How to license your idea to someone Chapter 2

Last year I posted an article about how the Shea brothers, George and Richard created a licensing machine out of a hot dog eating contest. It is a great template for anyone to follow to take their big idea to the global stage. This year on July 4th, I was pleased to see they continue to stoke their meat-munching-licensing machine with plenty of good PR, sports analogies and old fashioned controversy.

For openers, they changed the time of the contest from 12 minutes to 10 minutes. George referenced an old article in the New York Times linked to others to confirm the proper time should be 2 minutes shorter.

Chapter two lessons we can learn from the Shea licensing playbook.

Tip #1 Controversy.

Controversy sells! By making the change half the world will think they did it because their main sponsor Nathan’s does not like it when their product experiences an “unfortunate reversal” by the contestants. The other half of the world might believe they did it to create more ties that result in an overtime. This actually happened this year. A one on one eat-off in overtime means more drama, more minutes and more ad revenues. Controversy makes people want to talk about you even if they do not agree with you.

Tip #2 People love sports.

They flooded us with more sports analogies this year. Constantly telling the viewers you are watching a great sports moment, not a “pound the dogs until you hurl moment.” The more they go into the lives of the contestants, comparisons to the great battles of boxing, hockey, basketball… the more you view this as sports history and less a side show of eating mutants that escaped from the county fair. Advertisers love sports because it makes their product appear healthy.


Tip #3 Same message different platform.

This is licensing on speed. When you can take your brand and push the same message across multiple platforms. Many people just won’t watch this on ESPN. This year they now have a game exclusively on the Wii called, “Major League Eating the game.” They even have eating characters you know and love branded on the game. Think what happened to poker once the licensing guys got a hold of Texas hold ‘em. They have moved it to a global stage and the main poker players have video game deals, clothing and publishing to add to their poker winnings. It does not even matter if the eating game is any good; having a tie in with the Wii gives you something you cannot buy unless you are a very, very wealthy politician. Credibility.

If you missed last year’s blog about the Shea Brothers, here is a republished version. Stay tuned to Chapter 3 next year; I am sure they will have something new to teach us.


The art of great licensing (Post from October 2007)

I must have hot dog on the brain recently. This post however is from my fascination with a twisted sort of sporting event that has really turned into a case study in the ART of great licensing. Every July 4th 50,000 live spectators and myself via sofa, get a big kick out of the world's biggest hot dog eating contest put on by the International Federation of Competitive Eating I.F.O.C.E. I even TIVO'd it this year because I was camping. You are probably thinking "This guy has some kind of eating disorder, or else he only licenses out products that can be gobbled down". I am 6 feet 2 inches, 200 lbs, but I do have a major fascination with the art of creation. Creation is the foundation, the absolute bedrock of great franchising and licensing concepts. The royalties they pay you must be less then the value you create for them, otherwise you have created a value sucking vampire that will implode.

Everything around us had to be created, existing matter reorganized into a new and better purpose. Nothing we see is created out of thin air. In other words, there is no such thing as "immaterial material".

Every invention in this world was created from a previously created one. Everything we see was created by rearranging existing elements in a new and more useful way. Think of the evolution from vacuum tubes, transistors, microprocessors, modern PC, Blackberries we have come along way baby! That is really the evolution of solid science taking previously invented materials and rearranging them in a new and creative way to give more utility to the user and more margin to the inventors. The art of good licensing works the exact same way. Example, back to the Dogs. Hot dogs have been around a long time, contest to see who can eat the most of them probably were invented shortly after the hot dog was invented. In steps the Shea Brothers, who took the existing elements and by an act of promotional alchemy, they created an entire new category to license out, Competitive Eating and all of the ancillary byproducts spun off from that creative core.

A Brief history of the Shea Brothers.

The Shea brothers are two New York PR guys who worked for the original promoter of the Nathan's hot dog contest. That gave the Shea brothers an idea: Why not create a competitive eating league and expand the market to many categories not just one? In the early 1990s, they founded the International Federation of Competitive Eating, housed at their PR firm, Shea Communications.

ATTENTION READERS FREE PRIZE INSIDE!

I am assuming you are a reader of this blog because you have a concept and want to expand the reach or you are an experienced entrepreneur and are tired of working 100 hour weeks and want to know if a better way exists. Do yourself a favor, you must go to their site, consider it a free crash coarse in the art of creative licensing methods. http://www.iforce.com They have built up a major licensing machine by leveraging the insatiable appetite the world has with winners, personal stories, sports, eating and very clever branding. Check out their Federation crest, two lions, eating a hot dog, jousting with offsetting mustard and ketchup bottles! Reading their press you get that sense that they are two very passionate guys about either promotion or competitive eating, I suspect in the beginning it was the former but the passion for the Federation definitely cannot be denied.

All great franchisees have a "Real" quality to them. People are not fools, they can sniff a fake. Fakes blow out they don't last. I suspect the I.F.O.C.E. will be around along time because the concept seems so outrageous but the team behind it is genuine about the brand and the reality of that passion shines through every July 4th for me and apparently I am not alone. The list of corporate sponsors, media outlets, merchandising, and events just seems to have no limits. Dream big readers. Enjoy!