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Respondents to TLL’s 2018 Language of Licensing (LoL) Survey are roughly evenly divided between agents (30.1%), licensees (29.1%), and licensors (27.2%). Within the agents grouping, almost three-fourths (74.2%) represent brand owners, while 25.8% represent manufacturers. Just 8.7% of the total are consultants, 2.9% are retailers, and 1.9% are other (mostly for creative services).
Compared to the first iteration of the LoL Survey in 2016, licensees have a much higher share of representation and consultants less. By the raw numbers, there is more representation for each major licensing role TLL tracks, except for consultants & service providers.
An even half (50.5%) of respondents are based in and do their primary business in the U.S./Canada. A significant minority (13.5%) do business Worldwide. International respondents are mostly based in Europe (21.6% of total share), Asia (7.2%), Latin America and Australia/New Zealand (2.7% each), and the Middle East/Africa (1.8%).
Note that for the purposes of the 2018 LoL Survey, U.S./Canada, International, and Worldwide are three distinct groups with no overlap in membership.
Note: Numbers may not add up due to rounding. | |||||
Territory | Licensor | Licensee | Agent | Other | Total |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
U.S./Canada | 46% | 51% | 53% | 47% | 50% |
International | 38% | 41% | 30% | 47% | 38% |
Worldwide | 16% | 7% | 17% | 6% | 12% |
Total | 27% | 29% | 30% | 14% | 100% |
Just like last time, most of the licensing executives who responded to the 2018 Lol Survey have been in the industry for a while. Almost half (44.9%) of respondents have been involved in licensing for over 20 years. One-third (32.6%) have been in the business for 10 to 20 years, 13.5% for 5 to 10 years, and 9.0% for less than 5 years. There was no significant difference in experience when sorting by territory or role. Unsurprisingly, agents were the most experienced cohort.
To try to sort out biases, we also asked which property types and product categories respondents were most familiar with. While each was well-represented, the most popular brand type was entertainment/character with 63% of respondents indicating that they are involved with the property type. This was followed by toys/games (34%), art and publishing (33% each), and celebrities/estates and fashion (30% each). No property type TLL tracks counted under 20% share.
On the consumer products/services side, the most popular category was gifts/novelties at 54%, followed by toys/games (47%), apparel (42%), accessories (40%), domestics/housewares and stationery/paper (39% each), publishing (37%), and food/beverages and furniture/home furnishings (34% each). The only product category that counted under 20% share was music/video at 9% share.