The Hong Kong International Licensing Show and the Asian Licensing Conference, as Asia’s biggest flagship licensing events, showcasing licensed products and services, sharing licensing success stories and bringing participants up to date on the latest market trends, is an important platforms for global licensors and brands to explore new business opportunities.
As Asia’s premier licensing event helps licensors and agents find partners and expand their regional networks in Asia, particularly the Chinese mainland. The event featured some 600 brands and properties, ranging from characters and entertainment to art, sports, fashion, collegiate and celebrity items, as well as corporate brands.
There is a great potential for Asian cultural and creative enterprises in the licensing industry. As a licensing and also IP-trading hub of Asia, by arranged to give participants the chance to connect and develop new business opportunities, Hong Kong not only helps overseas brands to develop in the Chinese mainland market, also helping Asian brands to go global.
The fairs shared strategies and help extending branding from daily products into intangible services to help create unique brand experiences. Foreign buyers see Hong Kong as a trustworthy platform to help them connect with mainland start-ups and companies. As an increasing number of businesses explore licensing as a way to move up the value chain, Hong Kong will have a key role to play in facilitating the growth of the industry.
Hong Kong International Licensing Show 2020
The Hong Kong International Licensing Show and the Asian Licensing Conference serve not only as Asia’s flagship licensing events, but also as important platforms for global licensors and brands to explore new business opportunities. The 18th edition of the Licensing Show (6-8 January) and the ninth Licensing Conference (6-7 January) run in parallel at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, showcasing licensed products and services, sharing licensing success stories and bringing participants up to date on the latest market trends.
This year’s Licensing Show has brought together more than 320 exhibitors, featuring over 700 brands and properties with licensing industry leaders such as CAA-GBG Global Brands Management Group, IMG, MediaLink and Sanrio in attendance.
In addition, six regional pavilions from Mainland China, Chinese Taiwan, Chinese Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Thailand, feature at the Licensing Show. With the dedicated support of governments from across Asia, the pavilions provide more networking and business-matching opportunities for participants. Riding on the upsurge in authentic Hong Kong designs and supported by CreateHK, the “DLAB Hong Kong Pavilion” returns this year featuring various local original brands. Other brands are featured at the fairground to promote the strength of homegrown design, including Din Dong, Artspirit Creative, Shibainc Limited and the McMug & McDull family.
Conference
Various plenary sessions and thematic sessions at the Licensing Show saw industry leaders gather to discuss industry trends. As the quality of life across Asia continues to improve, consumers are expecting higher standards from the goods they purchase. This has led to global brands developing proactive strategies to enter the Asian market, which in turn is helping to drive the growth of the licensing industry in the region.
The first plenary session of the conference, “Asian Licensing Market Outlook”, sees a panel of experts − Mark Coleman, Vice President, Licensing and Experience, Asia Pacific and Middle East, National Geographic; Claire Gilchrist, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Hasbro Consumer Products; and Lisa Reiner, Managing Director, Europe & Asia Pacific, Beanstalk – discuss the latest trends and opportunities in the Asian licensing industry. The session is chaired by Maura Regan, President, Licensing International.
The second plenary session – “From Brand Licensing to Lifestyle Experience” – sees discussions on licensing as a brand promotion strategy. Tien Yue Chen, Executive Director of Royal Selangor Marketing Sdn Bhd, Yu Chen-lai, General Manager of Fine Entertainment Limited, and Stefania Perletto, Licensing Manager at AS Roma, will share how sports, music, entertainment and gifts use licensing to create unique brand experiences and extend into our daily lives.
The thematic session “Gaming and Esports Licensing”, discussed the state of the industry. The momentum for development in the esports market remains strong, but a number of companies have already achieved a significant scale. The US will still be the leader in the esports market, Mainland China become the second largest esports market by 2022.
In terms of revenue share, brand sponsorship, media revenue and advertising revenue take the lead. Media revenue is showing the strongest growth, the potential for the esports market in the mainland is encouraging. The secret for success in esports licensing is to understand the needs of all segments of the market, including the teams and the players. Moreover, bringing different business models such as sports and entertainment to esports tournaments can also boost interest and revenues.
