Art Ask Agency’s Kirsty Satchel on ‘selling dreams’, securing new deals and the future of virtual trade shows.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every country across the globe.
LicensingSource.net has been catching up with a selection of licensors and licensing agents from Europe, the US and Russia to find out more about how their businesses have been affected and how they see the rest of 2020 playing out.
Today, we head to Spain to get the views of Kirsty Satchel, licensing manager, Art Ask Agency.
“Virtually all aspects of business have been affected. Our initial approach with any of our contacts is first to listen. Then we look at alternatives and possible ways forward together. We have been in the licensing business for a long time and we all need each other in order to survive, so we stay very open minded when faced with barriers due to COVID-19.
We’ve been able to move forward on quite a few deals. We also had new deals where conversations started in the darkest moments of COVID lockdown here in Spain, which is amazing. Some of the brand new ones came from Italy, if you can believe that. Italians are so courageous.
This is the strangest professional year of my life so far, so making predictions is very difficult. Everything depends. Having said that, as we represent lifestyle licences that are not tied to launch dates or particular events, we are pretty confident that we will be able to ride the storm and come out the other side. When it comes down to it, we are selling dreams.
Consumers will always have desires and want to identify themselves with certain brands and licences. We just need to keep offering what they desire.
Industry conversation-wise, a key one I think is to look to the future of virtual trade shows. Whether that be licensing trade shows or product trade shows. We all really need to ramp up in this area and achieve something that gives attendees and exhibitors the buzz that happens at the physical shows.”
This feature originally appeared in the summer 2020 edition of Licensing Source Book. To read the full publication, click on this link.
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