A yellow hoodie with a large red 'Kodak' logo and a hatch pattern. For those who say they've taken some so-called 'tick-tocks', film wrapping paper comes to mind at once. A sweatshirt with the name 'YALE', the name of an Ivy League university in the United States, engraved on the chest is also quite common these days on the streets. Did Yale University students increase so much?
You might be thinking, 'Everything comes out in clothes these days', but how about a windshield with the words 'National Geographic' on the side of the rectangular logo with a yellow border? What about the 'Discovery' winter padding, which is now available in every department store? These clothes have something in common. All of them are Korean fashion brands. creeps. Have you seen it abroad? It is a product exported by a Korean fashion company. one more time creepy.
Now you may often see people on the streets wearing 'bucket hats' with the CNN logo on them. Those of you who have been watching foreign news with enthusiasm saying you want to study English, you are right. That CNN. Since last year, they are also selling clothes with the CNN logo. who? A Korean fashion company.
In this <Somehow> news, 'K-licensee (a company that produces and distributes products under contracted trademark rights)', which has emerged as a strong force in the fashion industry, will be dealt with. How did CNN, the American cable news channel, start an apparel (fashion) partnership business in Korea, which it doesn't even do on the mainland? And who really buys these clothes?
CNN is an American cable channel owned by the Warner Media Group along with Warner Bros. and HBO.
CNN, headquartered in Atlanta, was founded in 1980 as a specialized 24-hour news feeder.
We imprint our brand image of live news from conflict zones and battlefields around the world, and we are still signing partnership agreements with several domestic media outlets.
The company's slogan is "Go there" to the effect of "going anywhere".
The company that established a fashion brand under a license agreement with CNN is Stone Global with less than a year of experience.
After several months of persuasion from CNN headquarters, we succeeded in signing a license agreement for 6 years, and we first launched the brand online in June of last year.
Currently, there are 13 offline stores across the country, and the main focus is on outdoor items that can be worn in daily life.
A Stone Global official said, "We saw the potential of brands in CNN's documentary, food, tech, and other original content, not just news, and saw that the realm of storytelling could be expanded."
For example, in one of the lineups being prepared for this year's S/S season, a QR code that links directly to the content created by CNN will be inserted.
They plan to expand CNN content, which is well-known to viewers around the world, into fashion, such as environmental content about endangered species and 'places to visit before you die'.
'Storytelling' is an interaction where inspiration from content is reflected in the design, while at the same time promoting the content through fashion.
This is the world's first for CNN to enter the fashion industry under a license agreement.
According to a CNN official, this decision was made because it highly evaluated the potential of the Korean licensed fashion industry, which has had many successes.
The aforementioned popular fashion brands such as National Geographic and Discovery are all cases in which domestic fashion companies have purchased licenses from overseas media content companies.
F&F is one of the most 'new born' companies in this field.
In 1997, we introduced MLB, a licensed brand in the non-fashion field, for the first time in Korea.
Those in the industry call F&F 'Samsung of licensed apparel'.
After the success of MLB, the apparel business, which started as a Lion of 'Discovery', an American nature exploration reporting channel, also succeeded in succession and entered China in 2019.
In fact, even in the domestic fashion textile industry, where the overall recession has been continuing since the COVID-19 outbreak, the 'preventing' of licensees, led by F&F, is conspicuous.
According to the Electronic Disclosure System of the Financial Supervisory Service, if you look at the performance status of the 42 fashion companies listed on the Korea Exchange and KOSDAQ in the third quarter of 2021, the sales growth rate of licensed fashion apparel companies compared to the previous year has been consistently showing more than 20%.
Most of the well-known licensed apparel brand items are classified as 'outdoor fashion'. Like 'Discovery' or 'National Geographic', the parent brand is a documentary channel for outdoor activities such as nature, environment, and exploration.
With the increase in telecommuting due to COVID-19 and the change in the concept of so-called 'work clothes', the demand for suits has drastically decreased. According to the Korea Textile Industry Association, the domestic men's suits market decreased from 6.86 trillion won in 2011 to 3.65 trillion won in 2020. Comfortable, but invisible clothes. Nevertheless, it is evaluated that the demand for clothes that fit well in any space has driven the expansion of the so-called 'lifestyle outdoor' market.
Latecomers in the licensed apparel industry have also chosen this field without hesitation. Highlight Brands, which signed a license agreement with the American film company Kodak and established Kodak Apparel in 2019, is also a domestic company that has joined this rank.
Musinsa, an online fashion platform targeting teens and 20s, introduced products such as sweatpants and T-shirts in the form of a test market, and confirmed the enthusiastic response that the entire collection was 'sold out' within a short time. After launching Apparel, it recorded sales of 17 billion won in 2020 and set a target sales of 84 billion won this year.
An official from Highlight Brands said, "The reason we targeted customers in their 10s and 20s is because of the topic of discussion." "Products using the primary colors of the brand quickly became fashionable as word-of-mouth spread on SNS as so-called 'photo washable' clothes. We are analyzing it,” he said.
As it expands to offline stores, the customer base is also gradually expanding.
People who have a fondness for and memories of film cameras, who sympathize with the company's philosophy of sticking to the old in the so-called 'retro' craze, are buying clothes with the 'Kodak' logo engraved on their chest.
Industry insiders who responded to the interview have one thing to say.
The success or failure of the licensing business depends on the study of the brand.
He emphasized that the so-called 'baseless logo play', in which only the logo designs of well-known brands are attached to products and sold, cannot attract consumers.
As a result, events are continuing to reinterpret the image of the purchased license and actively discover new stories, rather than just packaging the product beautifully.
For example, Kodak Apparel is holding a short film festival to discover independent filmmakers in order to preserve their identity as a 'film' maker.
Is it an effort to get a passing score as the target of so-called 'value consumption'? In order to convince young consumers who clearly know what they are consuming and what values they are trying to absorb into their identity, it is necessary to at least understand the brand's many years of heritage more accurately and consistently than consumers. .
"Fashion has become so-called 'goods' for young buyers that show their values and orientation," explains Yu Su-jin, CEO of PFIN, a fashion consulting firm. “A brand story that can strengthen their identity is becoming the most important reason for them to buy a product,” he added. Instead of being highly loyal to the brand, these buyers actively protest and criticize the company when a design or product is released that does not fit their philosophy.
The fact that the parent company and the licensee together create a symbiotic relationship where new values are added to existing brands and discovered is also an attractive factor for those who want to enter the fashion industry.
Because it is efficient.
Brand marketers' 'wisdom' is their greatest weapon, as they can utilize the parent company's heritage and history without incurring large expenses.
News media based on trust, entertainment businesses such as sports competitions, film companies, and famous private universities.
That anything imprinted on the public can become fashion.
The K-licensing industry and K-value consumers are proving it firsthand.
** We look forward to hearing from you about 'these days' things that are difficult to understand.
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