2 Meredith Magazines Bow New Licensing Deals

Women’s interest publisher Meredith Corp. continues to parley brand recognition into new business through licensing deals, with two new agreements this week alone. On Tuesday, Meredith Brand Licensing announced new product partnerships for EatingWell and Shape, in the food and apparel categories, respectively.

In the first licensing deal, EatingWell is joining forces with Bellisio Foods to create a new healthy frozen food line. It begins with single-serve frozen entrees, but with the possibility of expanding to include multi-serve meals, appetizers, sides, snacks, breakfast foods, dessert and bread.

The recipes will be crafted with input from the editors of EatingWell and will conform with the magazine’s nutritional guidelines for healthy eating.

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Also this week, Meredith Brand Licensing announced a brand licensing deal between Shape magazine and Apparel Bridge for the new Shape Active collection of women’s active wear.

The Shape Active collection features reasonably priced “athleisure” wear and will be available at Dicks Sporting Goods, Kohl’s, and Equinox gyms. Meredith acquired Shape in January 2015.

These agreements expand Meredith’s existing portfolio of licensing relationships, including deals between Better Homes and Gardens and Walmart, Allrecipes and Clipper Corporation, and Realogy and FTD.

Meredith isn’t the only magazine publisher cutting licensing deals.

For example, Forbes has been in the forefront of the licensing craze, including its recent agreement with Worldfone to launch a new Forbes-branded mobile service, Forbesfone, for people who frequent travelers. Last April, Forbes licensed its name and brand to SocialPort, a system created by rFactr to help companies optimize marketing content across different social platforms, with a focus on social selling in B2B marketplaces.

It also licensed its name for Forbes Digital Commerce, a mobile payments service created and operated by Lotaris, which serves both B2B and B2C industries.

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