We were proud to present The Why, What and How of Licensing Style Guides at the 2012 Licensing University sessions.
Over the years, the same question has often come up: “Why do I need a style guide?” We thought it was an important segment to cover for clients trying to create a rationale for the brand owner or management. Featured below is a summary of the high points we covered:
- They drive a consistent interpretation of a brand by your licensees.
- It protects your brand from being eroded by inconsistent interpretation.
- Without a style guide, partners visually interpret the brand their own way, which results in products that don’t always merchandise well together.
- A successful style guide can help create a successful licensing program, which builds brand equity and value for the licensor or brand owner.
- Style guides save an incredible amount of approval, management, and product development time, thus bringing product to market and retail much faster and producing royalties and revenue faster as well.
- They are valuable sales and marketing tools.
- They can drive or help negotiate better deals.
- Many licensees will not do deals without a style guide if you’re not an established licensed brand.
- Style guides show the brand owner is committed to the licensing program and will support it with the needed tools.
Creating style guides with usable graphic assets actually adds to your intellectual property. Our client from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum realized this at the end of the licensing style guide creation process. They said, “We have created our own brand value, equity, and assets,” – a valuable realization.
If there are any reasons we missed, please add to the list.
