The Royal Horticultural Society has announced its plans for the 2024 Brand Licensing Europe, Europe’s most important trade event for the licensing industry, where it will welcome visitors to stand C273.
As well as highlighting the impressive strength and accelerating growth of its licensing programme, the RHS has a special launch planned for BLE: an exciting new style guide that adapts its design assets to the diverse needs of its new partners.
The appeal of the RHS brand has always been a strong one, boosted by the UK’s favourite gardening charity and its high-profile gardens, flower shows, campaigns and horticultural research. Indeed, the RHS licensing campaign strongly supports the RHS vision of a world where gardening is embraced as a way of life. The past year, however, has seen astonishing growth both in established RHS categories like gardening, homeware and gifts and new categories, bringing the RHS brand to nursery products, outdoor furniture and even socks, to name only a few!
Recent gardening partnerships include licensing the Wildlife and Birdcare Nature Recovery Project to produce a wooden habitat home collection for a variety of garden wildlife, and Willsow for its delightful range of RHS Plantable Calendars and Plantable Christmas Crackers. In addition, Crane Garden Buildings, a national leader in the garden building industry, is to produce the RHS Garden Building Collection by Crane Garden Buildings, a unique range of leisure buildings, offices, outbuildings and garages.
Recent RHS endorsements in this category include the VegTrug range of raised beds and products for home growing and AutoPot, a supplier of sustainable plant watering systems.
But the appeal of the RHS name has always extended beyond the garden and is targeted at an age range that extends from the very young to adults.
Just a few recent licenses in other categories include Atlantic Mats for a range of beautiful doormats and runners, Bramblecrest for a collection of dining, lounging and reclining outdoor furniture and accessories, the third RHS collection of fabrics in partnership with Sofas & Stuff, leather handbags and accessories from Radley, and the first-ever RHS range of socks from UK market leader SOCKSHOP.
And we haven’t forgotten nursery products: a partnership with Roma Prams will bring RHS strollers, travel systems, prams and children’s toys to a large number of independent retailers in early 2025.
There will be more announcements at BLE itself, where the RHS hopes to highlight breakthrough deals in luxury toiletries, puzzles and games and wallpaper.
The RHS licensing campaign may have started many years ago with a strong focus on gardening, but in 2024 categories have extended into homeware, Growing Gardeners, a new concept in family gardening from Burgon & Ball & the RHS, arts and crafts, kitchen textiles, fabrics, food and drink, prams and more.
And it is this expansion that has inspired the RHS to further enhance its offering to licensees. An exciting new style guide called RHS Flora and Her Friends is a response to requests from licensees and retailers for a simplified collection of botanical assets that will translate into fabulous product designs for the home, gifts and apparel product categories, introducing a fresh, modern feel. The move is perfectly timed to support RHS plans for licensing expansion both in the UK and across Europe – and, in the longer-term, globally.
Like all RHS style guides, Flora and Her Friends draws on inspiration supplied by the RHS Lindley Collections, the world’s finest collection of botanical art, but with an emphasis on ready-to-go patterns.
The beautiful artwork comes from the famous 19th century plant watercolourist Caroline Maria Applebee, some stunning Japanese works, and a selection of additional drawings featuring birds, insects, flowers and foliage. The imagery has been reworked and a collection developed that provides instant designs for licensees to use – or, as is the case with all RHS guides, they can choose from nearly 500 images in the new guide to create their own unique patterns.
The RHS will also be launching a collection of light-hearted and humorous artwork, underlining a commitment to the constant development and improvement of its service to its partners.
And 2025? More and better is the aim for the coming year. The RHS will continue to work with and build its existing licensees, while continually looking for new and appropriate opportunities, categories and partners to help grow its licensing programme and, above all, support the RHS’s mission to make gardening a way of life that is accessible to everyone – nurturing health, happiness, stronger communities and a more resilient world.
As Cathy Snow, Licensing Manager, RHS, explains: “The ongoing success and increasing diversity of the RHS licensing programme is a cause for celebration – but not relaxation. Thus our team will be out in force at BLE 2024 showing partners and potential partners how we are continually enhancing our support for our licensees. Keen to find out more about our design assets, partnerships and working with the UK’s favourite gardening charity? Join us at stand number C273!”
