle licensing?
Stu Seltzer: Nothing significant yet. And AI is affecting everybody's business and making it maybe more efficient on some of the administrative functions. But we haven't seen that in a major way yet. But we expect we will. But we're using it but more on the back end.
You know, one other point to I'll make, you know, there's like three main points for the book also is that when, you know, we talked about kind of why licensing, what are the three best things? What are the three principles of licensing is the way I like to call it. Number one, which I talked about is that licensing can make a good product. Great. Number two is that licensing can provide a sustainable competitive advantage to your company.
And we all know, or for me, when I was ever in school, the best business school book at the time was this book on competitive advantage. Basically, saying that if you're in business, you need to differentiate your product. Your product has to have some kind of differentiation. You have to stand apart from your competitors. And the goal of all marketing is to get the, up with that differentiation and hang onto it. And I'm here to say that licensing can be the competitive advantage can be your differentiation and can be, if you get the exclusive rights, can be your sustainable competitive advantage. And we have seen that work for companies, whether it's, ice cream, getting the exclusive rights to Reese's, or we have seen that whether it is this, inflatable chair company that gets the exclusive rights to the NFL or, so many other examples that, really can drive sustainable growth.
And, you know, that's another key term. And then the third key point that I always like to talk about is that that there are risks with licensing and everybody needs to know it's not a simple thing. You need to mitigate your risk. if you're the brand owner, you have that potential brand risk. You have the potential that if you work with a partner, that partner might damage your company if they do something wrong and the product gets recalled or hurts somebody.
And if you're a licensee, there are risks. have to have a substantial, potentially substantial financial risk to invest in the product development and the minimum guarantees and the, to make the product and sell a product and, take that product to the trade shows and all that. So, there's real risks, along with that, doing nothing is also a risk. If you're sitting there saying, you know what? I'm a T-shirt company and it's too expensive for me to get a license. I'm not going to do it. You can sit on the sidelines. Well, that's actually a risk as well. Doing nothing is also a risk in this industry.
David Schnider: I’m sure this is all covered in the book in more detail.
Stu Seltzer: Yes, it is. Of course. Don't forget the book is available now at Amazon. Yes. Yeah.
David Schnider: Yeah, it's Brand Licensing for Dummies, so what prompted you to write that book and who's it for?
Stu Seltzer: So, the way I see it is that this is a chance to take our big secret of licensing, this great business model, and to take it to the masses, to make it more accessible, to take it to a wider audience. The way it came about, and I have to give a lot of credit to Stephen Ekstract, who is the co-author here. And he put this original deal together and he shared a funny story. He's like, well, I'm a journalist. I haven't really done many licensing deals. So, we're going to write a book on licensing content. so, he, you know, and I'm very honored that he turned to me. He had reached out. And so, I had started to record all my classes at NYU. I had about two years of my classes from my classes and transcribed them thinking, oh, you know, I'd like to write a book one day. So, a lot of the content is from my NYU class where I talk about various case studies and various theories and so forth.
And so that's some of the chapters are broken down and so forth. But it was really great collaborating with him on this book. And, you know, it's our hope really to expand the idea of licensing, expand our industry I've been teaching now at NYU for 22 years. I've also been helping and have taught a couple of times at Lehigh University, their MBA business school program. I've taught this class, the same class to the MBA students there, I've been helpful with the Ohio State University. They took a lot of my material and started up a class that Rick Van Bremmer was teaching for a couple of years and so I ideally will kind of help expand licensing to more and more places so it becomes more common, bigger, and more people enter the industry. And then more people will need agents like us. They'll need lawyers like you guys. And we'll all live happily ever after.
Greg Pan: So, in this space, there's always opportunity. I think we both agree, are there brands or categories or industries you feel that are untapped for opportunity that should be embracing licensing more?
Stu Seltzer: Good question. The answer is I think so. And we're always pitching various companies and very in, in many industries now fashion. You know, I think, you know, certain industries, whether it's sports, fashion, entertainment, they understand licensing and they know it's an important part of their revenue model. It's an important part of their business. They've seen time and time again how this works, how this revenue model works, especially with all the public companies, whether it's Ralph Lauren or Calvin Klein, that have been public over the years and disclose a lot of how these licensing deals work. Entertainment also. I make my students read the Disney annual report. And there's not a lot written about licensing, but there is - they do break it out. There are numbers in there. Also in sports, like the Green Bay Packers are a public entity. And I make my students read that annual report because they break it out how much revenue they're generating from their licensing activities, from their brand licensing and merchandising activities. So, all of those are known. The big space that we have really focused on for the past 25 years, actually our company is now 26 years old, has been in what we call a corporate space.
