How a multinational food and beverage business made the case for nostalgia over novelty.
A multinational food and beverage business was under pressure to justify every licensing bet: tighter marketing budgets, greater scrutiny, and a shorter runway to return. Before committing, it needed evidence for which kind of property would actually move product.
Fewer bets, far higher scrutiny
Advertising and promotional budgets had tightened while the pressure for short-term return had grown. The licensing team was also spending the large majority of its time on outbound licensing, which meant fewer inbound bets, each needing a stronger commercial case.
The instinct in the room favoured newer properties: fresher, more visible, easier to sell internally. Nobody had evidence either way.
Testing the assumption that new performs better
Rather than argue the point, the team measured it. Nostalgia-led properties from the 1990s and 2000s were compared directly against newer properties among 18–24s, using affinity and engagement data drawn from the same source at the same time.
The comparison was run on the audience the promotion was actually aimed at, not on a general population, which is where this kind of decision usually goes wrong.
A commercially grounded limited-time-offer approach
Nostalgia-led properties significantly outperformed newer ones with 18–24s. That gave the team a defensible case for a limited-time-offer strategy built on revived IP, and a clear answer for stakeholders asking why not the newer option.
The same dataset now supports the forward-looking side of the work: identifying licensing white space, evaluating properties before approach, and holding a stronger position in negotiations with licensors.
Novelty is easy to sell internally and hard to justify commercially. Nostalgia works because the affinity has already paid for. You are not building a relationship, you are renting one that already exists.
Your next licensing bet
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