LicensingSource catches up with Rosie Brooks, who won BLE’s License This in 2019, to find out what’s happened in the last two years including a company rebrand.
Rosie Brooks won License This! in 2019 with her brand My Little Opera. Lots has happened for Rosie in the past two years, including a rebrand. We caught up with her to find out more about the newly named The Spoon in the Lid.
How has the past 12 months been for you and your brand My Little Opera?
Obviously due to Covid it has been a very strange year for me, although, I do feel lucky I have not been prevented from working and creating unlike many of my friends in the performing arts. Over the numerous lockdowns I have focused intensely on developing my content and have probably squashed five years drawing time into 18 months in terms of progress!
In 2020 I signed up with the fabulous This is Iris licensing agency, and together we are gearing up for a post pandemic world with lots of new ideas. Since License This! I have changed my brand name to The Spoon in the Lid, (after the ice creams in theatres and live venues), allowing me to expand my range beyond opera as it grows.
Attending Festival of Licensing, which was part of the License This! prize, was absolutely brilliant – there was so much information to take in. The webinars, etc, were all available afterwards and I was able to keep track of all the contacts I made with ease. I learned a lot about what licensees are looking for and chatted to people I would have struggled to meet had I been exhibiting on a physical stand so for that reason the experience was positive for me.
You previously said you hoped to expand across the stationery and giftware market? Has this been the case?
I was very lucky to have signed up with the greeting cards company Holy Mackerel just before the pandemic hit, and while the bricks and mortar shops have suffered, Holy Mackerel have an online retail option through theirs and other giftware websites. We have taken time over the last year to build and refine my range, there are plenty of occasion cards but also lots of niche ideas linked to my specialism in classical music.
What’s next for The Spoon in the Lid?
In the immediate term I will continue to build and refine the content for my brand, it is at its heart a love letter to the performing arts industry which has struggled even more than most. I am hoping when venues reopen, I will be able to connect with them and be a part of their retail offering, as well as spreading my love of music and performing arts to a wider audience through high street retail and other avenues.
Why should people enter License This?
License This is a fabulous competition, I am so glad I entered. The support the BLE team gave me afterwards was incredible, and the virtual fair was fantastic. Unlike many creative competitions where the piece of work submitted is judged in a bit of a vacuum and detached from the creator, License This! felt much more about the creator’s potential.
I would recommend any artist with an idea to go for it; the competition is such a lovely introduction to an amazing industry.
The newly renamed Kelvyn Gardner License This! Competition has been helping brands and designers to break into the licensing industry for over a decade and applications for this year’s entries close on Monday 11 October. The competition final will take place in-person at BLE on Friday 19 November.
