LMCA's Senior Director, Brand & Retail Development, Susanne Kernan, attended the Brand & Licensing Innovation Summit on behalf of the team earlier last month.
Susanne joined LMCA in July, and brings an extensive background in retail merchandising, licensing sales, retail development, and product development to the team. Having worked in both the US and Europe, she has dynamic experience in marketing, brand management, sales planning, and strong relationships at retail.
At the Brand & Licensing Innovation Summit held in New York, Susanne joined brand owners, manufacturers, and retailers, to learn about leading trends and forecasts, opportunities in high growth categories, digital & content innovation, and retailer insights from leaders in the market.
Here are the some takeaways and top trends Susanne identified at this year's Brand and Licensing Innovation Summit that promise to shape and disrupt the industry in the coming years:
Agility to Meet Challenges
One theme that permeated every presentation and discussion was agility to meet challenges, whether supply chain disruptions or inflationary pressures or evolving consumer shopping behaviors. Every presenter -- whether retailer, marketer, manufacturer or licensor -- spoke of the substantive changes in process, planning, and execution that enables shorter reaction times and allows for greater adaptability to events.
Getting Real About Sustainability
Similar to factory compliance efforts, licensors are adding specific sustainability goals and metrics to licensing agreements to ensure that licensed categories are as sustainably produced as core lines, meeting consumers' and retailers' expectations for brand performance.
Gen Z & Gen Alpha
Retailers and brands alike are adapting to the shopping and media consumption habits of Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers with experiential retail like Camp's Encanto experience or Netflix's Stranger Things store. Immersive experiences resonate more deeply (and command a higher entry price) if the gift shop is well stocked. Attendees really do want to take something home with them to remember the experience by!
''Phygital'' Goods
Physical items that are associated with a virtual digital component like NFT's are any area of intense experimentation as brands explore how to engage in Web 3.0 in ways that are relevant and authentic. The key takeaway here is that now is a good time to creatively test, learn and gauge what works and what doesn't in that space.
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