What’s New at The Natural History Museum

The Natural History Museum in London is both a globally esteemed scientific institution and a prominent tourist destination. Known for its extensive collection, impressive exhibits, educational programs and groundbreaking research, the museum offers visitors a comprehensive insight into the natural world and its rich history. Maxine Lister, head, licensing, The Natural History Museum, shares a bit about her background, the museum and new licensing deals.

Lister says, like many people within the licensing industry, she began working in other industries, which led her to want to learn more about how brands become products on store shelves.

“My career has been varied, I’ve worked in music retail, the magazine industry, worked for Borders Books and Music, both in the U.K. and U.S., as head of department and one of the team that opened the majority of the stores within the U.K.,” says Lister. “I love the natural world and photography, so much so that I took a 14-month career break to work with conservation NGOs around the world documenting their work. It’s not really a surprise that I ended up at the Natural History Museum – it combines a personal passion and my career aspirations. I spent many years across the entertainment, film and music industries, and from this experience, I was excited to understand more about the licensor side of the business.”

Related:The Changemakers: The Natural History Museum

Maxine Lister, Natural History Museum

Lister went on to ITV, working on properties from Thunderbirds to the TV soap roster and shows like “I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.”

“From there, I moved to the BBC, working on the Doctor Who and Sherlock brands and was fortunate to work on the Doctor Who 50th anniversary, which was a steep learning curve but gave me fantastic experience,” says Lister.

After her career break, she started as a senior licensing manager at the Natural History Museum and moved to head of licensing a few years ago.

“Since being in this role, I have developed the licensing strategy for the museum with my incredible team,” she says.

The NHM has over 80 million specimens, from the 25-meter blue whale, Hope, to Sophie, the world’s most complete Stegosaurus, stories on Our Broken Planet, the incredible Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition and the newly transformed wildlife gardens. She also touts the museum’s style guides, exclusive to its licensing partners.

“It’s an incredible place to draw inspiration,” says Lister. “We have a fantastic image bank of our vast collections that we also use for inspiration in the licensing program.”

Fable England x The Natural History Museum apparel

One of NHM’s newest launches is from Fable England, a 38-piece collection featuring hand-painted enamel jewelry, print silk scarves, luxury sleepwear and signature Fable England bag shapes, with an exclusive print. Lister says a visit to the Museum’s Rare Books Library shows how the story of entomologist, Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) impacted the Fable England team. A leading entomologist of her time, Merian’s inspirations surpassed social conventions for a woman of the 17th century, and she went on to revolutionize the scientific community’s understanding of the lifecycle of insects.

Related:Brand Licensing Europe Issue – September 2024

“Fable England created an abstract botanical luxury print, Floral Engravings, using illustrations by Maria Sybilla Merian and her daughter, Johanna Helena Herolt, an 18th-century botanical artist, which is so beautiful and shows how our assets can be used in unique ways,” says Lister.

In August, the museum and tonies launched the Natural History Museum: Discovery Crew Clever Pocket Tonie series, featuring four immersive museum adventures, exploring all corners of the natural world, past and present.

“Creating advocates for the planet is fundamental to our mission, and tonies do such wonderful work in crafting stories that are educational and engaging for young learners and, with the wealth of historical knowledge within our museum walls, this collaboration felt only natural,” says Lister.

In the first two months of 2024, NHM launched collaborations with The Royal Mint, Royal Mail, ROKA London, Galt, All Jigsaw Puzzles and its fourth collection with Dunelm, making it one of the museum’s biggest years for licensing.

“We are very excited to launch our first licensed afternoon tea in September alongside the Royal Lancaster Hotel,” says Lister. “The afternoon tea has been great fun to work on with the team at the hotel; it takes inspiration and celebrates pollinators and how important they are to our ecosystem. Guests who visit the hotel for the afternoon tea will be blown away by the detail, from the menu to the tea carefully created for this collaboration.”

 NHM is also working on a new stage show that will launch in early 2025 across the U.K.

“It’s already getting a lot of interest, so we are very excited to be moving into new categories, not only in the U.K., but further afield,” says Lister. “We recently opened our reimagined five-acre wildlife gardens. Visitors can explore, rest and connect with urban nature in the free-to-visit green space in the heart of London this summer. We also revealed Fern, a brand-new bronze Diplodocus, who takes pride of place in the gardens’ Jurassic landscape. We are now looking for partners within the outdoor and gardening sector that can take inspiration from this beautiful green urban space in the center of South Kensington. We want to continue to grow our licensee base within the U.K., as well as work with our international agents, and expand our reach.”

Sustainability is a core focus across the museum. Lister says any discussions with new and potential licensees will include sustainability, whether it’s the sourcing of fabrics or the reduction of packaging.

“We work closely to understand their business model; where they are within the sustainable journey and how we can work together to create successful, engaging products and how we can support them both in terms of product development and PR to communicate that sustainable story in an engaging way,” explains Lister. “We are currently working on updated sustainable guidelines for our licensees; this covers a lot of the learnings from being members of Products of Change. We pride ourselves in upholding our sustainable ethos across our different collaborations, from our early years’ STEAM Let’s Learn range with Galt Toys to our beautiful clothing collections comprised of sustainable fabric blends and many more products in between.

"Dunelm is an important part of our licensing program not only due to the number of products that we launch each season but because sustainability is always a discussion. We review how we can improve our offering, if there are manufacturers that Dunelm are talking to that could produce sustainable products under the Natural History Museum collaboration or are there ways of improving recycling of packaging or take-back schemes in store, and of course, their Conscious Choice label, which some of the museum products sit under.”

Lister says Brand Licensing Europe is always an excellent show for NHM.

“We have a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy where the team all head off into different meetings to ensure we can make the most of the three days and speak to everyone – with such a small team, this is the only way to work,” says Lister. “This year we hope to catch up with our existing licensees who are attending; it is always good to have a check-in to see how the products are performing and to start thinking about new product development. We will also be aiming to have new business meetings, not only for the U.K. market, but internationally across categories.

“Here at the Natural History Museum we are always excited to talk to various aspects of the industry – licensees, brand owners, retailers and creative agencies to find out what they are looking for and how the museum can work with them to create unique products that tell a story.”

Watch: Maxine Lister, head, licensing, The Natural History Museum, discusses how licensed product is invigorating museumgoers, the museum’s big year in licensing and more.

This story was taken from the September 2024 issue of License Global. Read the full issue here …