10 Minutes With ... Brand Licensing Europe on its Day of Purpose

License Global: Hi Ella! Tell us why you are bringing the BLE Day of Purpose back for 2023. 

Ella Haynes: It’s an opportunity to spotlight positive change wherever we can and celebrate the innovation, individuals and initiatives that are truly making a difference in our world. We are genuinely passionate about purpose, and we want to amplify positive change.

Day Three of Brand Licensing Europe is our Day of Purpose, and it exists to showcase our commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and to spotlight the voices responsible for actioning meaningful change across the industry. 

What can BLE attendees expect to find? 

Our new Green Pavilion is in association with our friends at Products of Change (PoC). The pavilion is the hub for visitors to find everything they need to start their sustainability conversation or continue their journey, whether that means simply becoming part of the community or learning more to drive real change.

It will host a brand innovation showcase spotlighting the companies that are making a real impact on sustainability. With lots of licensees on the stand, BLE attendees can discover what changes they have made and how they can be introduced to their own businesses.

Products of Change will be running free sustainability advice clinics and workshop sessions. They are also moderating our Day Three keynote at 9:30 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 6, in the License Global Theatre, which features Netflix’s Rikesh Desai, Lego’s Jakob Max Hamann and Jelena Stosic from Kids Industries. 

What other purposeful elements are at BLE this year? 

The big one for this year is Diversity Bridge, which is an Informa initiative we are running in partnership with Diversity Org. We are working together across various events to introduce low-income students to new industries and career opportunities.

At BLE, we are bringing 60 students to the show on Day Three, including students from Dormer Wells High School, Rosedale Hewens Academy Trust and 20 fashion management/buying/merchandising students from UAL who could easily become the next generation of licensing category buyers. We will introduce them to the licensing industry and the career options and pathways it could hold for them through a careers panel, networking panel and a show tour with 15-minute stop-offs at Natural History Museum, Paramount, Hasbro, Penguin Ventures and Beanstalk. 

The careers panel, which features Steve Manners, Ruth Golightly, Carter Brown and Will Stewart, will be particularly interesting for them because – as we all know – most people in licensing seem to have fallen into it; it’s rarely a conscious decision. That means there is currently no identifiable route into licensing, which only makes it harder for young people to know how to get that break. This initiative means we can connect with people who aren’t in the world on licensing – “Connecting the Disconnected” is really important to us at Informa – and help students understand how to have those initial conversations, who to speak to, what to say and so on. In the U.S., Informa has even taken on some of our Diversity Bridge students on internships, which is brilliant news.