WWE Licensed Toothbrushes

MyMediabox partner WWE has signed on with Brush Buddies for a collection of WWE Superstar toothbrushes that will feature John Cena, Daniel Bryan, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Randy Orton. The toothbrush line includes a sonic-powered toothbrush, a musical toothbrush that plays the WWE anthem, and a kids’ brushing kit.

MyMediabox Customer Referral Program

Happy and loyal MyMediabox Users are our greatest assets! Share your experience with your network of friends and colleagues, and if your referral receives a demo by March 31, 2014, we'll thank you by entering you in a drawing to win a new iPad Air!

Click here to enter! 

Email marketing@mymediabox.com or visit mymediabox.com/promo for more details.

Giochi Preziosi is Disney's 'Licensee of the Year for Toys'

Disney has titled the Giochi Preziosi Group as their Licensee of the Year for Toys and Stationery. They were presented with the award during the Nuremberg Toy Fair in January.

We would like to congratulate our partner, Giochi Preziosi, for receiving this honor!

Click here for the full article. 

Fashion Friday: Jelly Belly Apparel

Jelly Belly has teamed up with Poeticgem to develop a new range of branded apparel, including fashion clothing and loungewear.

Poeticgem will incorporate Jelly Belly’s signature flavors such as Tutti-Frutti, Chocolate Pudding and Sizzling Cinnamon, as well as some of the jelly beans iconic fans into the new line of apparel.

The Licensing Company, Jelly Belly’s licensing agency, utilizes MyMediabox hosted applications (Mediabox-DAM, and Mediabox-PA) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally.

MyMediabox Feature: Messaging

Within Mediabox-PA (Product Approvals) the "Messaging" tool provides a centralized location for all dialogue concerning the approvals process. Conversations can be made at the project and submission level and allow licensees and licensors to interact and make additional comments between stages.

Image courtesy of cpanelcloudvps.com

For the licensee, “Messages” provides a means to ask the licensor more detailed questions about a change request.

For the licensor, "Messages" provides a means to give the licensee additional direction or changes that they may have forgotten to submit with the previous changes.

The "Messaging" feature is another value added tool that allows MyMediabox to help improve work flow, reduce time to production and save money between a licensor and licensee.

Interested in scheduling a demo to see how MyMediabox can streamline your workflow, while minimizing costs and increasing efficiency? Click here to schedule a demo.

Fashion Friday: Cherokee Acquires the Tony Hawk Brand

Cherokee has purchased the Tony Hawk and Hawk apparel brands from Quicksilver, making it its third acquirement in a little over a year. This acquisition is part of Cherokee’s strategy for globalization of their brands, breaking into new markets and expanding their product offerings. Tony Hawk has been working with the Cherokee team and will continue being active in the development of the brand.

The Cherokee Group is a MyMediabox partner and utilizes our hosted applications (Mediabox-DAM, and Mediabox-PA) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally.

Discovery’s ‘Moonshiners’ will have legal brew

Image courtesy of licensemag.com

Tim Smith of the Discovery Channel reality series “Moonshiners” will now have a legal version of his notorious brew, Climax, for sale to the masses. Prost Beverage Co. has licensed the rights to the moonshine and will be working with the innovation firm Beardwood&Co. to help create a distinguishing line of flavors.

Beardwood&Co. has placed high importance on authenticity for the brand. They incorporated Tim’s real-life dog, Camo, as a mascot for Climax Moonshine and even put him on the label. The label was even applied slightly crooked to imitate the handcrafted process of moonshining.

Discovery is a MyMediabox client and utilizes Mediabox-PA to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally. Interested in learning more about MyMediabox and how our clients benefit from their MyMediabox applications? 

Visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com for more information.

Click here to schedule a demo.

Popeye commercial wins Effie Award

Popeye was featured in an animated commercial for Mama Lucchetti pasta which has been honored with and Effie Award as the most effective commercial in its category. The advertisement uses Popeye to highlight the nutritional benefits, such as vitamins and iron, of the Lucchetti Nutrivit line. The minds behind the commercial include Madre Buenos Aires and King Features (Popeye brand owner).

