Licensed Brand Management Reports

NPD's new Licensed Brand Management Reports answer a clear marketplace need -- they are designed to help women's and men's fashion brand marketers and manufacturers get an accurate, wide-angle read on total brand performance and share across apparel, footwear and fragrance in department stores. In addition, retailers can use the reports to understand the total presence of specific brands across the department store channel; financial clients can use them to gauge the power and breadth of a lifestyle brand, and what's driving their performance. NPD Insights recently discussed the valuable information and insights presented in the new reports with NPD Product Management and Marketing Director, Caroline Pisaniello.

NPD Insights: What spurred NPD to develop this new resource?

Caroline Pisaniello: Many fashion brands are lifestyle driven and have extended their offerings to compete across a range of product categories. Here at NPD, we recognized a need in the marketplace to provide fashion brand executives with a broader, more strategic view of what’s driving their sales, and those of other key brands, across multiple businesses: apparel, footwear and fragrance. With NPD's near census point-of-sale (POS) coverage in the department store channel, we knew we had a powerful resource with which to address this need.

NPD Insights: How will the reports help those who subscribe, and who will benefit most from them?

Caroline Pisaniello: Armed with the Licensed Brand Management Reports, clients can quickly and easily monitor which categories are driving growth – and those that aren’t – and track progress on a monthly basis for timely decision making and business planning. They can look at the same performance among other key department store brands and get the critical insight required to answer key questions: Is a competitor experiencing success in a category your brand hasn’t yet ventured into? Might there be an opportunity for new business? Is your brand getting its fair share of category sales? Where is your brand most vulnerable? And, for brand marketers and manufacturers who license portions (or all) of their business to other manufacturers, these reports can provide a window into how their licensees are performing – intelligence that might otherwise be difficult and time consuming to obtain. This suite of reports was created to meet the information needs of executive management, brand presidents and senior licensing, marketing and strategic planning leadership. We are very excited about the range of strategic questions this new service will help our clients answer.

NPD Insights: What kinds of reports are available?

Caroline Pisaniello: The suite includes three reports, all of which provide the current month’s results, along with a year-to-date view. The Category Landscape Report is an overview of the fashion landscape in department stores, showing key POS metrics for a range of categories within apparel, footwear and fragrance. Key measures are dollar and unit sales volume, trend vs. last year, category mix and average price. The Competitive Framework Report provides share of total and category dollar sales achieved by each profiled brand. The Brand Performance Summary presents a complete picture of an individual brand’s dollar sales, share, pricing and mix across all categories.

NPD Insights: What brands do the reports address?

Caroline Pisaniello: We divide the brands into three segments. The first is “mega-brands,” or those brands that have sizeable business across women’s and men’s, such as Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Tommy Hilfiger. Next is the segment that includes primarily women’s brands, such as Liz Claiborne, Donna Karan/DKNY and Nine West. The third group is primarily men’s brands, such as Izod, Dockers and Nautica. And, where applicable, the main flagship brand along with the important sub-brands are profiled, providing important insight into the contributors to sales performance and brand equity.

For more information about Licensed Brand Management Reports, contact Carolyn Cohen at 516-625-2276 or email Carolyn_Cohen@npd.com.