The Society of Product Licensors Committed to Excellence® (SPLiCE®) Announces New Board of Directors

Buffalo, NY October 17, 2012:

The 10^th Annual SPLiCE Licensors Workshop marks a change in Leadership for the SPLiCE Board of Directors.

SPLiCE would like to thank Founding Board Members Shahab Khosravan, Director, Worldwide Compliance, The Coca-Cola Company; Bryan Brown, Senior Director Product Integrity, Mattel Inc. and Manuel Grace, Associate General Counsel, The Walt Disney Company for continuing to be such an integral part of SPLiCE.

The SPLiCE Board of Directors is comprised of:

• Scott Bannell, V.P. Corporate Brand Management and Licensing, Stanley Black & Decker
• Kenny Beaupre, Retail Business Development Manager, Caterpillar Inc. (incoming)
• Gayle Jones, Commercial Innovation & Trademark Licensing, P&G
• Linne Kimball, Head of Licensing, Reebok (incoming)
• Eileen Murphy, Director Brand Licensing & Partner Marketing, Kodak (outgoing)
• Tracey Murphy, Associate Product Manager, Licensing, Jarden Consumer Solutions (outgoing)
• John Nens, Director, Global Brand Licensing & Corporate Identity Office, Ford Motor Company (incoming)
• Toni Sdao, Director of Licensing, Whirlpool Corporation

SPLiCE Officers

• Chairman: Scott Bannell, Stanley Black & Decker
• Chair Elect: Gayle Jones, P&G
• Treasurer: Tracey Murphy, Jarden Consumer Solutions (outgoing)
• Treasurer: John Nens, Ford Motor Company (incoming)
• Secretary: Toni Sdao, Whirlpool Corporation

As we say goodbye to a few of our dedicated Board members Tracey Murphy, Jarden Consumer Solutions and Eileen Murphy, Kodak we welcome Kenny Beaupre, Caterpillar Inc., Linne Kimball, Reebok and John Nens, Ford Motor Company to our Board of Directors.

SPLiCE is a trade organization founded as a best practice think-tank for trademark brand licensors. SPLiCE was founded in 2004 with the vision to continuously improve brand licensing. Our goal in carrying out our mission is to act responsibly as a community of licensors who share best practices for protecting, promoting and enhancing brand integrity. As a Community of Best Practice, benchmarking success is built upon foundation cornerstones of legal, marketing and quality that support licensing initiatives. As a community, participation from individual legal, marketing and quality internal team experts embrace a full schematic of the intellectual property realm to protect the brand. Content discussed at our meetings is specific to process as we adhere strictly to antitrust policy guidelines.

SPLiCE member companies represent 20% of the DJIA and 32% of the top 100 brands recognized by Interbrand. 2012 Licensors Workshop was the most attended to date with over 38 leading licensor member companies represented.

As an active Community of Best Practice, SPLiCE engages a kaleidoscope of brand protection knowledge from over 35 industries including aerospace, automotive, consumer products, construction, digital technology, electronics, entertainment & character, farming, fashion, food & beverage, footwear, health & beauty, juvenile products, lifestyle, publishing, racing, sports, sporting goods, toys & games, and trademark brands. SPLiCE Members have depth and brand reach within the consumer base and there is a strong affiliation to consumers seeing our members’ brand recognition on consumer products, services and goods. For more information contact Kimberly K. Billoni, Chief Executive Officer at  kbilloni@SPLICEonline.com.

The Society of Product Licensors Committed to Excellence® (SPLiCE®) Celebrates 10 Years of Licensors Workshop
Buffalo, NY October 17, 2012:

3M, St. Paul, MN, September 23-26, 2012

As we relish the 10th annual celebration of Licensors Workshop, we honor all that have championed SPLiCE as a Licensors Community of Practice. We have learned that:

• The inherent quality of SPLiCE membership is based on collective, passionate individuals that comprise our organization.
• While each of us may represent a range of licensing function groups and expertise, we are all committed to further improving the licensing industry.
• While individual Member organizations’ representative licensing programs may vary in how long they have been active, all Members hold true to learning and implementing best practices to protect their brands.
• SPLiCE is robustly committed to continuously improving brand licensing as a community of licensors who share best practices for protecting, promoting and enhancing brand integrity.
• Each of our standing committees and benchmark teams rigorously stand above the norm and want to make a difference not only for each function, but for the good of our community.
• We celebrate the talent and level of excellence amongst us, along with our diversity, to be an alliance of integrity as a core value for us.
• SPLiCE is unique as an entity and effective as an association because of all the passionate stakeholders that belong to it.

