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Trademark & Licensing Services take taste seriously

Posted on | January 20, 2010 | 3,190 views |

Before that Scarlet and Gray merchandise hits a store’s shelf, it has to first pass a ‘taste’ test administered by Trademark and Licensing Services

By Julia Harris

The next time you slide your feet into that nice, fuzzy pair of Ohio State slippers, or reach into the cookie jar tastefully stamped with Brutus Buckeye’s smiling face, there’s a small band of Ohio State staff you should thank.

It’s the same band of folks we should all thank for keeping tacky junk — like the T-shirt confiscated in 2006, emblazoned with unflattering images of Ohio State cheerleaders and football players — off the streets and shelves.

“First and foremost, we’re about the protection of the brand that is Ohio State,” said Rick Van Brimmer, director of Trademark and Licensing Services.
“Ohio State is not only a commercial property brand that we sell products from, but it’s an institutional brand, and nothing on the product side should ever deter from the institutional side.”

That philosophy means that Van Brimmer and his staff take very seriously the responsibility of safeguarding the look, feel and integrity of Ohio State-themed merchandise. Sometimes, this means that what could be a money-making because it’s in questionable taste.

“Someone wanted to license condoms,” Van Brimmer said with a wicked grin. “I told him it was a great idea but it wasn’t something the university was going to do.”

The university did, however, license an Ohio State casket, a cremation urn and a themed toilet seat — items that Van Brimmer admits might seem odd to some people, but are perfectly acceptable to others.

“You name it, if there’s a product out there, someone will want to put a logo on it,” said Rob Cleveland, assistant director and stoic gatekeeper of Ohio State’s good name. “We get a good chuckle out of some of this stuff sometimes.”

His own office, tucked at the end of a web of hallways, is a kind of testimony to the variety and creativity of the manufacturers. There are bobbleheads, cheap plastic reading glasses, even the cardboard lid to a pint of Buckeye-themed Graeter’s ice cream. In the outer lobby is a screaming red couch, the precise shade of Ohio State scarlet, along with a host of other themed merchandise that can make you feel like you’ve walked into a veritable shrine.

With more than 500 companies licensed to produce OSU items, the cornucopia of goodies can be overwhelming, even for a seasoned veteran like Cleveland. “We don’t really have any OSU stuff at our house,” he admitted with a wry smile.

What he does have is the key to a storeroom stacked floor to ceiling with samples of goods bearing the OSU brand, sent in by manufacturers looking to be licensed for mass production. The abundance of scarlet and gray riches in this room is overwhelming, from office chairs to golf bags to frilly gray papier-maché piñatas in the shape of football helmets. And when you see that there’s another, larger storehouse on Kenny Road, it can become downright scary to contemplate.

He picked up a garish full-sized bowling pin, scrolled in black and purple with a scarlet and gray stripe around the neck that wasn’t properly aligned. “This is an example of something that we rejected even though it’s a cool idea,” he said. “This seam is done badly, so I sent them a note saying they needed to try again.”

Next to the bowling pin, fittingly enough, is a scarlet bowling ball, ready to be drilled with finger holes and taken to the local bowling alley.

Deciding what to license and what to send back to the manufacturer with a “Thanks but no thanks” is a group effort, shared among the four full-timers at T&L and their various partners, such as Athletics, Marketing Communications, University Hospital and local retailers like Buckeye Corner and Conrad’s.

Applications for new licensees come in on the second Tuesday of every month — typically 20-30 per month — and renewals for standing contracts tend to roll in from June through July.

Applicants are required to submit representative samples, which are kept in the storerooms for one year before being sent to the bargain-basement charity shop, Buckeye Bargains, where proceeds go to student scholarship funds. Some samples, like the vibrant red couch in the lobby, find a permanent home with the T&L staff.

A Buckeye enforcer for 10 years now, Cleveland says he can’t imagine a job for which he’s better suited. “I didn’t even know this kind of work existed when I was going through school,” he said. “I fell into it serendipitously and I can’t imagine better folks to work with, and I still look forward to coming in to work every morning.”

RISK MANAGEMENT

We’ve all seen it: Seconds after the winning field goal or two-point conversion, members of the triumphant team are all wearing victory T-shirts and hats on the sideline. One can only assume that the losing team has a similar stash of victory gear waiting to be worn.

But what happens to that stuff when things don’t work out?

“We used to send stuff like that to Third-World countries or donate it to charities,” said Rob Cleveland of Ohio State’s Trademark and Licensing Services. “Now, we’re more likely to shred it because we just don’t want that stuff in the marketplace.”

And, since the marketplace is ever expanding, thanks to the Internet and the global presence of die-hard Buckeye fans, the job of policing those items is more challenging. However, given the advances made in printing technologies and capabilities, T-shirts and other goods can be generated within moments of that final score, the element of risk for manufacturers is going down and it makes more sense to wait on the outcome rather than producing large quantities of something that will end up being tossed.

“The manufacturer sends me designs ahead of time and I approve them with the disclaimer, ‘Contingent upon outcome,’” Cleveland said. “If they go ahead and make them anyway and we lose, they have to eat them.”

Which is precisely what happened with the lapel pins pictured above. There were such high hopes for the Buckeyes to win the 2006 National Championship against the Florida Gators that one company went ahead and produced pins proclaiming Ohio State the victor before the game was decided.

Fortunately there were only a relative few produced, Cleveland said. And those few have now become somewhat of a collector’s item.

Counterfeiters follow the money

An important aspect of Rob Cleveland’s job as assistant director of Trademark and Licensing Services is the seizure and disposal of counterfeit Ohio State merchandise. Every home football game, Cleveland takes a few plainclothes police officers and roams the stands with a backpack full of plastic bags and several copies of a court order authorizing the seizure of unlicensed merchandise.

“This year we’ve had three or four games where there wasn’t anything to seize, but in years past — like in 2002, national championship year — we were getting stuff every game,” Cleveland said. “There’s a clear correlation between football success and counterfeit seizures; I suspect that after the Rose Bowl win, it will pick up again.”

Staying ahead of the counterfeiters is a constant challenge, says Rick Van Brimmer, director of Trademark and Licensing. He tells the story of one home game where out-of-state counterfeiters had brought in about 15 kids to hawk unlicensed T-shirts, 10-12 at a time.

“There was a kid, he couldn’t have been more than 12, that we confiscated stuff from three times that day. The third time we rounded him up, he said to me, ‘You need to get a life! You’re taking this stuff way too seriously,’” Van Brimmer said.

He laughed, a bit incredulous even years later. “There’s big money to be made in counterfeiting, and the whole thing is very sophisticated.”

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