Entertainment Licensing & Branding Blog

I have located a couple publishers that can print graphic novels (one at a time or in large amounts) for a reasonable price.  The next step is to raise the funds to complete the graphic novel, which is three-quarters finished.  The end is written and Scott Lee is willing to do the artwork but we still need to have the funds for the colorist and lettering people - then of course the print run.

Normally, Diamond (the distributor for Marvel, Image, Darkhorse and DC Comics) requires an advertisement in their Previews magazine so that our product will be included in the order form inside.  It is advisable to run the full color ad a few months in a row to get the retail store owners to be aware of the Galactic Gladiator’s graphic novel.

So if you would like to help launch the GG graphic novel by donating or investing contact admin@Playdigm.com.

If you just want to show your support in this fresh and unique story, characters and anti-war story wrapped within an intergalactic war, let us know by going to the Galactic Gladiators facebook page and leaving a comment on the wall.  Either way, we appreciate your support and interest.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Galactic-Gladiators/139310256105856?ref=ts

Cheers!!

The staff of Playthings, announced that the Los Angeles appeals court stayed a pending court-ordered recall of MGA Entertainment’s BRATZ dolls.  This allows the doll’s to continue to be sold.

Chief Judge Alex Kozinski and Circuit Judges Stephen S. Trott and Kim McLane Wardlaw of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit filed the stay Wednesday following an appellate hearing on the case earlier in the day.

“The Court’s stay is good news for all Bratz fans and for anyone who cares about fair competition,” said Isaac Larian, CEO of MGA Entertainment. “It keeps Bratz on the shelves, allows MGA Entertainment to continue meeting consumer demand for new Bratz products, and prevents Mattel from taking control of the billion-dollar international Bratz brand built by MGA Entertainment while the Court makes its final decision. We are gratified by the Court’s decision and look forward to receiving the Court’s decision on our appeal.”

The judges would see MGA and Mattel to attempt to settle the dispute over Bratz’s future through “expedited participation in this court’s mediation program.”

Last year, a court ruled that Bratz’ creator, Carter Bryant, had been under contract to Mattel when he designed the initial concept and hence granted Bratz rights to Mattel. MGA was subsequently ordered by U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson to stop selling Bratz dolls at the end of 2009 and transfer all related material to Mattel.

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I find it interesting that even though the rights to the BRATZ doll line are now the owned by Mattel, MGA still gets to sell their version of the brand throughout another Christmas season.  As we all know, ‘It’s all about the money and using the court system to make more money.’

For those in the know on this mixed up license scenario, the key is to ensure the license and ownership terms are clear and identified in the contract between the Licensor and the Licensee.  See my Clause-by-Clause breakdown of a complete Licensing Agreement to ensure your brand does not end up with a similar fate.  Scroll down…

Cheers!

Sandford Tuey

info@Playdigm.com

I thank Playthings Magazine for the educational use of the copyrighted article above my personal remarks.

More Brand development information:

Stage 14

With the first issue’s preproduction completed, mock-ups approved by Diamond Comics (Distributor of Marvel, Image, Darkhorse, DC Comics and others), the next step was to find a reasonably priced printer.  The search began on the internet and through word of mouth.

Trying to get printers from around the world to quote on apples and not oranges became a chore.  Faxes and emails were fired back and forth so that we could truly ensure the quote details were what we were after. When we finally received a solid good quote with full printing details, it was copied and this master quote was sent out to many other printers.  After receiving misquotes and clarification on newly submitted quotes we decided to use Quebecor World out of Montreal for two reasons.

1) They printed comic books for the major comic book publishers so quality would not be an issue with our distributors and retail stores.

2) Diamond already had delivery trucks picking up other comic titles and shipped them into the USA for their distribution centers.

So the only thing remaining to do was decide on how many issues to print of Galactic Gladiators issue number one.  We all realized that a first print run would be of interest to collectors and could be sold forever if enough were printed. The more units produced would make the per unit price much lower.

Of course we also knew that the number of units would be limited to the amount of money we could raise.  So it was time to raise funds.

The next post will go over the Raising Funds stage:

Next Report will be #9.

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FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - Pre-Order this ebook by sending an email to info@Playdigm.com (put ‘Book Order’ in the subject line).  This ebook is expected to be available in late 2009.  Reserve an issue with no money down. Payment to be required later.

(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.

Ever wonder which of the corporate brands utilize and leverage social media the best?  A study by Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group and Wetpaint rank the top 100 brands by social media engagement.  I have only indicated the top ten companies.