The Effie Awards are known by advertisers and agencies globally as the pre-eminent award in the industry, and recognize any and all forms of marketing communication that contribute to a brand's success (http://www.effie.org/worldwide/about). Market research was conducted among customers to see how effective the Pasta campaign was. Research showed that the commercials featuring Popeye experienced maximum brand awareness and produced positive feedback from the public.

King Features utilizes MyMediabox hosted applications (Mediabox-DAM, and Mediabox-PA) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally. Interested in learning more about MyMediabox and how our clients benefit from their MyMediabox applications? 

Visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com for more information.

Click here to schedule a demo.

Continued Growth for BLE

Image courtesy of www.licensemag.com

Brand Licensing Europe, held last month in London, experienced more growth this year in visitor attendance, as well as an increase in attendance by retailers and overseas visitors. In the event’s 15-year history, this year was the most successful show, with a total of  7,244 retailers, licensees and sales promotion professionals from 69 countries, and a total attendance reaching 9,537 – a 5% growth from last year.

Advanstar Licensing already has plans under way for BLE 2014. The show, which will take place Oct. 14-16, 2014, already has 70 percent of the show floor sold. One of those exhibitor spots belongs to MyMediabox and we are already looking forward to the show!

MyMediabox offers hosted solutions for style guide delivery (Mediabox-DAM), product approvals (Mediabox-PA) and deal memo managment (Mediabox-DM). Interested in seeing how our clients utilize MyMediabox applications to streamline the licensing process? Visit us at www.mymediabox.com or email us at marketing@mymediabox.com.

Click here to schedule a demo.

Cupcake Digital to develop Yo Gabba Gabba! apps

Cupcake Digital will be developing a series of apps inspired by DHX Media’s children’s show “Yo Gabba Gabba!” The first app of the series, “A Very Awesome Yo Gabba Gabba! Christmas,” is scheduled to launch this winter as part of DHX’s seasonal marketing and licensing strategy.

Image courtesy of www.licensemag.com

DHX Media and Cupcake Digital both utilize MyMediabox hosted applications (Mediabox-DAM, and Mediabox-PA) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally. Interested in learning more about MyMediabox and how our clients benefit from their MyMediabox applications? Visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com for more information.

Click here to schedule a demo.

Get Smart, Put Your Assets in the Cloud

Image Courtesy of CloudTweaks.com

MyMediabox offers hosted Software-as-a-Service digitial asset management (Mediabox-DAM) and workflow (Mediabox-PA) solutions. Interested in scheduling a demo? Click here.

Anchorman inspired ice cream flavor launched by Ben and Jerry’s

Ben and Jerry’s has created a new flavor of ice cream in honor of the upcoming sequel, Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. The flavor is based on the film’s star, Ron Burgundy, and is called Scotchy Scotch Scotch, inspired by Burgundy's quote: “Scotchy Scotch Scotch is a delicious ice cream and I hope Ben and Jerry consider my other suggestions.” 

This is another example of how companies are working together and finding more inventive ways to license their brands. Many of our partners utilize MyMediabox’s hosted applications (Mediabox-PA and Mediabox-DAM) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees worldwide. Interested in learning more about MyMediabox and how our clients benefit from their MyMediabox applications?

Visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com  for more information. Click here to schedule a demo.

Image courtesy of www.licensing.biz

Big Tent Going Global

Image courtesy of www.licensemag.com

Big Tent Entertainment has started to expand internationally by appointing licensing agents to represent them across the globe. They now have representation in Brazil, Turkey, the Middle East, Mexico and Scandinavia. 

This international expansion could not have come at a better time. Big Tent has seen a rise in popularity of their global phenomenon Domo, and the new representation will spearhead licensing efforts to bring their programs to even more territories.
Big Tent utilizes MyMediabox’s hosted product approval application (Mediabox-PA) to streamline their licensing processes with licensees globally. Interested in learning more about MyMediabox and how our clients benefit from their MyMediabox applications? 

Visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com for more information. Click here to schedule a demo.

MyMediabox to Attend Brand Licensing Europe

image courtesy of www.brandlicensing.eu

Representatives from MyMediabox will be performing demonstrations as well as visiting licensor stands from Tuesday, October 15^th through Thursday, October 17^th at Brand Licensing Europe in Olympia, London. BLE, now in its 15^th year, is an opportunity for licensees, retailers and sales promotion professionals to come together with leading brand owners and discover the latest brands and characters and create business opportunities.

 

Over 30 of the 280 companies exhibiting at BLE are current MyMediabox customers, including: BBC, ITV, DreamWorks Animation, SONY Consumer Marketing, The Licensing Company (TLC), IMPS, FremantleMedia, Discovery and many more.

 

With Mediabox-PA, the entire creative approvals process, from completion of the online approval form, to concept designs though final production sample submissions, online previewing and integrated commenting, automated email notices, role-based approvals workflows, business rules and archiving, is in one easy-to-find online location.

 

With Mediabox-DAM licensors and agents can organize, manage and deliver high-resolution artwork assets to licensees around the world. Mediabox-DAM provides users with the ability to switch between light box and list views of assets, zoom into images to view details, transform and resize images while downloading, customize proof sheet reports and user and asset activity reports, create private collections of assets for projects, build customized, branded and interactive webpages within the system, and more.

 

For more information on streamlining your product approvals and style guide delivery or to schedule a demo, visit MyMediabox online at www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com.

Anatomy of a SaaS Vendor: Judging Financial and Operational Strengths

The financial and operational strength of a software vendor has far-reaching implications.  This is true for any provider of software applications you'll be using for business concerns, and especially true when the software you license  is delivered as SaaS (Software as a Service) and will be housing your business-critical, highly confidential guide assets, product approvals, and even contractual information.  The software vendor needs to be responsible for ensuring your data is protected and available to you at any time. 

Simply stated, it is essential that any vendor you select can demonstrate it has the financial and operational strength to warrant your trust as the custodian of your intellectual property (digital assets, product approvals and contractual terms).  

A financially and operationally stable SaaS vendor should demonstrate moderate to strong capability with most of the following:

• Ensure there are enough financial resources (cash) to pay third-party vendors such as co-location facilities, software license renewals, hardware upgrades, maintenance, payroll, office rental, and overhead costs even if customer payments are late to arrive.
• Recruit the best local software development talent, rather than outsource to lower-paid developers in questionable, high-risk countries, who will have access to your confidential data from abroad.
• Afford the optimal hardware and software needed to build a custom-build infrastructure and solution for the licensing process, rather than renting a generic, turnkey cloud solution from Amazon or the like, where your particular needs are not relevant.
• Invest in infrastructure and digital media specialists who have a deep understanding of digital media and the technologies needed to properly handle rich media assets.
• Invest capital toward evolving the applications to better meet the needs of your business over time and address bugs quickly and efficiently.

When a software provider's financial and operational position is precarious, where a few lost customers or one unforeseen major expense is all that stands between their ability to “keep the lights on” and an inability to pay the bills, you are taking a huge gamble by working with that technology vendor.  Can the vendor demonstrate its ability to weather the unexpected?

Here are examples of some revealing questions to ask any vendor – questions whose answers will help you objectively assess their financial and operational strengths:

• Is there a reasonable level of transparency about the vendor's level of financial strength and ability to pay bills on time?  
• Does the vendor have substantial Commercial and General Liability, Cyber Liability, E&O and Workers Compensation Insurance, and will they name you as additional insured?
• Does this vendor provide own their hardware and software in a private cloud, customized for licensing and with full control, or is it outsourced to a third party?
• Since developers are the single biggest cost for any software business, are their developers located in-house (locally) or is the work outsourced to third parties? Are their staff “offshored” and located in higher-risk, low-cost countries to fit the vendor’s financial limitations?  
• Where are the vendor’s offices located?  Can you visit their headquarters?  
• What is the vendor’s headcount and how is that headcount broken out across developers, infrastructure, support, sales, marketing, and corporate staff?
• How is their credit rating with Dunn & Bradstreet (DnB)? Do they have credit references?

