History / Case Studies

Shortly after Chuck’s sons, Jarod and Mike, joined the business in the mid-90’s, Chuck was approached by a licensee company (a manufacturer) to help them acquire license rights to certain well-known brands. Although Chuck had only represented licensor companies (brand owners) to this point, he was neither intimidated nor deterred. Not only was Chuck a licensee himself as CEO of a women’s clothing manufacturer in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, but he had also sat across from numerous licensees at the negotiating table and understood their mindsets. So, he took on the assignment and flourished. And so was born a new niche/strategy for the company (representing licensees exclusively), and a new name to reflect the growing team (Gilman Licensing Associates, LLC or “GLA”). The timing was perfect, as competition among major outbound licensing agencies was growing quickly by the late 90’s, and Chuck now had the added skills and untapped potential of his 2 sons at his disposal. So, the Gilmans gradually began winding down their representation of licensors while at the same time building the licensee consulting side. The few licensing consultants who were doing this at the time focused primarily on character and media entertainment brands. GLA found the perfect white space by focusing solely on fashion, lifestyle, and athletic brands.

With a lot of hard work over the years, GLA amassed an amazing client base, in a wide variety of categories, including several multi-billion dollar, “go to” clients. Some of these clients are happy to use the services of GLA despite employing their own in-house “licensing in” people. GLA has also built a network of extremely strong contacts – from CEO’s to licensing executives – at powerhouse licensors. This was done through a combination of tenacity, integrity, and the strength of a great client base.

Since that game changing decision to switch directions in the mid to late 1990’s, GLA has secured over 400 licensing agreements, in a wide variety of categories, that have resulted in several billion dollars of incremental sales for its clients. These licenses include the many strong brands on our home page, several of which are multi-billion-dollar brands. Some of these deals generate high eight-figure annual sales numbers, and sometimes even nine-figure numbers. And some of GLA’s clients have experienced tremendous growth as a result of the deals we procured for them, with a few of them even passing the billion dollar annual revenue mark. In some cases, the deals we brought in were for substantial existing businesses – the result of a licensor licensing out an in-house business or changing their licensee. GLA has also helped its clients to expand into new product categories, enter new channels of distribution, and expand geographically.

In short, we take a holistic approach to servicing our clients, sometimes bringing in several licenses to fill several white spaces. And the best part is, when our clients allow us to negotiate the deal points and licensing agreements on their behalf, we often save them more money than the fees we charge.