SPLiCE Leadership reflected on historical cornerstones that created vital and thriving Licensors Community of Practice. The leadership presentation team comprised of Kimberly Billoni, SPLiCE CEO (first Chairman/President), Bruce Hoover, Goldberg Segalla LLP (current standing counsel and on behalf of retired Ed Teter, Fisher-Price, second Chairman), Shahab Khosravan, The Coca-Cola Company (third Chairman), Manuel Grace, The Walt Disney Company (fourth Chairman), and Scott Bannell, Stanley Black and Decker (current Chairman of the SPLiCE Board). Attendees learned about the Licensors Workshop beginnings in 2003 and how SPLiCE was born April 26, 2004. Each presenter articulated the highlights of each Licensors Workshop event including the Member host, keynote presenters, topics addressed and influencing resources directly impacting each of the events over ten years. The presentation capped an extraordinary event that will hinge an upcoming strategic plan in which all Members will be asked to participate.

We also reflected on the past Licensors Workshop hosts that have come before that build collaboration within SPLiCE including McDonald’s Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, The Coca-Cola Company, the US Postal Service, Nike, The Stanley Works (Stanley Black & Decker), P&G, and Biltmore. Our goal is to continue to bridge the success of bringing our membership to Member host venues to learn firsthand what environment makes the brand shine the way it does. Currently, we are meeting with potential Member hosts for 2013.

This year 3M hosted our 10th annual Licensors Workshop which was extraordinary. The 3M Innovation Center is a state-of-the-art facility that allowed all member attendees to focus on the content deliverables and engage in the professional environment. We learned about the 46 various 3M technologies that impact so many consumer products and tools we utilize on a daily basis. More so, we learned how 3M ingredient licensing has engaged innovation excellence through consistent collaboration. 3M proved to be a most generous host with so many teachable moments built into our three days together. We are very appreciative of all that the 3M team demonstrated through teamwork, collaboration and as brand leaders.
Ian Hardgrove, Senior Vice President, Marketing Sales and Communications, 3M, shared his insights on how 3M has sustained an innovative and collaborative environment for 110 years. Most recently 3M is encouraging the engagement of all stakeholders to communicate the value of 3M in 46 various technologies and how they impact consumer lifestyles. Mr. Hardgrove took us through a retrospective of 3M which was enlightening and most importantly shared with us the commitment 3M maintains that its workforce can elect to use 15% of its time to pursue passionate projects within the company.

Dale Buss, Contributor

John Nens had a great day when Ford got possession of its Blue Oval logo back recently. But he was also excited a few months ago when Ford licensed its “Built Ford Tough” slogan for clothing at Forever 21, the young women’s chain. He got a kick out of approving a Ford line of Tervis Tumblers for sale at Bed, Bath & Beyond last year.

And Ford’s 49-year-old manager of global brand licensing and corporate identity really enjoyed approving the look and sound of the new high-performance 2013 Ford Focus ST as it is depicted in the new Forza 4 video game.

“The most important part of licensing is to use it to build the Ford brand,” said Nens, a 27-year Ford veteran who took over his current job in 2004. “The second important thing is to protect the brand; a lot of people don’t think about that with licensing. But if we don’t use our brand in some particular category, others can come in and take it.”

Nens and his staff of four are doing something right, because they’ve converted their logo-leveraging operation from a relatively sleepy backwater to a revenue juggernaut. Retailers sold about $1.5 billion of Ford-licensed merchandise last year, up from about $1 billion in 2005, as consumer appreciation for the Blue Oval, the Ford name and product identities has grown along with the recent corporate renaissance.

The company has about 400 licensees now, up from about 300 when Nens took over the job. His crew granted about 18,000 product approvals last year, up from about 15,000 just two years ago. And retailers sold about 45 million individual pieces of Ford-branded merchandise last year, up from about 40 million pieces just five years ago.