The study revealed the level of each of the top 100 brands across more than ten social media, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, wikis, and discussion forums. Starbucks scored the highest:

1. Starbucks (SBUX)
2. Dell (DELL)
3. eBay (EBAY)
4. Google (GOOG)
5. Microsoft (MSFT)
6. Thomson Reuters (TRI)
7. Nike (NKE)
8. Amazon (AMZN)
9. SAP
10. Tie – Yahoo!/Intel (YHOO) (INTC)

The report put brands into one of four kinds of categories, dependent on the number of social media channels they participate with.  The study suggests there is a correlation between social media engagement and revenue growth. Those using social media well, saw revenue increase an average of 18 percent over the past year.

As we all in the know realize, that with constant branding via the internet and other media, awareness increases proportionally.  So get your message out there and reap the rewards.

Stay tuned to future posts on how to make social media work for you and your brand!

Cheers!

Sandford Tuey

info@Playdigm.com

For those of you who do not know me,  I have been consulting in the areas of corporate management and the entertainment industry since 1985.  Those that have retained my services have been thankful for my involvement with their projects and to have access to my wide knowledge base.  I enjoy my work and do the best for my clients.

I have had only two clients question the cost of my services.  The first was a friend of mine who thought I should supply the answers to his questions for free.  I explained that I make a living consulting and if he did not like my fee structure, to go see a lawyer and pay for the information he was seeking at fair market value.  He called me back a couple days later and paid my invoice without further question.  It seems that the information I provided to him was correct and cost him three times more than what I charge.  The other point he brought up was that the lawyer’s office hours were limited to only  9am until 4pm and availability depended on how busy the legal counsel  was with their many other customers during those Monday to Friday hours.

No comparison to the access my clients have to me.  Once an agreement is signed between myself and the client AND I receive the retainer funds, I provide the client with my direct cell phone number and 24  hour access every day of the week. I do enjoy a few hours sleep so I explain that emergency calls only after 11pm until 7am, but depending on the crisis, it is not unusual for me to take calls at all times of the day or night.  I also make sure I only have six active clients at any one time so I can devote serious attention and assistance to my customer’s projects and concerns.

The second client, entered into an agreement with certain conditions that provided for a small ownership position in their corporation and some other future perks if the endeavour became successful.   So for many months, based on this understanding, I provided consulting services and knowledge for a variety of topics on corporations. how they are structured, share types and amounts, pricing, how to incorporate, how to run a Directors meeting and many other answers to the soon to be President’s questions regarding governance, personal liability and responsibility to future shareholders, directors, plus many other matters.

Everything was going well, even with the standard complications of any start up venture.  Then came the day to issue the share certificates and I am all of a sudden to change the way I invoice clients, my price structure and to become a direct employee.  This was not what we agreed to back before this company was formed.  I was then sent a list of tasks ranging from assisting the new legal counsel to design a contract,  construct and develop the company website and to help the financial officer create a business plan. Pretty standard stuff for me but a lot more work.

Reluctantly, I have had to suspend my services until this matter is worked out, since I already have a fair block of consulting time invested.  Even though I really want to be involved with this group, my legal advisers told me it doesn’t make sense to continue incurring more hours on the project in the event a mutual arrangement is not reached.  I really look forward to helping with the success of this company as there are lots of things that are needed to be completed asap but time will tell.

I am asked to give clients advice,  but it is not my responsibility to force anyone to take my advice and do the things I suggest. Even if it is the right thing to do and in their best interests.

I always mention to my clients that they should seek legal and accounting advice from professionals, including getting second opinions. There are many professionals that make errors or over-charge for their services. The key is to find the right knowledge for the perfect price.  Pay people what they are worth because there is a price for knowledge and all men are not created equal, even though I wish they were.

One last thing, don’t have the $100/hour person doing the $10/hour job.  It just does not make common sense.  Yet clients sometimes think that because they hire me, they can ask me to do any task, yet my first response is the one above.  It comes down to what value is knowledge worth.

The bottom line is that it is a good decision to pay a person who can answer a question in minutes because they have the knowledge base, experience and understanding of the industry the question is aimed at.  It is a bad decision to pay a lower price to someone who takes three times as long to figure out the same answer.  In the end, it may cost more.

For more than thirty years people have asked me if I am a lawyer. My reply is “No, but I make sure they do a good job for those that hire me.”

Good luck with your ventures…

Sandford Tuey

Learning by example. How I developed a brand.