And that's food brands are in there too. And so, our clients today of UPS and Zippo and Rustoleum and Scott's Miracle Grow, we love that. And that's in our opinion, we think those brands are still untapped, not those particular brands, but this corporate space, because it's still not as well-known as the fashion industry brands and entertainment industry brands and so forth.
Greg Pan: But they're certainly recognizable for a mass audience. And that's really what comes down to licensing, it's recognition.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. that's the key that, you know, people might not think, is UPS, everybody knows UPS. Did you know that you can actually license that brand? And it's a popular selling ride on toy by radio flyer or, you know, or a toy truck by Bruder or, and so forth. So, there's a lot of licensing going on there. You know, they've been using us as an agency and we love working with corporate brands like that or even charity brands like we're working with the Red Cross and they have 15 brand licensing partners as well. Also, we've done deals and everything from, of course, first aid kits and hand sanitizer, but also things such as a smoke detector or a water filtration bottle or recently like a dog life jacket, all branded, fully branded as the American Red Cross. Or we're currently working with the National Park Foundation and doing all types of apparel and blankets and different co-lab partners for them. A lot of people will be celebrating America's 250th anniversary, and the National Parks is a great brand to celebrate and to activate with for that event next July 4th.
Greg Pan: But something I've always liked about your agency, you're going to take these well-known recognized brands and really think organically what are the types of products and experiences that you could stretch that out to consumers where it just makes sense, but no one would have immediately thought about it.
Stu Seltzer: Yeah, yeah, no, thanks. And you know, in our process, like the way we start with a lot of our clients is we start with this strategic licensing plan where we take the time and we have a very thorough process where we do executive interviews, deep dive and competitive study on competitors. We do market sizing, we get the Circana data and we look at, all right, how big is each category? And then, you know, this could be a 50-to-100-page document. And then we answer only two questions.
Number one is, where can you license your brand? And number two is, how much revenue should you expect over the next three to five years from each category? And we will lay it all out there. And the reaction, sometimes our clients will say, oh my gosh, that's amazing. I never knew there was all that revenue on the table that we're not, you know, not exploring. Or it'll be the opposite. Many times, it's, my gosh, you think I can only generate two million a year, I thought it was gonna be 10 million a year or 20 million a year. I heard Batman does a hundred million a year. How come you can't get me that money? And so, you know, we get both, but this strategic plan process is a great way to start because then everybody is aligned on the categories and the expectations on how much revenue you might be generating.
David Schnider: Well, Stu, I want to thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. That was really insightful.
Stu Seltzer: Thank you for the opportunity. I wish you luck on this podcast and hope, I hope it goes viral so we can all bring this to a wider audience.
David Schnider: Thank you. Well, let people know where they can find you and your company and if they're interested in the book where they can find that.
Stu Seltzer: That's great. So, thank you for letting me plug. So first off, if you do anybody listening, if you do come to the trade show, the Licensing Expo, please stop by our booth, say hello and, you know, love to say hello to you in person. And if you're at other shows, maybe reach out to me on LinkedIn and say, I'm coming to this show, the toy fair or the BLE show or the, Expo West show, and maybe we'll even meet you for coffee and so forth. But, I'm on a pseudo podcast book tour. I've been doing a lot of podcasts trying to promote this book, and the book is available on Amazon and also Barnes and Noble and we are really appreciative and grateful to the people at Wiley, you know, - this is one the largest publishing houses- to give us the opportunity to write this book and to market this book. They're doing an audio version. So, stay tuned. I think they're launching that one very soon, the audio version.
David Schnider: They getting you to read it or did they get an actor?
Stu Seltzer: No, they did ask, or they didn't ask… yeah, it's a funny story. I think Stephen wanted to, but I know that it's not an easy job. There are real experts that do the audiobook reading, I'm not one of them. And I'm based in New York City. We have a presence out in LA as well. And so, if you're in New York City and you’re looking for an agent or a consultant, give me a ring. We'll meet you, come to our office, and look forward to meeting you and hearing more of the stories of licensing growth.
David Schnider: All right, thank you very much.
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