New York-based LAPTOP Magazine is part of a parent, Purch Inc., that launched in 2003 as TopTenReviews. The entire culture of the company is based on reviews and rankings, and LAPTOP has many recognition programs. A sibling brand, Tom’s Guide, casts an even wider net, covering all kinds of products—including watches, games, TVs, wearables, phones and tablets. The editor of both, Mark Spoonauer, offered a look at their brand journey. The publications’ qualitative and quantitative product reviews (with uniform star ratings) have made both sites high-traffic destinations for mobile technology purchase decisions, he says. “Over the years, we’ve had several award logos,” Spoonauer says. “The most important is Editor’s Choice, which is where we see a growth opportunity for newer technologies. Logo licensing will be a real part of that growth.”

Editor’s Choice award winning products have to do well with an informal suite of benchmarks designed to simulate real-world situations, such as battery life and other practical use cases. Overall judging is based on comparable costs and usage. “We are constantly expanding the number of use cases or niches where a comparison—and an award—makes sense,” Spoonauer says. “This not only enhances our credibility if we do it right, but it also expands our revenue potential through logo licensing.”

LAPTOP has been using Wright’s Media for logo licensing since 2006. “We appreciate their focus on authorized uses of our brand,” Spoonauer says. “Our awards are given to individual products, not product families, so it’s important that a manufacturer make that clear. It’s only partly a question of revenue. Those who see our logo on an ad trust our decision, so it needs to be clear what product deserves the logo.

“Readers’ trust in our brand means much more than any line item we get from licensing,” he adds. “Logo licensing is a meaningful part of our revenue stream. However, the visibility of having our brand on store shelves, on e-commerce sites, and on vendor websites has even greater value. With advertisers, it builds relationships and opens doors. With users who rely on it for shopping advice, it builds a loyal audience.”

Logo and other brand licensing are not limited to magazines. B2B publishers are equally vested in their editorial reputations—and the visual symbols that represent their professional judgment.

Event Marketer magazine was founded in 2002 to serve the many needs of marketing professionals engaged in live events like trade shows, corporate events, and the fast-changing array of virtual events. Providing everything from resources to best practices, the magazine serves as a trusted source for a broad cross section of companies serving the event industry.

One part of that effort is a series of annual recognition programs for excellence in event marketing (the Ex Awards) and exhibit design. The magazine also publishes a “Best Places to Work in Events” list each year. Licensing of event-related material includes the logo itself, as well as reprints of articles, features, and photos, plus an array of merchandise like wall plaques and coffee mugs.

Event Marketer Vice President Dan Hanover described the ways EM’s licensed content is used. “Typically recipients use the logo in a few ways. One is internal, to make employees feel good about where they work, and to show off to recruits or potential clients. They use our logo on their websites, in their presentations, in their print ads and elsewhere.”

The benefits of logo licensing for Event Marketer are positive, but not solely focused on direct revenue, which currently totals about $50,000 per year, according to Hanover. “I think the value for the award recipient is being able to show off what they’ve won in their own channels and on their own terms,” he says. “In many cases it doesn’t specifically get them to increase their advertising spend, but in most cases it does help build a relationship with our brand, which in turn helps them want to spend more. Conversely, companies showing off what they’ve win has helped us pull in new business from companies who are jealous and want to start a relationship with us and participate in our assets and award programs.”

Sheila Rice, the vice president of licensing and business development for Northstar Travel Media, had a two-pronged mission. She had to leverage the Business Travel News brand equity internally through licensing of the logo, and she had to convince internal stakeholders of the value of what she was doing. Like many legacy media companies, logo licensing was done by individual brands at Northstar, and sometimes based on the spontaneous decisions of individual people.

“What I structured was a corporate contract—the publications were accustomed to doing it themselves,” Rice says. “Everyone was giving it away. Slowly the divisions came into the fold. It was found money and I didn’t want to leave any money on the table.”

The BTN effort began in earnest two years ago, Rice says. “I didn’t think there would be any real revenue from it. It’s not as if we’re the New York Times, right? And Wright’s said, ‘Just let us try.’ It came out of the publication with the most success was the Business Travel group. It’s a highly respected, dominant brand in the corporate business travel space.”

Rice said BTN did a survey of hotels in the country. The chain that was the top wanted to leverage that outcome and use it in promotions, do trophies and plagues, and put them at the desks in every one of their hotels in the U.S. “So think about this,” Rice says. “If it had been an editorial person at BTN, they might have said, ‘Fine. Use it.’” But for a third-party like Wright’s, it was, ‘Look, for you to leverage the BTN name, and there is a price for that.’ “

And it turned out, Rice says, that the campaign produced, “Multi tens of thousands of dollars—that’s a lot of money!”

She adds, “This has the potential for being a revenue stream that really can be quite powerful, and that ties back to the validation of the brand and its influence in the sector. “There are so many residual benefits of something like this.

“"Wright’s has been a very valued partner in building the business,” Rice adds. “I have the confidence that they are going to go into the market with a strong selling effort on Northstar’s behalf. They understand what the value of that logo is. They can speak with a language that will showcase the comparative value for logo use—for PR, for Web use, for print ads. They take that responsibility off of me and have far more expertise in knowing what the market commands. And that’s the real key."