Stage 6

Creating a three act screenplay is straight forward once you’ve read dozens of ‘How to Write a Screenplay’  books and absorbed so many scripts and compared them to the actual films.  This is mandatory, do your homework.

If you are going to introduce your brand in a novel or graphic novel form, then seek out the information on these publications and industries and work towards creating the best product you can.

When I finished the first draft of Galactic Gladiators I was pleased with myself (as anyone would be after writing 100 to 120 pages).  I read it again and again searching for spelling and grammar mistakes and changing a word here or there to increase the emotion or action.

Then it was time to give it to other writers, film contacts and friends for their opinion.  Guess I did a pretty good job because the majority loved the story and overall concept.

Stage 7

When I pitched the Galactic Gladiators idea to my corporation’s shareholders they were impressed.  I explained that I needed about $20,000 for storyboards to attract ‘A’ list actors, producers and directors.   My shareholders however, reminded me that they were capitalists and wanted to know how I would make money from selling storyboards.

It seemed no matter how much I tried to get them to invest further funds they would not do so as they only would give money to produce something that could be sold in a store.  So I banged my head for a couple days until I came up with the idea to turn my needed storyboards into comic books.

Stage 8

I pulled out my comic collection and reread all my Frank Miller and Stan Lee books.  Everything from Superman, Batman to Ironman, Spiderman to Sin City, 300, Ronin, Spawn, Men In Black and Hellboy.  Always trying to figure out why these brands hit it big.  I read a few books on drawing and writing comic format.

Then I approached my company shareholders again, only this time with the focus of financing a comic series based on my Galactic Gladiators screenplay.  Because they recognized the fact that I might be able to sell comics throughout the world, they started investing.  The cost of creating, developing, printing and marketing the GG comic books cost ten times what the story boards would have.

The next installment will be titled Galactic Gladiators Part #5.

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Order my ebook - FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - now. It will be available later in 2009. Pre-order by contacting Info@Playdigm.com.

(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.

Sandford Tuey continues to detail how to develop and market a brand by using his Galactic Gladiators brand as an example.

Stage 4

I purchased Movie Magic software after extensive research and talking with film and television industry contacts. Final Draft and Movie Magic are the most accepted software programs in Hollywood and I chose Movie Magic. I also read every screenplay I could get access to and watched hundreds of movies in the genre.

Writing a screenplay is a daunting task but since I  just finished the first draft of my first screenplay titled, ‘EXIT IN’ I was some what prepared for it. Exit IN is an immigration cop story where Richard Freedman, an immigration removals/detention officer, who during the escort of an illegal alien back to country of origin, loses his detainee and must complete the mission within three days or be fired allowing a major criminal to lead a deadly gang war in North America.

They say ‘write what you know’ and at that time I was working with Immigration Canada.  So I took everything I knew about this subject and added real life details to the fictional script to make it as realistic a story with drama and suspense.  I changed the names of the character to protect me. lol   Great practice for a first time screenwriter.  So practice by writing what you know as it is a great way to start learning the craft.

Stage 5

The main reason for writing Galactic Gladiators was due to some information I came across at the Film Forum during the Vancouver Film Festival (I’ve been attending this business conference since 1988).  One of the Studio types mentioned that for every dollar made at Box Office, there are three to five dollars made from DVD/VHS sales but anywhere from ten to twenty dollars made from the toys and merchandise associated with the movie.

Well it takes the same amount of time to write a drama or love story (without a toy line), as it does to write a screenplay or novel with the possibility of toys and mass merchandise branching off of it.  It made sense to come up with a concept with toy potential.

One day my son (age 8 at the time) asked me, “Dad, if aliens exist, why do they always abduct hillbillies and not the President?”  I didn’t have an answer to that but I came up with one, and that is how Galactic Gladiators was born.

The next installment will be titled Galactic Gladiators Part #4.

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Order my ebook - FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - now. It will be available later in 2009. Pre-order by contacting Info@Playdigm.com.

(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.

The Making of Galactic Gladiators

Stage 1

Originally I wrote a short story to be used as a synopsis and outline for the screenplay that I wanted to write.  Standard procedure before writing the script. By putting down my thoughts on three pages of paper in the form of a short fictional story I established two things, 1) immediate copyright protection and 2) it structured my concept into three acts.  This helped with the writing of the screenplay later.

