LICENSING DONE RIGHT. Easy to say, but not so easy to do. It means bCreative
operates with transparency and great respect for the artists and other creators that
trust us with their creative works. It also means we understand the business
challenges faced by our licensees and how providing marketable creative content to
them in an efficient and effective manner can help them stay relevant and be
profitable.
After thirty years and more than $350 million in retail sales of consumer products
created or licensed by bCreative, we are proud to continue our work with amazingly
talented creative people and top-tier manufacturers and retailers to bring joy and
laughter to countless consumers who purchase our licensed products around the
world.
A couple years after college, the company started up when three best friends from high school, Scott Gardiner, Dean Buckhorn, and Don “Buddy” Patch became roommates in an Arlington, Virginia townhouse. Dean (now one of the country’s leading advertising copywriters having won many national and international awards-www.deanbuckhorn.com), came up with the idea for a poster titled “Body By Budwiser”, that spoofed a popular ad. After a few beers (ok, it was more than a few!), Scott and Buddy agreed to a plan to try to sell the poster to local college bookstores.
Much to the surprise of the three roommates, working just in their spare time, Buddy and Scott had great success selling the “Body By Budwiser” poster to retailers and distributors across the country. Dean continued to come up with great new poster ideas, and the company was making enough money that Scott presented the partners with a plan to work in the business full-time for 6-months with the goal of growing it into a sustainable company. The partners agreed it was worth a shot, and Capital Concepts, Inc. was launched as a poster publishing company in February of 1988.
Poster sales continued to grow, and Buddy came on board full-time, mostly to handle operations and distribution from the warehouse that the partners now owned. Sales success with the posters led to requests by other product companies to use the Capital Concepts’ poster designs on greeting cards and T-shirts, so they started granting rights for the use of their artwork on those products in exchange for a royalty on the product sale. This process of “licensing” was destined to become the lifeblood of the company.
Increasing licensing royalties, a leveling off of poster sales, and the realization that managing poster product inventory and distribution wasn’t nearly as fun or as rewarding as working on the creative and licensing part of the business led to the decision to focus the company’s efforts on licensing as the primary revenue channel. The partners sold off the Capital Concepts’ poster inventory to a large poster company and shut the warehouse down. The most dramatic part of this change of focus was that Buddy moved on to other entrepreneurial pursuits and, while still best friends with Dean and Scott, was no longer a partner in the business. Buddy’s good nature and sharp business skills led to owning several businesses on his own, and he is now the leading exclusive energy partner in the country for Constellation Energy, a Fortune 100 company!
Licensing really took off for the company, as Dean continued to come up with one hit after another. Properties like RetroSpoofs, What I Really Learned In School, and Drunken Wadlo become pop culture icons found on the walls of bedrooms and dorm rooms across the country and on the shirts of teens and college kids everywhere. In addition to posters and T-shirts, calendars, greeting cards, drinkware, magnets, keyrings, and many other products now displayed creative content from Capital Concepts.
These were a transitional couple of years as the company moved to Charlottesville, Virginia, and started doing business as bCreative, Inc. The Internet was new, and by recognizing its potential to reach out to individuals in a way that no media could before, bCreative was one of the very first companies, if not the first, to seek submissions of creative content from artists and other creatives using an online portal. This innovative and forward-thinking approach lead to a large investment by a Venture Capital firm in bCreative. Unfortunately, the timing was not ideal as it was just a couple months before the Internet bubble burst and the VC went belly-up…along with its investment commitment to bCreative! Fortunately, unlike most companies affected by the sudden crash, bCreative had a business that was based on real revenue and real customers and Scott and Dean were able to recover fairly quickly. The best part about this experience is that Claire Harrelson was hired during this period and she’s been the steady, proficient, and friendly heartbeat of the bCreative office ever since!
bCreative receives thousands of submissions over the Internet from hundreds of “Creative Members”, but the best and most licensable work was still being done by Dean and other top-notch artists, designers, and creative people that heard about bCreative through word-of-mouth contact, or that Scott discovered personally. The licensee base continued to expand and now included manufacturers or publishers for most products in the gift, stationery, housewares, apparel, wall décor, novelty, and outdoor categories. bCreative was also broadening its reach internationally into countries like the UK, Scandinavia, Germany, and Australia, and licensed products displaying its designs and properties could now be found around the world. The licensing portfolio expands beyond humor to include fantasy and other artwork, but bCreative is still best-known for their humor content led by Dean’s RetroSpoofs property which now has hundreds of the images.
The bCreative portfolio of creative content expanded greatly during this period by seizing on the opportunity to bring in artwork from successful product companies. For example, bCreative finds a successful t-shirt company and gains the licensing rights to their original artwork for all product categories other than apparel. bCreative then licenses that artwork out on greeting cards, calendars, and many other products. This creates royalty revenue for the t-shirt company with no negative effect on their t-shirt sales. The large amounts of artwork from the product companies, along with the addition of many new individual artists and designers, pushes the portfolio of artwork offered by bCreative well above 10,000 images.
In 2014 Scott and Dean decide to amicably end their partnership in recognition of the expansion and changing make-up of the bCreative licensing portfolio. Dean remains a very valuable creative contributor to the company to this day. His newest works can be found under the studio name of Lunch Hour Productions, and his classics under the Studio CapCon brand.
Consulting becomes an important part of the business as Scott takes his expertise in licensing, brand creation, and product development to several projects outside of the core business. Bill Barrow joins bCreative as Executive Vice-President in August 2017 and takes over the lead on sales and marketing for the company. Bill’s experience and contacts lead to an increase in new licensees and a push into the digital space with bCreative working directly with several print-on-demand companies for the first time. Scott continues to expand the bCreative portfolio offering by reaching out internationally to successful artists that are looking for a smooth and professional entry into the North American product market via licensing, creating the most exciting and diverse licensing portfolio in bCreative’s history.