NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill decided to collaborate to market their trademark and licensing rights. The schools worked in a joint bid process to get a contract that would best suit the needs of each university. Both universities chose IMG College Licensing.

According to IMG College Licensing, the company currently represents over 200 colleges in the U.S. and is known for helping universities manage their licensing programs and promote their products to the public. Trademark licensing allows other parties to sell products owned by the trademark owner, including names, brands and logos.

NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill signed separate contracts with IMG College Licensing for four years and until 2025, respectively.

One of the major benefits of partnering with IMG College Licensing is that the individual universities can focus on capitalizing on the increases in licensing value. Gregg Zarnstorff, director of trademark licensing at NC State, said that by doing this NC State can contribute $1.1 million to scholarships in athletics, merit, financial need, study abroad and dependents of NC State employees.

“Both NC State and UNC use the revenue from trademark licensing programs to fund student scholarships,” Zarnstorff said via email. “Every dollar we save in expense in managing the program and every additional dollar we can generate in net royalties is a dollar that goes to scholarship.”

Zarnstorff also discussed the changes and improvements being made to how trademark licensing will work now that the university has partnered with IMG College Licensing.

“NC State has restructured how the compensation to the agency is deducted from our gross trademark royalties,” Zarnstorff said. “While we can’t accurately forecast sales over the next four years we conservatively valued the reduced fees, marketing dollars and signing bonus at over $270,000 based on FY18 sales volumes of licensed products.”

According to Zarnstorff, NC State will have new programs to enhance trademark enforcement and improve the monitoring of factories to enforce worker rights and address safety issues. Zarnstorff also said that he believes that resources IMG College Licensing has such as retail tracking systems and data analytics will increase the sale of products.

While NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill did partner to create the Request for Proposal, Zarnstorff said that currently, there is no collaboration in the works, but the door is open for future opportunities. However, NC State will be participating in initiatives with IMG College Licensing.

“The joint collaboration was limited to the bid and selection process for the agency,” Zarnstorff said. “This may open doors for both universities to work together on local trademark licensing initiatives, but nothing is currently planned. …  NC State will participate in broader marketing initiatives with IMG like College Color Days, Holiday Cheer and College Vault retro program along with other IMG college clients in promoting their respective brands.”