Stage 2

As I wrote the short story I had to come up with the lead characters - protagonist and antagonist, their friends and henchmen, names for the intergalactic races and describe what each of these creatures looked like.  What kind of worlds do they live on and what structure of governments, mind set, life styles or if they even lived above ground or in oceans of methane.  In a resumes form I wrote out each important item in this sci-fi action adventure. This is one of my favorite parts of developing a brand.  Using my imagination.

This stage took me four months to work out and the writing of the story took about three weeks after this research.  Of course, tweaking and improving the overall concepts happens all the time, even to this day.

Stage 3

I gave the story to friends, family and business associates to gain input and opinions. I gathered up all this data and sifted through the material.   After a couple weeks, I went back to my original story and planned out the beats of the story in a new file within the movie magic screenwriting software.  This laid the framework, the blueprint and I commenced the screenplay. As the writing went on I made positive changes to the basic concept too.

How to decide which ideas to keep and which to discard came down to repeat comments.  First, if I liked an idea I came up with or one from someone else, I would analyze how it could affect the entire story, plot or characters.  If it seemed like a good idea I kept it and incorporated it into the concept.  If the idea did not fit or was questionable, I would run it past people to see what they thought.  If many liked it, I added it to the story, if no one liked it or only a few thought it worthy, I would chuck it.  The idea had to be liked by most of the focus group people to make it into the story.

Stay tuned for the next stages of Developing the Galactic Gladiators brand.

To read Galactic Gladiators Report #1.

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Order my ebook - FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - now. It will be available later in 2009. Preorder by contacting  Info@Playdigm.com.

(c) Sandford Tuey All Rights Reserved.

Before you attempt to raise money or fund a project you should do a Feasibility Study.  Add up the costs of development, production and marketing for the product(s) that will launch your brand. By ensuring first that your project is feasible and will make money, saves you from a lot of headaches in the future.

Creating a Feasibility Study is just good common sense.

I recommend Accountants. including Insurance Agents, Auditors, Financial advisers like Bankers and Lawyers to assist you in this matter. Always seek professional advice regarding any subject discussed in my blogs. These pro’s can analyze your business plan and help design a Feasibility Study that will assist you to decide if you should go forward with your project.

In short, take all the expenditures you believe will be needed to launch and secure a multi-media merchandising successful product and/or brand consumers will love to buy. This is done by working out all the costs associated with getting your product from the MIND TO THE MARKET.

Costs like: designing (artwork, graphic design, prototyping, engineering, logo creation, intellectual property protection, copyright, trademarks) and all other preproduction expenses you can think of.  Get price estimates from printers and manufacturers for the product(s) that will launch your brand and calculate how many units you will need to fill potential orders. Get an advertising agency or representative to provide a quote on the cost to make the public aware of your brand and products in the territories you intend to enter. Include all point-of-purchase displays, brochures, public relations, ad agencies (print/radio/television/internet and other forms of letting the public know you exist), cross promotion and sponsorships.  If expected, the cost of expanding your brand into a feature film, television show, video game or other medium. Consider translastion fees. Don’t forget to include the cost of operations, any taxes and a contingency fund of no less then ten percent of total funds (on average).

Then estimate the revenue projected from the sale of your products/media project and related brand revenue (sales, licenses, product placement and sponsorships) and subtract all these expenses. The difference will be the ‘Before Taxes Profit’. Contact your tax specialist or representative of the government to find out what you can deduct prior to taxes being assessed and to clarify the taxes you may have to pay and subtract this. The remaining (left over) amount is the true profit for your product/project.

After completing the breakdown of expenses for the entertainment licensing and branding project or product, and the profit is determined to be worth the time and effort, then it is time to raise the necessary funds to start the creation of your brand/product(s).

Every year, new products, projects and services are going to be needed. It’s just - which ones will catch on?  What will be a hit?  Which will end up a franchise tent-pole or not a success?

Which will your brand be?

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Orders for the FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - e-book will be available in 2009. Preorder now by contacting Info@Playdigm.com and for further information. (c) Tuey All Rights Reserved.

I was asked what the difference between Branding and Licensing is.

Here is the simple answer:

BRANDING is the method and strategies that help the public become aware of your product or service and to keep them interested, loyal and involved with your brand.

LICENSING is the system and work required to legally allow a person or company the right to use or produce your product or service.  Usually this is via a Licensing contract.

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Orders for the FROM THE MIND TO THE MARKET - ebook will be available in late 2009. Pre-order now by contacting  Info@Playdigm.com  and for further information. (c) Tuey All Rights Reserved.