Hong Kong International Licensing Show 2019
The 18th edition of Hong Kong International Licensing Show Show (6-8 January) and the 9th Asian Licensing Conference (6-7 January) run in parallel at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, showcasing licensed products and services, sharing licensing success stories and bringing participants up to date on the latest market trends. The show serve not only as Asia’s flagship licensing events, but also as important platforms for global licensors and brands to explore new business opportunities.
This year’s Licensing Show has brought together more than 320 exhibitors, featuring over 700 brands and properties with licensing industry leaders such as CAA-GBG Global Brands Management Group, IMG, MediaLink and Sanrio in attendance.
In addition, six regional pavilions from Mainland China, Chinese Taiwan, Chinese Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and Thailand, feature at the Licensing Show. With the dedicated support of governments from across Asia, the pavilions provide more networking and business-matching opportunities for participants. Riding on the upsurge in authentic Hong Kong designs and supported by CreateHK, the “DLAB Hong Kong Pavilion” returns this year featuring various local original brands. Other brands are featured at the fairground to promote the strength of homegrown design, including Din Dong, Artspirit Creative, Shibainc Limited and the McMug & McDull family.
Conference
The Asian Licensing Conference ran concurrently with the Licensing Show, giving insights into the latest industry trends, including the fast-growing Asia and Mainland China markets, content licensing, esports, and legal and operational tactics. The event attracted more than 1,300 attendees from around the world.
As the quality of life across Asia continues to improve, consumers are expecting higher standards from the goods they purchase. This has led to global brands developing proactive strategies to enter the Asian market, which in turn is helping to drive the growth of the licensing industry in the region.
The first plenary session of the conference, “Asian Licensing Market Outlook”, sees a panel of experts − Mark Coleman, Vice President, Licensing and Experience, Asia Pacific and Middle East, National Geographic; Claire Gilchrist, Vice President, Asia Pacific, Hasbro Consumer Products; and Lisa Reiner, Managing Director, Europe & Asia Pacific, Beanstalk – discuss the latest trends and opportunities in the Asian licensing industry. The session is chaired by Maura Regan, President, Licensing International.
The second plenary session – “From Brand Licensing to Lifestyle Experience” – sees discussions on licensing as a brand promotion strategy. Tien Yue Chen, Executive Director of Royal Selangor Marketing Sdn Bhd, Yu Chen-lai, General Manager of Fine Entertainment Limited, and Stefania Perletto, Licensing Manager at AS Roma, will share how sports, music, entertainment and gifts use licensing to create unique brand experiences and extend into our daily lives.
Advantage of Licensing
There are many benefits from Licensing, Through the partnership with reputable brands and properties, consumer can distinguish products bearing brand names they are familiar with. Consumers are willing to pay more for the value of licensed merchandise. Lower Opportunity Cost could leverage on the brands’ popularity to achieve a wide marketing impact.
Brands licensing as both a revenue stream and a way to quickly expand into other regions and industries with diversified product ranges. At the same time, licensees can leverage licensed products to quickly upgrade their brands and increase exposure, add value to their products, increase sales and attract new clients.
The expanding Asian markets, especially the Chinese mainland, combined with growing regional sales of licensed merchandise are bringing immense opportunities to the global licensing industry, including licensors, licensing agents, licensees from different sectors, marketing and advertising agents, brand promoters, legal advisors and designers.
Licensing is a type of intellectual property trading, helping extend brands to various products and services. Licensing also supports manufacturers and retailers to move up the value chain, creating opportunities for services sectors such as legal, design and marketing.
Brand licensing offers a long-term business model for profitable, sustained growth. Corporate brands have proprietary products that are unique to the brand. The primary goal of licensing is brand building, and the goal is to establish long-term partnerships since they are the most successful. Entertainment licensing, in contrast, focuses on images, artwork, characters, and so forth, and the primary goal is to receive royalties. Changes in products and licensees are more frequent than for corporate licensing.
Brand owner should open to products that are relevant to local consumers, active in protecting trademarks and willing to explore other routes to consumers, such as e-commerce and multiple distributor networks.
