Branding & Private Labeling. It’s A Breeze. Or Is It A Hurricane?

Ten years ago I started my own private label of humor gifts, the Rick London line. To be honest, I did not even know I was “branding”. If only I knew then what I know now.

There remains a great mystique to branding, though there shouldn′t be. it is simply putting your brand on a service or product.

With the Internet, anyone can brand with a few dollars, a good idea, and a few clicks of the mouse.

When I entered the world of e-commerce, all I had to offer were cartoons, a lot of them. But I had to decide on what products to put them. I was no “trust fund baby” so I had to think smarter, better, faster than those who were.

Cartoons and humor were always my forte′. When I started Londons Times Cartoons I had acquiesced to the fact that I would be a middle class creative semi-starving artist marketing to trade publications. And that is excactly how it started ten years ago. Now I sell over 100,000 cartoon humor products from clocks to aprons in 7 different highly-ranked e-stores..

You can do it yourself, you can go to a local manufacturer or screenprinter, or you can find a manufacturer online who makes your kind of product and will private label it for you. I did all three.

Rich or not, full of resources or just a kitchen table and great dreams and ideas, you still have the right to quality control. After five stores and four of them successes, I was ready to open RickLondonWear. The problem was, Cafe Press was experiencing growing pains and I didn′t feel they could produce the quality at the time. I went to a Denver-based company called Printfection who still manufacturers and drop ships my RickLondonWear line. It doesn′t cost me a penny except to promote it. Of course they get the lion’s share of the take, but they really do most the work. I can live with that.

A little over a year ago, I “got brave″ and launched the very first and only exisiting private label gourmet coffee cartoon gift basket, Ruth London’s Exquisite Coffees. Each box includes a cartoon coffee mugs and coasters and of course gourmet coffees and a biscotti. At $50, they are a top-seller and I exclusively sell them at my Londons Times Superstore. I didn′t have to spend a penny to launch it. I used my cartoon as my barter leverage, had a good idea, and asked the manufacturer to risk his money. He wisely did and it has paid itself back many times over.

So when they are looking at their favorite coffee cup with a cartoon that makes them laugh, they are also looking at your company name and URL. They are generally in a good mood while seeing your gift. So you are giving both a gift and “a good attitude″ towards buying from you, first thing in the morning. It prioritizes things. Sounds a bit Machiavellian but it is not. It is simple basic business that makes sense.

I do not like waking up to bad news. I like waking up to laughter. When I was a kid I set the alarm so I could watch the 3 Stooges every morning. I went to school smiling. My dad read the morning paper, went to work frowning and came home frowning. He then turned on the evening tv news and frowned some more. I was reading Mad Magazine. I grea up happy. My dad was right about so many things, and he was right to keep up with current events, but not to be obsessed with them. A little balance is a good thing and you offer it with these kinds of corporate gifts and your client is grateful for it.

I’m not sure I could have made it without the Internet, maybe so; maybe locally or regionally. But it sure is fun to say, travel to Martinique and people know who I am, or at least what Londons Times Cartoons is.