When clothing dealers cooperate with brand licensors, they need to spend a lot of effort in preparation starting from the investigation and negotiation in the early stage of signing the contract. They must also adjust themselves in the future cooperation process. mentality, and properly grasp the following ten aspects to avoid risks in future operations. (1)

Detailed investigation of authorized brands before signing.

Before signing a contract, the current rights holder of the relevant trademarks (including Chinese trademarks, English trademarks, and graphic combination trademarks), images, and patents under the authorized brand should be confirmed. It is best to sign the contract directly with the rights owner. . If you sign a contract with an agency, you must check its legal agency authorization documents to confirm whether the authorizer has legal and complete authorization qualifications.

In addition, attention should be paid to whether there is a right holder of the authorized brand, whether the authorization will infringe on the rights and interests of other third parties, and whether official certification documents for relevant rights have been obtained, such as trademark registration certificates and patent certificates. wait. (2)

Tips for choosing authorized brands.

Many authorized brands had no intention of licensing the brand during the heyday of their brand. Instead, when the industry situation went downhill, they passively sought innovation and breakthroughs in their business models, intending to use the brand Authorize to integrate resources to enhance the brand and earn licensing profits at the same time. The most typical example is that some brands in the thermal underwear industry have attached great importance to the brand licensing business model in recent years. Therefore, it is best to choose a strong brand that is truly influential, or a brand that is on the rise, and a brand that can invest a lot of advertising costs every year to maintain its image.

Naturally, when choosing a brand, the relevance of the authorized brand to the product category you plan to operate is also a factor that must be considered. For example, a down jacket company in Changshu chose the thermal underwear brand "Arctic Velvet" when choosing an authorized brand. In addition to the fact that Arctic Velvet is a well-known trademark in China, the main business of the Arctic Velvet brand is thermal underwear. It belongs to the same thermal insulation industry as down jackets, and the brand has The word "velvet" is very closely related to the brand of down jackets. (3)

Granting of incidental rights to other brands.

If clothing dealers can simultaneously obtain the image authorization of the brand spokesperson on authorized products during negotiations, it will definitely bring benefits to investment and sales. Some brand honors that have been obtained by authorized brands before must be distinguished and should be fully utilized and promoted without violating relevant national laws and regulations. In practice, it should be noted that China's well-known trademarks are a legal recognition, not an honor. They are often limited to a certain type of product of an authorized brand. If used blindly, complaints and administrative penalties may easily result. (4)

Completeness and perfection of authorization documents.

After both parties sign a brand authorization contract, the licensor should be required to provide complete authorization documents and relevant supporting materials. This is to prevent authorized products from being regarded as counterfeit by consumers when they first enter the market, or from being investigated and punished by the industrial and commercial administration departments. Brand authorization in the clothing industry is currently mainly reflected in the form of trademark licensing, so it should be filed with the industrial and commercial administration department or the National Trademark Office in accordance with the trademark law. (5)

High-profile publicity for entering the market.

Obtaining the authorization of a strong brand and forming an alliance with a well-known brand is a major event for clothing dealers to expand or transform their business. Therefore, the brand authorizer must be required to cooperate. This cooperation has been widely discussed in various media High-profile publicity will help enhance your corporate image and promote investment in authorized products. (6)

Think about doing well first rather than thinking about doing badly.

When a clothing dealer obtains brand authorization, it means transforming from a product seller to a brand operator. This tests the clothing dealer's resource integration capabilities. For clothing dealers, they have always been in the lower reaches of the clothing industry chain. They may have relatively poor brand marketing operation capabilities and insufficient professionalism. After the authorized brand is put into the market, on the one hand, they have to focus on brand promotion, and on the other hand, they are eager to recover costs. It is easy to focus on one thing and lose the other, and even lose the original core competitiveness in sales channels.

Since you have chosen brand licensing, you should devote all your efforts to doing it well to achieve profitability, instead of thinking that the brand is not yours anyway. If you can make money, you can make money. If you can't make money, you can quit the business in the second year, and you will have to give up the business for one year at most. cost. (7)

Don’t have a sugar daddy mentality.

Success is not guaranteed by having a strong brand. In operation, you also need to equip a management team with brand awareness, build an excellent marketing network, develop innovative and fashionable product styles, organize the supply of goods, ensure product quality is excellent, and be familiar with the professional rules of brand authorization. . If you have a sugar daddy mentality and hope that the combination with a strong brand will automatically bring you wealth after obtaining authorization, it will only be a fantasy in the end. (8)

Stay vigilant against over-authorization by brand licensors.

The business model of brand licensing determines that the licensor will pursue the maximization of licensing fee income. Some brands tend to overdraft the brand, license too much, or take advantage of the flaws in the contract to license repeatedly, which is easy to do. Create a conflict of interest in the market. Therefore, it is necessary to keep dynamic tracking of the authorization behavior of the authorizer, be familiar with professional rules, and know how to protect one's own rights and interests. (9)

Fighting against counterfeiting and safeguarding rights is a normal work.

Brands that operate through brand licensing are often the key targets of unfair competition in some industries, which is particularly obvious for some international brands. Many companies that spend huge sums of money to obtain authorizations through formal channels often suffer from infringement before they can start to make profits. Therefore, we must be aware of the difficulty of anti-counterfeiting and rights protection work from the beginning, and require the cooperation and support of authorized parties, and use technology, management, publicity, anti-counterfeiting and other means to protect the brand's intellectual property rights from infringement. (10)

Make up for the shortcomings in R&D and production

Some clothing dealers only do wholesale but not channels. Some clothing dealers have channel development capabilities. There are shortcomings in R&D and production. Therefore, as a qualified licensee, clothing dealers must not neglect the equipment of the product R&D team and in-depth understanding of the production process.