WELCOME

Well, hello there and welcome to the Brand & Lifestyle Licensing Awards 2023. Now in its eighth year, the B&LLAs was launched with the remit of shining a spotlight on and rewarding the excellence in product innovation, brand licensing management and retail execution in the brand and lifestyle licensing arena.

In the years since launch, the B&LLAs team has watched the sector truly come of age – exciting, vibrant, fearless and far reaching when it comes to collaborations and product innovation, this is a business which refused to be cowed by the pandemic, finding new ways to engage with consumers – and attracting a whole swathe of new fans in the process. In 2023, the brand and lifestyle category exudes confidence – notably, this year’s awards received a record number of entries – underlined by the fact brands can now be found in more retailers than ever: from Aldi to Waitrose, B&M to Selfridges, ASOS to Anthropologie.

And just like the sector that it celebrates, the B&LLAs also continues to grow and evolve.

Not only are we being hosted by a new venue – the Royal Lancaster London – but this year we have offered a fully vegetarian menu for the first time as the event moves forward on its sustainable journey, helping to minimise its carbon footprint.

We’re also celebrating new talent, too, with the introduction of a Rising Star award – sponsored by Brand Licensing Europe’s Retail Mentoring Programme - to honour young professionals who are building awareness for brands and driving innovation across both retail and product … and judging by the quality of the nominations we received, the future of the sector is in safe hands.

A big thank you also has to go to Brand Licensing Europe as our headline sponsor, and to trade body, Licensing International, for their continuous support.

All that’s left is to wish all of this year’s finalists the best of luck and raise our glasses in celebration of you all.

Ian

Matt

Additional TV credits include Have I Got News For You, The Royal Variety Performance, Mock the Week, Question Time and Newsnight among others.

In 2022, Matt had a nationwide sell out show Clowns To The Left Of Me, Jokers To The Right. He is also one of the main writers and voice artists behind hit sketch series Spitting Image, providing the voices of Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer and Donald

The Brand & Lifestyle Licensing Awards are organised and owned by Max Publishing, owners of The Licensing Source Book Europe and The Licensing Awards Max Publishing is an independent media company that publishes The Licensing Source Book, Progressive Preschool, Progressive Greetings, Progressive Gifts & Home, Progressive Housewares and Progressive Party. Max Publishing also organises and owns other leading B2B awards events, namely The Licensing Awards, the Progressive Preschool Awards, The Henries, The Retas, The Excellence in Housewares Awards, The Calies and The Greats as well as the Progressive Greetings Live exhibition and LicensingSource.net, PG Buzz.net, Preschoolnews.net, GiftsandHome.net, HousewaresNews.net and Partyworldwide.net (through its sister company Max Media Ventures) Copyright 2023. The publishers cannot accept legal liability for any errors or omissions nor can they accept any responsibility of the standing of any advertiser, sponsors or finalists or any organisation or individual mentioned in this publication.

THE B&LLA’S RISING STAR AWARD 2023 Fis