Hilco and Bob Marley family ink deal - News
The late great Bob Marley, has become a merchandizing magnet. Most of the Marley related product for sale i.e. T-shirts, mugs, posters, baseball caps... are bootleg goods.
Sales of bootlegged Marley items are reckoned to generate as much as $600 million a year worldwide. This doesn't exactly thrill Bob Marley's family. They recently signed a deal with a Chicago-based private equity firm, Hilco Consumer Capital. It's a joint venture called House of Marley.
Hilco is hoping to build a Marley operation that could bring in $1 billion annually. Sounds like heavy duty capitalism. Would Bob be cool with it? Who knows.
The partners will look at expanding existing Marley brands such as Catch a Fire, Bob Marley, Three Little Birds and of course the record label, Tuff Gong, that helped to make Bob and the Wailers reggae icons.
Get set for... Bob Marley video games. Manufacturers with a Marley-type concept can get in on the action provided they get approval. Hilco is open to licensing new product.
The partners are even talking Marley cafes - a chain of One Love coffee shops no less.
Obviously the family have their interests to look after, but there is something a bit bizarre about all this when you consider what Bob Marley stood for in his music. The most amusing line I saw that addresses the strange and unsettling irony of Bob-as-capitalist-icon comes from the site creativity:
"Among the cornucopia of other products the company hoped to market using Marley was snowboards. Yes, snowboards. Because when I think of the message behind songs like "Get Up, Stand Up," I think of gliding down corporately-owned mountains of snow with crowds of rich, white people."
Sales of bootlegged Marley items are reckoned to generate as much as $600 million a year worldwide. This doesn't exactly thrill Bob Marley's family. They recently signed a deal with a Chicago-based private equity firm, Hilco Consumer Capital. It's a joint venture called House of Marley.
Hilco is hoping to build a Marley operation that could bring in $1 billion annually. Sounds like heavy duty capitalism. Would Bob be cool with it? Who knows.
The partners will look at expanding existing Marley brands such as Catch a Fire, Bob Marley, Three Little Birds and of course the record label, Tuff Gong, that helped to make Bob and the Wailers reggae icons.
Get set for... Bob Marley video games. Manufacturers with a Marley-type concept can get in on the action provided they get approval. Hilco is open to licensing new product.
The partners are even talking Marley cafes - a chain of One Love coffee shops no less.
Obviously the family have their interests to look after, but there is something a bit bizarre about all this when you consider what Bob Marley stood for in his music. The most amusing line I saw that addresses the strange and unsettling irony of Bob-as-capitalist-icon comes from the site creativity:
"Among the cornucopia of other products the company hoped to market using Marley was snowboards. Yes, snowboards. Because when I think of the message behind songs like "Get Up, Stand Up," I think of gliding down corporately-owned mountains of snow with crowds of rich, white people."
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