The eight nominees for Best Licensed Product – Food & Beverage  – earlier this week we threw a spotlight on the nominees for Food & Beverage brands – showcase the versatility and creativity that the licensing business can conjure. Two nominations involve the same brand name – in one case as the licensee, in the other as the licensor. In total, the nominated products involve a range of beverage (tea, spirits and water), ice cream, cookies, a breath mint, and a gingerbread house.

Overall, more than 600 entries were received this year from companies in 22 countries and were judged by a panel of 152 executives from 20 nations. The licensing industry will make its selections from a ballot that includes 175 nominees in 23 categories of brands, properties and companies.

For a full listing of the categories and the nominees please click here.

Here are the nominees for Best Licensed Product – Food & Beverage

Cookies United – Oreo Gingerbread House

Oreo Gingerbread House Kit: Never before has Oreo Licensed another “Cookie” Type product until now! We took the traditional gingerbread kit category and lit it on fire by partnering with the OREO brand.  We formulated a brand new OREO chocolate cookie house recipe to bring this delicious kit to life.  Included in our Oreo gingerbread kit are full size Oreo cookies, mini Oreo cookies, pre-made icing and even more candy to decorate the house with!  Consumers & retailers went absolutely crazy for the kit and created a totally viral event! The product was covered on hundreds of news outlets, such as NBC, Fox News, Yahoo.com, People.com, Popsugar.com and many more! It was an Instagram super smash with millions of impressions and shares by the top foodie influencers!

Ferrero – Coca-Cola TicTac

In October, The Coca-Cola Company and The Ferrero Group launched Tic Tac Coca-Cola, featuring the flavors of the iconic mint and iconic soft drink. With a global roll-out spanning 2020, Tic Tac Coca-Cola will launch in over seventy countries. The limited-edition mints, branded with the iconic red Coca-Cola logo, come in three formats.

The partnership presented both brands in an unexpected, yet familiar way resulting in:

• Over 182MM impressions across print, digital and social in just three months since launch
• Placement in over 250,000 retail doors in mass, grocery, convenience and drug
• $30M in retail sales
• A unique moment of refreshment

Grupo Herdez – Baileys Ice Cream

For the first time in Latin America, Iced Bailey’s hits shelves! An extraordinary blend of Bailey’s unique taste and creaminess was meticulously crafted and curated into a delicious premium frozen treat, entirely branded Bailey’s and supported by a powerful BTL/ATL campaign. A powerful brand extension for Diageo and a quickly rising category driver for Nestlé Ice Cream in Mexico. Indulge! #culpable.

Harrogate Tipple LTD – Downton Abbey Gin & Whiskey

As well as success in export to countries such as the US and Australia, we have gained key accounts with the likes of Cruise Ships that include the QE2 and Victoria. We also won Universal’s internal yearly awards. This award represented their global business and resulted in Downton Abbey Gin as winner of ‘Best Consumables product – globally’ for 2019! Which was quite an achievement for our first licensed product. We are about to export to China and Canada.

Mondelez – Game of Thrones Oreos

OREO® formed an alliance with Game of Thrones, introducing limited-edition OREO Game of Thrones cookies, to salute the show’s final season. The cookies featured four unique GoT embossments and were merchandised in specially designed black packages alongside existing OREO varieties nationwide. OREO and HBO collaborated with Elastic to conceive an OREO version of the Game of Throne opening credits. The 50-second-film was available for viewing on YouTube and OREO.com. The launch generated considerable traditional and social media coverage, with the coveted OREO Game of Thrones cookies appearing at watch parties across America.

Tea Forte – NY Botanical Garden

The Jardin collection developed by Tea Forté curated with NYBG was one of the best launches in Tea Forté’s history. The Collection was sold in thousands of retail doors including Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s PaperSource, Tea Forté and NYBG retail shops and online, Amazon, and specialty retailers.  Estimated retail sales for the collection exceeded $1.3 million.

The marketing campaign included a Tea in the Garden event at NYBG, which was attended by top bloggers, influencers, editors and buyers.

Due to overwhelming success of the collection, Jardin became part of their in-line offering.

Tingy Asahi – Boonie Bears Water

Master Kong worked with Boonie Bears to develop the first bottled drinking water to appear in an IP-related film as product placement and simultaneously having animated characters on its design. We designed product packaging for different customer segments and created 4 SKUs targeted towards families, athletic events, students, and meetings. These include AR interaction and a charity campaign. AR codes were applied to the bottle label design providing consumers with a hands-on way of interacting with the animation IP Boonie Bears, expanding brand awareness. With these creative efforts, bottled water sales exceeded 140 million USD, with a 10% year-on-year growth.

Twinings – V & A Tea Collection

The V&A and iconic tea brand Twinings collaborated on a new gift initiative, launching 8 decorative tins inspired by two beautiful patterns from iconic British Arts and Crafts designer William Morris. To promote the collection, Twinings ran a hugely successful live streaming event on Tmall, with over 1.2m viewers and 111,000 clicks on V&A co-branded products during the 5-minute broadcast.

The V&A also extended its license in Taiwan to a launch a new gift set. The marketing campaign included a V&A-themed afternoon tea for Mother’s Day at a luxury hotel in Taipei City. The V&A and Twinings collaborated on a new gift initiative, launching 8 decorative tins inspired by two beautiful patterns from iconic British Arts and Crafts designer William Morris. To promote the collection, Twinings ran a hugely successful live streaming event on Tmall, with over 1.2m viewers and 111,000 clicks on V&A co-branded products during the 5-minute broadcast.