10 Minutes With … Trelmage on Celebrity Licensing

Charles Singleton, chief executive officer and founder, Trelmage, (the agency behind bringing Ja Rule to the Opening Night Party), talks about working with celebrities.

Barbara Smith

June 5, 2023

Charles Singleton.Trelmage

License Global: What makes Trelmage a unique licensing agency?

Singleton:

TreImage is a bi-coastal licensing agency that supports urban brands and start-ups. If a brand is well-established, TreImage’s motto is that “we eat what we kill,” meaning TreImage will only get compensated if the brand receives income from our licensing opportunities.

How do you decide what deals are worth taking a chance on, and which ones do you decide to pass up?

TreImage will look for all opportunities in all categories that are pre-approved by the brand’s or celebrity’s clients. TreImage’s belief is to allow our clients the knowledge of all opportunities and let them decide if they want to move forward on a potential deal.

What challenges do you run into when it comes to being a licensing agency?

The licensing arena is large but small. It’s always a challenge to represent established brands because, most likely, established brands and celebrities already have representation from some of the bigger agencies.

TreImage is a smaller agency, but we go hard looking for opportunities for our clients. Sometimes that’s an advantage for brands to be with a smaller agency because we can actually work harder and longer looking for opportunities. Often larger agencies might leave brands on the shelves just because they are just too busy.

Related:TreImage to Rep Ja Rule

Trelmage also does marketing; how does that tie into licensing?

TreImage loves working with new brands that are trying to get established in licensing. Due to TreImage handling marketing and licensing, we give our clients a one-stop-shop vibe. Once TreImage helps build the brand, it’s easier to get licensing opportunities.

Trelmage is presenting JaRule to the Opening Night Party. How did that come to life?

Ja Rule has been a client of TreImage for a few years. Licensing Expo 2023 will be the first time TreImage will have a booth at the expo. TreImage is all about building our brands to give them maximum marketing and brand exposure to hopefully increase licensing and endorsement opportunities. When TreImage saw the opportunity to include

JaRule as the opening night entertainment

, we had to fast-track the opportunity. Ja Rule is extremely thrilled about the opportunity, and he will be at the show on Tuesday, June 13 at 1 p.m. at TreImage’s booth D114 for a meet and greet. So please come meet JaRule and let’s get some deals flowing.