Rob Walker had another great piece, Can a Dead Brand Live Again? in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine. He profiles River West Brands, a firm that resurrects and reinvigorates inactive brands, similar to The Himmel Group that I mentioned here recently.

Walker also describes

the Licensing International Expo, an annual event at which the owners of cultural properties – TV shows, movies, cartoon characters – meet with makers of things and try to negotiate deals granting them a paid license to use the properties to add meaning and market value to whatever things they make. It is a good place to contemplate the business potential of “the brand” in free-floating form, unmoored to any product or company that may have actually created it. A surprising number of the symbols represented at the expo held last summer in New York were simply brand logos. Spam, for instance, had its own booth. IMC Licensing was there on behalf of its clients Oreo, Altoids, Dole and Oscar Mayer. At one point I encountered a person dressed up as a can of Lysol, which is represented by the Licensing Company.

In 2004 I ran a discussion panel at the Licensing International Expo. You can check out the FreshMeat column where I related my impressions of the event here, and see tons of photos are here.

The image in the banner above!