For licensees strategic partner, should offer to the licensor and deliver consumer insights to show why the collaboration makes sense. There are also stressed the need to invest in innovation to solve unmet customer needs instead of just copying what someone else is doing, and to always be active in protecting trademarks.
Market Trends
Entertainment and characters remain the most popular licensing merchandise in Asia, brands and fashion-licensed merchandise have also been growing rapidly. Opportunities in the areas of sports and art licensing are also not to be missed. Product-wise, fashion, accessories and footwear are the best-sellers, while houseware, healthcare and beauty products as well as food and beverages have picked up quickly, showing the diversification of licensing business in the region.
In recent years, manufacturers, retailers, edu-tainment companies and food and beverage businesses have been actively seeking collaborations with brands to add value to their products and services, while the range of brands seeking licensing collaborations has diversified from characters and animations to art, culture, corporates, collegiate and music properties.
The licensing industry is diversifying. Properties now include such categories as lifestyle and fashion, characters, animation, edutainment, art and culture and food and beverage. Such widespread applicability suggests that the licensing industry will become more vibrant with keen demand for related supporting services. There are many channels for broadcasting animation. Asia’s mega events, activities, theme parks, electronic games are all in need of new licensed characters. The market is huge.
At the same time, many consumers in the mainland China are proactively looking for personalised goods, which indirectly drives the growth of IP licensing in the country. Consumers expect brands to stand for something; they want to purchase products that have a story and purpose with which they can identify; and consumers are increasingly seeking a deeper relationship with the brands they interact with.
Asia’s growing middle class is more willing than ever to spend on well-known brands and high quality services that reflect their individual tastes, thereby boosting demand for licensed merchandise. Among international licensed properties, lifestyle and fashion products have achieved the highest sales.
Product execution involves building a lifestyle mood that transcends the product and the team, through style, design and fashion. Through co-branding and brand collaboration, licensees provide added value, brands need to ensure they select partners with connected core values.
In today’s digital age, the rise of the Internet, smart phones and new media, as well as the proliferation of digital entertainment and gaming brands have accelerated the development of the licensing industry. Asia is particularly receptive to technological innovation. With technology and innovation fast-evolving, the Internet, smart phones and new media have become an integral part of daily life, fostering the rise of digital entertainment and gaming brands.
Asian consumers will increasingly put their trust in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and algorithms. Consumers expect real value that goes beyond functionality. At the same time, companies must be considerate of cultural and religious beliefs, committed to sustainability, connected to the digital ecosystem, and offer quick solutions.
Leading event of Asia’s Licensing
Hong Kong an effective platform for entering the international market exhibitors, an ideal venue to exchanging ideas with industry players from around the world. With its rigorous intellectual property protection regime, robust legal system, professional expertise and proximity to Mainland China and other key Asian economies, Hong Kong “provides the ideal platform for global brands and top licensors to access markets across the region.
The International Licensing Show made it an excellent platform for brands to introduce new characters and properties to the Asian market. As the licensing hub for Asia, Hong Kong has a deep pool of IP professionals who can assist different companies to create and capture new licensing opportunities.
Hong Kong possesses many distinct advantages, including its proximity to the Chinese mainland, its robust protection of intellectual property and a deep pool of licensing professionals. Hong Kong’s robust intellectual property rights protection and sophisticated logistics network make it the region’s licensing hub and a strategic base from which to tap the mainland market.
The HKTDC continued to provide business matchmaking services on site, and also made the services available online through the Licensing Show website. This one-stop solution connected buyers with exhibitors at the show, helping companies to identify – and make crucial connections with – potential business partners from Hong Kong.
Supported by the Intellectual Property Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and organised by Licensing International, the newly established Licensing Academy brought industry players up to speed on issues such as licensing law essentials, operational intelligence and cross-border cooperation between retailers and manufacturers.
HKTDC
The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) is a statutory body established in 1966 to promote, assist and develop Hong Kong’s trade. With 50 offices globally, including 13 in Mainland China, the HKTDC promotes Hong Kong as a two-way global investment and business hub. The HKTDC organises international exhibitions, conferences and business missions to create business opportunities for companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in the mainland and international markets. The HKTDC also provides up-to-date market insights and product information via trade publications, research reports and digital channels.