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Drawing on transaction cost economics, the authors conceptualise brand licensing as a form of alliance. Its performance may be affected by a licensee’s potential opportunism resulting from an imbalance of specific investments in brand-building prior to signing the licensing agreement. From the licensor’s perspective, brand licensing represents a trade-off between brand protection and additional revenues. This study aims to examine how this trade-off shapes licensors’ evaluations of the attractiveness of brand licensing opportunities.

In a vignette study, 121 brand licensing professionals evaluated the attractiveness of up to eight hypothetical brand licensing opportunities with different levels of risk and profitability.

From a licensor’s perspective, high brand quality and distribution risks decrease the attractiveness of a licensing opportunity, although the latter risks are more pronounced. High potential profitability has a positive and significant effect on attractiveness.

The risks outlined in this study refer to licensee behaviour. The licensor may also behave opportunistically. The authors encourage research designs that enable a dyadic evaluation of licensing opportunities because a comparison of a licensor’s and a licensee’s assessments of the same scenario would be illuminating.

The findings enable the development of an evaluation template that directs brand owners’ attention to the risks and gains of brand licensing opportunities. It supports licensors in choosing the “best” opportunity.

This study identifies risks emanating from a licensee’s potential opportunism from a licensor’s perspective. It juxtaposes these risks with the potential profitability of brand licensing opportunities. It is thus one of the first studies to address a licensor’s decision-making trade-offs in a large-scale empirical setting.

While brand extensions and licensing are two distinct brand strategies, recent literature suggests that licensing be treated as an “external” brand extension. As both of these strategies have the ability to have positive and negative effects on the team's brand it is important to understand if consumers are aware if they are purchasing licensed products or extensions. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine if consumers are aware when a brand extension or licensing situation is present.

This research involved exposing participants to a total of 16 products (eight brand extensions and eight licensed products) and asking participants to indicate who developed the products they were exposed to.

The results suggest that participants had a difficult time correctly identifying team licensed products, while in general they were able to successfully identify team brand extensions.

This study provides empirical evidence suggesting that licensed product should not be classified as brand extensions as has been previously suggested. As such, research on brand extensions may not be applicable to licensing and vice versa.

As there is some confusion in regards to who is manufacturing team licensed product, it is important that sport properties choose licensees that produce high quality products to limit potential negative effects on their brand.

This was the first known study to examine differences in consumer awareness of team brand extensions and licensed products.

The purpose of this paper is to study brand embedded licensing (technology licensing and brand licensing combined) and its theoretical difference from standard licensing (technology licensing only). The following research questions are asked: What makes embedded licensing theoretically different from standard licensing, and what determines a licensor's decision to select brand embedded licensing over standard licensing?

This paper compares brand embedded licensing to standard licensing and argues that brand embedded licensing is a quasi‐hierarchical organizational structure, while standard licensing is a market‐based structure. Brand embeddedness in licensing serves as a credible commitment from the licensor and induces the licensee to invest sufficiently in complementary assets. Drawing on the transaction cost perspective, the determinants of embedded licensing are examined.

Embedded licensing is determined by both the licensee's characteristics and the licensor's brand characteristics. The licensor is more likely to utilize embedded licensing or the licensee is more willing to demand embedded licensing when: the licensee's specific complementary investment is high; the licensee's complementary capacity is high; the market entry is at a late stage; the licensor uses separate branding; the extent of product differentiation is high; and the stage of brand globalization is advanced. A strong intellectual property rights regime and a fast pace of technology change enhance the effects of these six determining factors on the licensor's selection of embedded licensing.

This paper challenges the classical view that licensing is a market‐based relationship by revealing that embedded licensing is a quasi‐hierarchical organizational structure.

The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into how consumers value sports team-branded merchandise. Two experiments are conducted to examine the effects of rivalry and team identification on evaluations of licensed product (Study 1). Study 2 examined the effects of team brand cue, team performance priming and product category on licensed product evaluations.

Study 1 (N = 104) examined the effects of team rivalry and team identification on multidimensional product values and purchase intent. In Study 2, a 3 (performance priming: positive/negative/neutral) × 2 (team brand cue: present/absent) × 2 (product category: symbolic/utilitarian) between-subjects design (N = 285) was utilized. Samples were recruited from students and alumni at a large Midwestern university in the USA. A series of multivariate analysis of covariance was conducted to test the proposed hypotheses.

Fans view a product licensed with a rival team’s logo to have significantly less functional, emotional and social value than a product licensed with their favorite team’s logo. Highly identified fans showed greater bias in evaluating the product than less identified fans. Team performance priming also moderated the effect of team brand cues on purchase intentions toward the licensed product.

Team identification level accentuates bias in valuations of a licensed product. In addition, better performance of a team further motivates purchase decisions. Use of a collegiate brand in this study limits generalizability of the findings.

Practitioners should realize that simple heuristic cues can change consumers’ perceptions of licensed merchandise product values.

The current study extends previous research on licensed product valuation by using multidimensional value propositions and a variety of product-related cues.

This paper seeks to establish the importance of studying the effects of licensing brand alliances from a customer's standpoint, to investigate the effectiveness of licensing as a strategy by comparing it with a brand extension of a well‐known parent brand, and to provide a theoretical explanation for the licensing effects.

In Study 1, subjects' attitudes were measured towards a lesser known brand with and without licensing by Sony, and Sony alone in a three‐factor (licensing, no licensing, and Sony) between‐subjects design. Study 2 compared a licensed brand with a brand extension of a well‐known brand using the Chow test.

A brand “licensed by Sony” was evaluated higher than without licensing. Moreover, no difference was found between evaluation of a brand licensed by Sony and Sony alone. Study 2 revealed no significant difference between the data collected from a licensed brand and a well‐known brand extension, suggesting that being a licensed brand in some cases may be as effective as being an extension of a well‐known brand.

The research examined the effects of strong brand names (e.g. Sony). It would be interesting to extend the findings by examining the brand names that are perhaps less strong (e.g. Samsung) to test the generalizability of the research.

For lesser‐known brands, licensing could be a viable strategy to increase their brand evaluation.

For new brands, this paper provides evidence that licensing is a viable strategy, and also provides a theoretical explanation for the licensing effects.

This chapter identifies the coopetitive aspects of international brand licensing through the relationship between Burberry Group Plc and Sanyo Shokai. The well-documented relationship between the two firms is used to contribute to coopetition literature and brand licensing literature within an international context. This chapter answers how and why this initially mostly coopetitive relationship succeeded and what led to its eventual denouement. Both partners initially prospered, Burberry had its name efficiently spread across Japan, and Sanyo borrowed from the reputation established by Burberry’s brand name. After some time, Sanyo created brand extensions for the Japanese market which were more affordable than Burberry’s products. They were a big success, further popularizing the Burberry brand across Japan and handsomely benefiting both firms. Burberry grew concerned about inconsistent brand image. The ubiquity of the extension was diluting the luxury parent brand. Burberry thus prematurely ended the licensing agreement with Sanyo. The findings of this study offer valuable insights to firms either intending to internationalize through licensing or intending to be a long-term licensee.