Brand News

Quick, who owns Marlboro? Correct, Philip Morris.
And the name of its parent?
Hardly anyone knows, Altria.
After almost 10 years, the name is still not known.

Since those name changes are such a “success”, former Altria subsidiary Kraft now copies that model. Outside of the USA Kraft will now be un-known as Mondelez.
Keep guessing how it is pronounced.

Let us remember “successful” name changes:

Mars changes to Masterfoods changes back to Mars.
AT&T changes to Cingular changes back to AT&T.

The only accomplishments?
A few million in lost advertising money.
But some will never learn.

As EYEBizz reports, the Italian company Fashion Box has signed a brand license with Allison SpA for its brand Replay.
The license runs five years and covers sunglasses and corrective eyewear.
Product will be shown to the trade in March 2013 at Mido.
Previously the license had been at Marcolin.

Laut Licensemag hat Gucci eine Lizenz für Fahrräder vergeben, allerdings im Co-Branding.
Lizenznehmer ist die Italienische Firma Bianchi.

Zwei Räder sind geplant, ein Stadtrad in Weiß und ein Off-Road Rad in Schwarz.

Bei einem UVP von $14,000 wird es wohl ein Nischen-Produkt bleiben.

According to Licensemag, Gucci has licensed bicycles.
The licensee is Italian Bianchi

Two products are planed, a city bike in white and an off-road bike in black.

Retail prices are around $14,000.

TP Week hat einen ganz guten Artikel zum Thema Marken-Lizenzen im Inter-Company Transfer Pricing.

Das beliebte Steuermodell zur Abschöpfung von Gewinnen aus Hochsteuer-Ländern und zum Transfer in Niedrig-Steuerländer gerät immer mehr unter Druck. Insofern kommt der Artikel zur rechten Zeit. Hier die vier Fragen aus dem Artikel:

1.  Tax deductibility of license fees: Are license fees, paid for the use of trademarks, tax deductible by a German based company if the trademark is equal to the group name and, if so, under which conditions? 2.  Reason for license payments: Does the exhaustion doctrine need to be applied for intercompany transactions?
3.  Determination of the brand value: Are there major differences between international brand valuation standard (ISO 10668) and the specific German brand valuation standard (IDW S5)?
4.  Appropriateness of the license fee: Will rules of thumb for the determination of the appropriateness of a license fee-rate be recognised by German tax authorities in the light of the http://www.oecd.org/ctp/transferpricing/46987988.pdf OECD discussion draft for intangibles?

Antworten und mehr unter http://www.tpweek.com/Article/3118254/Brand-licensing-structures-and-challenges-from-a-German-perspective-.html.