New opportunities, categories and resources for fast-growing licensing campaign

At this year’s BLE the Natural History Museum will be looking back on the success of its refreshed licensing programme and looking forward to new opportunities and expansion into new categories – supported by new resources and new ideas.

At stand N80 the Natural History Museum will showcase a number of new style guides and discuss potential new partnerships with the aim of building on the Museum’s already strong presence within the retail and licensing industry. This includes an interest in new territories after a successful recent touring programme saw products developed for both Japan and Taiwan.

It's been a very busy and successful year for the Museum’s licensing programme, with a significant number of new licensees coming on board introducing the brand to new categories within the retail landscape. Fabric collections, crafting, print on demand, wooden prints, apparel, seed ranges, science kits, dinosaur cutouts and even a 34-piece womenswear collection underlined the impressive use of art, artefacts and scientific expertise that has inspired diverse, high-quality and popular new output for both children and adults.

But the Museum’s licensing team isn’t planning to rest on its laurels. At BLE the team aims to grow new areas for the children’s market, including puzzles, learning (STEM), accessories, back-to-school and food & drink. For adults, licensing targets include puzzles, art supplies, and home furnishings. The licensing programme will also strengthen its collaboration portfolio, with a focus on new categories and ethical consciousness. In addition, the licensing team has been part of the BLE Mentoring Programme and hosted seven retail buyers at the Museum during the summer to give them an insight into how heritage licensing works.

Building on the success of the children and adult's style guides that were launched in 2017, the team will be launching two new guides at Brand Licensing Europe. One, for children’s products, is a new dinosaur trend pack that makes use of the 26 new dinosaur illustrations that have been developed alongside the Museum’s palaeontology department. It offers a strong design route that can lend itself to many trend-driven creative directions.

The second style guide has been named FUTURE SCIENTIST and highlights the fantastic world of science (specifically those sciences practised at the Museum), showing how fun and accessible these sciences are to younger children via a beautifully illustrated creative direction. BLE will also see the team showcasing the influential book Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours, an iconic taxonomic guide to colour, as a potential new creative direction for products, including art supplies.

Maxine Lister, Senior Licensing Manager, says: “The Natural History Museum licensing campaign has enjoyed enormous success since BLE 2017 but we know that there is more it can offer present and future partners. We're looking forward enormously to discussing some new directions that will further enhance one of the most attractive and forward-thinking offerings in heritage licensing.”