Ford won’t reveal how much that $1.5 billion contributed to its own top line, but it’s certainly a hefty — and growing — chunk of change. And more important, rising interest by licensees of all sorts in leveraging the equity in the Ford brand and vehicles “is one of the best measures of brand health,” Jim Farley, Ford’s global CMO, said recently.

In fact, Nens told me, until recently, anything related to Mustang was Ford’s most popular brand for licensing, and “Built Ford Tough” and other marks related to Ford pickup trucks were No. 2. Ford’s Blue Oval was No. 3.

But over the last few years, the Blue Oval itself — which was just taken out of hock from Ford creditors because of how the company’s credit ratings have improved — has leapt to the No. 1 request of licensees. “That’s great news,” Nens said. “It’s great for the corporate brand to be our most popular brand.”

Traditionally, Nens said, Ford “would just sell things through the dealer channel or at aftermarket stores like Pep Boys, and they’re still important. But most of our growth has been because we’ve taken the brand to where the consumer is — Wal-Mart, Target, Kohl’s — and made sure our licensed merchandise is there too.” In fact, for the first time, at auto shows this year Ford has been setting up its own boutique on show floors to sell Ford-branded merchandise to attendees.

Until lately, licensing the Ford name, its Blue Oval logo and Mustang, Taurus, Explorer and other product names mainly was a matter of lending them to clothing for men, and mostly racing enthusiasts. The other big line of merchandise was Ford-themed toys made by Mattel, Fisher-Price and other manufacturers.

And such lines are still going strong: One million of the 45 million Ford items sold last year were Mustang versions of Mattel Hot Wheels.

But coming on big lately have been licensure of radio-controlled toy versions of Ford nameplates, video games featuring Ford vehicles, juniors’ sizes of women’s apparel, and “men’s gifting” items such as neon signs, lamps and mirrors. There’s a pool table set in a replica of a ’65 Mustang complete with some actual parts salvaged from the classic. Ford has licensed Teleflora to sell a flower arrangement for guys in the back of a replica of a 1948 Ford pickup. And Fatheads, the wall-graphic outfit best known for life-size photos of athletes, just began selling huge images of  Ford vehicles and of the Blue Oval itself.

Ford also has begun seeding the market with free use of images, via the web, from a century of photo archives housed by the company but never commercialized or even explored in any meaningful way until now.

Approving video games is both the most entertaining task for Nens and his crew. “It’s like living a boy’s dream,” he said.

But it’s also the most demanding category. The typical race game, Nens said, might include 90 to 100 raceable Ford vehicles in the program. And so for one thing, the brand-licensing team has got to make sure game companies match up Ford vehicles “against the right product,” Nens explained. “You wouldn’t want a ’65 Mustang matched up [in a race] against a new Ferrari. That’s part of protecting the brand.”

Nens’ team also must “make sure the car sounds right and handles correctly.” Ford engineers help them out with specs on how Ford’s vehicles actually handle, what their wheel designs look like, how they really sound and so on, and it’s up to Nens to hold game makers to those parameters. Recently, for example, Nens ordered a change in a game because a Ford Explorer depicted in it sounded like a diesel-powered vehicle — and Ford doesn’t sell a diesel Explorer.

Neither will Ford allow its products to be harnessed for video games rated older than for teen consumption. “Some games have a lot of violence, but we’ve chosen not to do that,” Nens said. Again — protecting the brand.

Similarly, Ford gets repeated requests for licenses in categories where it must continually frustrate the petitioners because the company won’t approve any product in it. That especially includes wine, often for a proposed Mustang vino. “With alcohol and driving, that’s something we just won’t do,” Nens said. “We also won’t pursue co-branded opportunities with gun companies.” Neither will Ford brand products that are sourced from countries with bad human-rights records such as Iran and Myanmar.

Although not all car companies do so, Nens said, Ford insists on approving an actual product as it is executed, not just a concept or a proposal. “We know our brand the best, and we have to make sure it’s always represented in the best way through the merchandise.”

But among other things, such high standards mean that the licensing offices on the fifth floor of a Ford building in Dearborn are the closest thing you’ll find in the auto industry to Santa’s workshop. One of those Mustang pool tables sits in the middle and gets plenty of play. Ford-branded bicycles, licensed to companies in the Japan and Middle East — and even an Explorer bike made in the United States — sit along the walls. Occasionally a new radio-controlled Taurus will burst across the floor; or Nens and colleagues will play with them in an outside courtyard.

