One Love, One Brand; Bob Marley's Family Inks Licensing Deal
Bob Marley’s children signed a contract Feb. 10 with Toronto-based Hilco Consumer Capital to help manage licensing opportunities for the deceased reggae star. The deal will include ventures such as son Rohan Marley’s Los Angeles–based fashion label Tuff Gong.
The agreement might have been signed at just the right time. Marley dropped off Forbes magazine’s 2008 list of Top-Earning Dead Celebrities. In 2007, Marley was ranked No. 12, with earnings of $4 million. He died in 1981 of cancer. Marley’s family, which includes wife Rita and 11 children, according to Rohan, licenses the star’s name to ventures that range from Nassau, Bahamas–based Marley Resort & Spa to organic-coffee venture Marley Coffee. The new deal will organize the disparate ventures under one Hilco division, to be called House of Marley.
The 36-year-old Rohan Marley said prior to the agreement the family’s licensing activities were limited in proportion to the reggae star’s iconic stature. “Our brand is small, but when we go outside of our homes, our dad’s image is everywhere,” he said.
Rohan Marley launched his contemporary label Tuff Gong in Los Angeles in 2006. Since the launch, growth of the label has stalled. “What was out there has become collectors’ pieces,” Rohan joked. “[The label] was moving at a snail’s pace.”
Rohan Marley is also working on another label, called Relics of Antiquity. Cedella Marley, his sister, designs a women’s contemporary label called Catch a Fire.
Marley T-shirt licenses are managed by a Jacksonville, Fla.–based company called Zion Rootswear. The agreement with Hilco will not change the Marleys’ business relationship with Zion Rootswear, and Hilco will not be involved with film and music licensing for the late reggae legend.
The licensing agreement comes at a time when Hilco has announced another new deal. On Feb. 5, it acquired the intellectual property of housewares brand Linen ’N’ Things. Reyaz Kassamali, Hilco Consumer’s managing director, declined to forecast possible revenue for Marley licensing. “There are infinite applications for the brand,” he posited. “The question is, ’Can you develop a product which stands for what Marley stands for?’”
Kassamali pledged his company would not license products that would look inappropriate or silly. It would also seek to prosecute businesses illegally using the Marley image or name. —Andrew Asch
