Higher Education

IT’S FLASHBACK TIME.

Let’s revisit, if you will, one of the most special and overwhelming times in a young person’s life: the tour de universities. Running around the country through various hallowed halls of learning is enough of a whirlwind, to be sure, but the most daunting part of it all has to be the variables involved. You might be able to briefly try each school on for size, but you won’t know if it truly fits until it’s been bought and paid for (first-semester transfers can testify to this).

Fortunately, when it comes to college apparel, the try-on test is a little less abstract. And for distributors of said college apparel, it’s even easier. The rules involved in licensing these items are not governed by mercurial conditions; there are defined regulations to be followed. However, if you study up, there’s a pretty good chance you can find a perfect fit to last you four years and beyond.

Getting the Trademark License

“We do care very much about our licenses and our licensees,” affirmed Joe Ebaugh, director of trademark licensing at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md. “We spend time enforcing the marketplace for unlicensed product.” Because of the likelihood of trademark infringement, most universities guard their names and logos similarly, and the system of checks and balances exists all the way down the supply chain.

In an interview for Promo Marketing’s recent sports marketing feature (April 2009), Kippie Helzel, vice president of sales for Erie, Pennsylvania-based CPS/Keystone, touched upon the licensing aspect of the collegiate market from the supplier perspective. “We have a great customer in Atlanta that got the licenses for three universities,” she said. “They had to send us a lengthy document to sign in order to be able to produce water bottles for them, to acknowledge the license was proprietary, that we couldn’t make changes to the logo.”

For distributors looking to get a similar foothold in the collegiate apparel market, the process for the University of Maryland and many others is governed by third-party agent, the Collegiate Licensing Company. According to Ebaugh, there are numerous deciding factors that determine whether or not the college will partner with a company, including how many suppliers the college already has filling a particular category, whether or not the applicant has paid their royalties in the past and if the potential product is deemed “appropriate” for the audience. For example, “If we had an application for product that [was] for gambling, or alcohol or tobacco-related products … we wouldn’t license those.”

However, he noted a general flexibility in terms of product choice, and said he’s always on the lookout for creative additions to the University of Maryland brand.

Taking Creative License

The best place, arguably, for a distributor to try and fill the “new and interesting” quota is the college bookstore, bastion of promotional products on campus. The range of products there must speak to everyone from new parent to alumni. “It always surprises people when I tell them our infant and toddler items are the most popular items we sell into the collegiate market,” said Mindy Anastos, vice president of marketing for LAT Sportswear, Ball Ground, Ga.

Ebaugh seconded the shock at the product diversity: “Little infant cheerleader sets, bibs, youth products, dresses, sundresses, cowboy hats … If you can envision seeing a logo on it and having it marketable and consumable, we’ll take a flyer on it.”

Though he mentioned the longtime reign of T-shirts and hats, Ebaugh pointed to the growing trend of shaking up the traditional college colors, such as T-shirts in pink for breast cancer awareness month or green for St. Patrick’s Day. “Some schools hold pretty fast to their colors, but we’re a little more flexible. We like to look at it as fashion … if someone likes Maryland but wants a green shirt, I’m more that happy to have them buy it,” he affirmed. However, when the standard school hues are used, it’s important to stick to the correct shades. “We’re pretty adamant about our PMS colors. If you’re going to use a red, we want it to be our red,” Ebaugh said.

Also in the name of fashion, imprinting has also become more adventurous. Anastos described the use of discharge and allover printing, adding logos in nontraditional areas such as sleeves, and vintage-style screen printing (for faded, washed-out looks). “We have some customers doing amazing designs into the collegiate market,” she concluded.