Dennis Publishing U.K. is the sixth-largest publisher in that country, with more than 30 titles in computers, automotive, fitness and lifestyle, and crafting. Logo licensing started for Dennis more than 15 years ago, but for the most part, it’s been limited to the motoring group, says Dharmesh Mistry, International Business Development Director & Head of Licensing Operations.

“What you’d find even three or four years ago is that some people would be charging for logos, and some would be giving them away in editorial, and some people on the advertising team would be giving them away as part of a value add,” he says. “I started looking at it in 2011, asking why we were giving away so many logos. People are using our brands to make sales. The reality is that putting a logo on an ad or something else, that’s going to lead to significant sales. Most consumers, in their bigger purchases, would prefer an outside opinion by an authority when making a purchase.”

Dennis started working with Wright’s in 2012, Mistry says. "Wright’s was quite robust in saying, ‘this is why you should be doing logo licensing.’ We realized that we've got the brands, and we have to maximize their potential. We were doing it, but we weren’t doing it comprehensively. Wright's also has access to marketer brands where they have money to divvy up among publishers. There’s no way other than through Wright's that we would get access to that revenue. The third thing they do, and it's closely linked, is that they go to events like CES and create awards programs at the events, and licensing is divvied up among media brands. It’s just a smart way to work—everyone's excited, you have amazing products, you’ve got the the community there and it’s a good way to operate. It's these three strands where Wright's works with us very successfully."

For the moment, says Mistry, the licensing partnership with Wright’s is focused on the tech space—with PC Pro, Computer Shopper, IT Pro, Expert Reviews among the brands being licensed. Not every brand lends itself to logo licensing, Mistry says.

And how’s it working? “Overall we’re comfortably in six figures, and would like to push that to seven,” he says. “There’s more to come with national campaigns—I think with TV. Wright’s have helped us generate six figures, which is outstanding, really.”

For a company like Lenovo, which is Chinese owned but massive and global in scope, the brand team discovered that they couldn't bank just on Lenovo’s product superiority and innovations to build awareness and consideration. This was especially a challenge in the very noisy tech industry and especially in a market like PCs, where there is intense competition and consumers are spoilt for choice. Their goal was to reach into new markets and segments that didn’t know the Lenovo brand and build trust with younger audiences.

"We realized we had to do a lot more than just allowing our products speak for themselves,” says Content Marketing Architect Vikram Raghavachari. “We had to have sources of credible endorsement. Our CMO, David Roman, had the vision that we should be using product reviews to amplify our successes and product features. We needed expert opinion to speak for us in our communication.” The company’s Brand Communication division created a Third Party Advocacy program, which includes a lot of different elements, with licensed product review quotes and award logos being one part.

“It can be very hard for today’s informed consumers to believe claims about products—especially with all the digital clutter. Of course there are professional product reviews on many sites, but there is no guarantee that the target audience is aware of them. Especially at the early stages of the customer decision journey, prospective buyers are exploring options and alternatives, rather than reading reviews,” Vikram says.

“Our efforts,” he says, “include ensuring all those voices and opinions are translated into marketable material, and used strategically. Licensing and obtaining rights to use product review based content is a foundational step to using any material from professional product reviewers. A responsive partner with the reach and connections to meet almost any need is essential.” Lenovo found Wright’s Media to be exactly the kind of agency it needed to support the Third Party Advocacy (TPA) program.

So the TPA program has central business objectives:

• Remind people that there are good reviews about Lenovo products
• Highlight specific things that a professional review has found, or that Lenovo won an award
• Promote the use of corporate or category level accolades

Because, Vikram says, “We know that seeing or hearing good things about a brand is in the top three reasons for consideration. Reinforcing good quotes from a product reviews is often the start of beneficial sentiment on digital and social channels.”

Often, Lenovo’s global product launches use product quotes in high visibility launch advertising. Lenovo looks for certain kinds of reviews, from particulars kinds of media brands. It selects the most appropriate component for the asset or collateral being developed, keeping space, cost and media in mind.

Lenovo has almost made a science of the Third Party Advocacy effort. The use of product reviews isn’t restricted to just quotes. “We make efficient use of the review – and that could be a punchy quote as a headline, the star rating, the benchmark tests, or just simply an award logo from CES.”

The Third Party Advocacy program has many more parts to it that address the needs of Lenovo’s commercial customers as well. For every target audience, licensed product reviews play an important role in Lenovo’s marketing communication.

The result of this integrated strategy?

Lenovo derives benefits at many levels. “I can tell you broadly that we look at larger indicators down to asset level performance. If you look at a web banner or a social media post, we have numbers that show that those assets with quotes and/or awards logos have a lot more engagement than those without,” Vikram says. Lenovo has seen that product review based content brings value to the communication that makes it easier for customers to zero in on products and features that matter to them.

“Assets with content from reviews have a direct effect on sales and the brand effect shows up in our regular tracking surveys, which clearly show the importance of product reviews. It works for our customers and us, and we intend to keep it that way,” says Vikram.