Nens also makes sure he’s got hundreds of diecast vehicle replicas around the place. One reason: It’s no secret that Farley really likes those little toys.

And the CMO himself acknowledges that he likes to drop by Nens’s lair. “It,” Farley said, “is a fun place to go.”

2012 Forbes: 28% of the top 50 most reputable brands are SPLiCE Members

2012 CR’s 1001 Best Corporate Citizens: 16% of the top 100 are SPLiCE Members

2012 License! Global Top 125 Global Licensors: 43% of the top 125 are SPLiCE Members

On Monday June 11th, 2012 SPLiCE will host its inaugural Licensors Summit™ ‘Spotlight on Metrics’ at The Signature at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV.  The purpose for this event is to showcase expert licensing Service Providers.  Selected Service Providers will present their developed technologies, processes and or consultation practices to support the licensing industry.  The audience will be our SPLiCE Members along with other Licensors participating as attendees and presenters.

The goal for SPLiCE Licensors Summit™ is two-fold. First presenters will distinguish how they streamline processes to influence more productive and efficient licensing business models. Secondly SPLiCE Licensors Summit™ will provide our SPLiCE Members an incredible value to learn state-of-the-art knowledge from key presenters within a controlled environment. This event will be a time-savings for all involved, an efficient way to share best practices and a solid way to highlight tools and techniques to improve licensing models.

Licensors Summit™ Platinum Sponsors:

Licensors Summit™ Agenda

Licensors Summit™ Presenters

Licensors Summit™ Vision: To facilitate best practice licensing process management.

Licensors Summit™ Mission: Licensors and expert Service Providers will have an educational forum that builds awareness of best practices in the licensing industry. The SPLiCE Licensors Summit™ will afford opportunities for Licensors and Service Providers to understand business challenges and generate connections.

Licensors Summit™ Committee Members:

145 E. Harmon Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89109
1-877-727-0007

Award Recognizes National Wildlife Federation’s Work to Connect Kids and Nature

Reston, Virginia, April 16, 2012 – The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) received a $100,000 grant from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund (DWCF) for its work to protect nature and inspire lifelong conservation values.  The award was presented during the Disney Kids and Nature Celebration, a three-day event held at Walt Disney World Resort which recognizes the importance of connecting kids to nature and the organizations leading this effort.

NWF President Larry Schweiger was on hand to accept the award on behalf of the National Wildlife Federation, as well as Malcolm Barnard, who was selected to represent the organization for his dedication to turning his hometown, Johns Creek, Georgia, into a NWF certified Community Wildlife Habitat. The grant to National Wildlife Federation is one of five $100,000 awards that was announced Friday afternoon.  To date, DWCF has invested almost $20 million to support conservation programs in more than half the countries in the world.

“With the generous support of Disney, the National Wildlife Federation will continue to develop programs that bring kids closer to nature and teaches them the importance of taking care of our planet,” said NWF President Larry Schweiger.

The National Wildlife Federation’s Be Out There movement is focused on raising healthier, happier children by making outdoor play a regular part of their day.  Research shows that kids who don’t spend much time outdoors are more vulnerable to obesity, ADHD, vitamin D deficiency, depression and poor grades.  Some of the Be Out There signature events including, the Great American Backyard Campout and Hike & Seek, encourage parents to make outdoor time for their kids a priority.

“At Disney, kids and conservation are important to who we are as a company,” said Dr. Beth Stevens, senior vice president of Corporate Citizenship, Environment & Conservation at Disney. “We have great confidence that the National Wildlife Federation will continue this commitment into the future.  We know that the experiences they are helping to create for kids in nature are critical to inspiring the next generation of conservation leaders.”

The National Wildlife Federation’s relationship with Disney goes back over 50 years.  Walt Disney was featured in a 1956 television public service announcement highlighting National Wildlife Week, one of NWF’s first wildlife education programs for schools.

Media Contact: Megan Blevins, blevinsm@nwf.org, 703.438.6015

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National Wildlife Federation is the country’s largest conservation organization protecting wildlife for our children’s future.  With over 4 million members and supporters, and nine offices across the country, the group focuses its work on developing solutions to climate change, protecting wildlife habitat, and connecting people to nature.