Getting reasonable answers to these and other questions early in the process will help shield your team from suddenly being negatively affected by another business's potential or actual financial and operational weaknesses in the future.

MyMediabox is a leading provider of SaaS hosted applications for digital asset management and style guide delivery (Mediabox-DAM), product approvals and other creative workflows (Mediabox-PA) and deal memo management (Mediabox-DM).  For more information visit us at www.mymediabox.com

Licensors for Charity!

Image courtesy of licensemag.com

There is a new app from Digital Giving called the “T-Shirt Booth,” set to launch at the end of September, that offers customized character t-shirts to help raise money for different charities. How it works: fans choose a character, upload their picture and add a personal message – all which will appear on a children’s t-shirt along with the logo of the associated charity.  

Many licensors are participating with this new fund-raising app. Some of MyMediabox partners have characters among the cast, including Babar, Lazy Town and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

MyMediabox offers applications for digital asset management (Mediabox-DAM), product approvals (Mediabox-PA) and deal memo management (Mediabox-DM). To find out more about how companies benefit from MyMediabox applications visit www.mymediabox.com or email us at marketing@mymediabox.com. 

Click here to schedule an online demo.

New Klondike Game

What would YOU do for a Klondike Bar? With Klondike’s new board game from All Things Equal, you can actually find out!

This new game challenges players to hundreds of odd tasks ranging from coming up with new uses for bacon to answering trivia questions. Goal of the game: to win Klondike bar tokens.

Image courtesy of licensemag.com

Food brand licensing has been growing over the years. It is typical to see two food brands team up to make a new flavor or food product; you do not typically see a food brand branching out much further than food related products. However, with this new collaboration, that is exactly what you get!

SeaWorld to air a new TV series

Image courtesy of licensemag.com

SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment teams up with Litton Entertainment for their new television series called “The Wildlife Docs.” The new series will go behind the scenes of SeaWorld’s land-animal sister park, Busch Gardens, with zoological professionals as they tend to over 10,000 animals that inhabit the park.

A MyMediabox client, SeaWorld utilizes Mediabox-PA (product approvals) and Mediabox-DAM (style guide delivery) online applications to streamline their approvals process. Interested in seeing how clients like SeawWorld are increasing productivity, lowering overhead costs and maximizing efficiency with the MyMediabox suite? Click here to schedule a demo.

For more information on MyMediabox visit www.mymediabox.com or email marketing@mymediabox.com.

SaaSy Humor!

Image courtesy of cloudproviderusa.com

MyMediabox is a leading provider of SaaS hosted applications for digital asset management and style guide delivery (Mediabox-DAM), product approvals and other creative workflows (Mediabox-PA) and deal memo management (Mediabox-DM). 

For more information visit us at www.mymediabox.com.

Scholastic to create publishing program for Kimmidoll

Image courtesy of licensemag.com

Scholastic will be creating a publishing program for Kimmidoll. The program for DRi Licensing’s Japanese-inspired lifestyle brand will start off with two sticker books, followed by a press-out-and-play book, and also a search book.

Other licensees have also signed on to create merchandise for the brand: Enesco with a range of collectibles and gifts, Portico Designs for calendars, Elite Gift Boxes for tin giftware and U.K. Greetings for cards and stationery. 

Kimmidoll is a MyMediabox client and uses our digital asset management (Mediabox-DAM) and product approvals (Mediabox-PA) applications to work with licensees and to streamline the licensing process. To find out how MyMediabox applications help make the licensing process more efficient, visit www.mymediabox.com or email us at marketing@mymediabox.com.

Click here to schedule an online demo.