A record-breaking show: Brand Licensing Europe 2024
Six weeks have passed since the 25th Brand Licensing Europe took place in London. In a fitting tribute to the show’s quarter-century celebrations, 2024’s event was the biggest BLE in history.
For those not in the know, Brand Licensing Europe (BLE) is the leading event in Europe for licensing professionals. It unites hundreds of brand owners with thousands of retailers, licensees and manufacturers every year to kickstart the conversations that result in the next slate of consumer products that fans all over the world will fall in love with and clamour to buy.
Big Top has been honoured to work with Informa Markets’ Global Licensing Group to manage the comms for BLE for the last seven years (our founder Charlie Le Rougetel also led BLE PR from 2006-2010 when the show was previously owned by Advanstar), and we work with the team almost year-round to hit the following goals:
Maintain brand awareness and presence for BLE in the core licensing press throughout Europe and wider afield
Achieve breakout coverage in vertical and business press – licensing covers dozens of vertical retail and product categories making our potential audience huge but fragmented
Educate retailers, manufacturers and business about licensing and why it’s such a powerful marketing and business tool
Promote the Global Licensing Group as the home of licensing knowledge and insight for retail
This year, BLE smashed all previous attendance records, and we were delighted to play a part in that achievement. Visitor attendance was up 12% and retailers up 22% year on year.
Our PR campaign also broke records securing 778 pieces of coverage throughout Europe and beyond – a 31% on 2023 working with the same budget with coverage published across 8 unique territories.
15 press releases were distributed over the campaign secured over 200 pieces of coverage
41 features (interviews, event previews, thought leadership, and more) totalling more than 33,000 words were written for publication in 24 publications
296 articles secured with our media partners
Charlie Le Rougetel, Big Top founder, says: “BLE is a joy of an event to work with – the event itself is full of newsworthy content, perfect for pre-event brand awareness. And the team is one of the slickest, most effective and welcoming event teams we have ever worked with. They are an absolute pleasure to collaborate with.
“To deliver a 31% uplift in coverage for BLE in the event’s 25th year without an increase in budget is testament to the team’s hard work, industry knowledge, comms expertise, media relationships and reputation to deliver great PR puff-free content.”
Laura Freedman-Dagg, head of retail, Informa Markets’ Global Licensing Group says: “I love working with Charlie and the Big Top team. They are excellent at jumping on opportunities, brilliant writers, so quick to understand our market and objectives and just a pleasure to deal with. I have no doubt they elevate our campaigns significantly.”
Onsite, the team – Charlie, Vicky and Ella – managed the press lounge, which was a brilliant opportunity to meet European media face to face, as well as direct PR moments throughout the event including a photoshoot with Superman (yes, Superman), video content with the brilliant entrepreneur and licensing advocate Sara Davies MBE and of course, everybody’s favourite - the Character Parade. We even rated the characters we met over on our Instagram!
Roll on 7-9 October 2025 for BLE number 26 and watch this space for news on whether those records have been broken once again.