Marmite tickles the taste buds as small card publisher clinches top trophy
Love it or hate it, Marmite has proven definitely delicious for Tache Crafts as the star of the publisher’s Unilever Famous Foods range helped earn the Best Licensed Paper Products Or Stationery Range trophy.
At the Licensing Awards ceremony on Tuesday, 13 September, over 1,200 folk from across the industry crowded The Great Room at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel, for an evening of celebration.
Before Tache co-owners Frank Nicholls and Pennie Bryant discovered their amazing triumph, the evening began with the assembled guests falling silent for a minute to honour Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
In her opening address Jakki Brown, md of Max Publishing which owns and organises The Licensing Awards, commented: “While the news about The Queen was not unexpected, that does not take away from the enormity of the loss. She has been a huge part of all of our lives and contributed so much over her 70-year reign.”
Comedian and TV presenter Tom Allen took charge of the evening as host, and there was also a special cheque presentation to the members of The Light Fund English Channel Relay Swim team – confirming they had raised smashed their £250,000 target by raising £268,000 through the challenge, meaning the licensing and greetings industry charity has now raised over £2million for good causes since its inception in 2004.
The awards were once again backed by headline sponsor Brand Licensing Europe – with the 2022 event running from Tuesday to Thursday, 20-22 September, at London’s ExCel, and the show now opening at noon on the first day– and were also supported by industry trade body Licensing International. The full list of Licensing Awards winners can be found here.
Having found themselves up against Cardology’s DC Comics Pride Collection; Danilo’s Squid Game Calendar, Diary & Card Range; Moonpig’s Disney Princess Diversity & Inclusion Greeting Card Collection; and Woodmansterne’s Nadiya Hussain Greeting Card Collection among the category finalists, along with entries covering Mr Men & Little Miss, Warner Bros Movies, Wizarding World and XBox, Tache’s ever dapper Frank and glamorous Pennie were stunned by the win.
As they told PG Buzz: “We are completely and utterly shocked and overwhelmed to win this Licensing Award – as the clear underdogs up against such huge licences as Disney, XBox, Warner Bros, etc, produced by industry giants, we honestly felt like we had no chance of winning. So, we’re absolutely over the moon!”
The hand-finished range is living proof of how good things can come out of tricky situations, as the relationship between Poole-based Tache and Unilever started when the mega-corporation contacted the publisher about one of its designs that featured Marmite.
“It had proven a very popular design so, when Unilever requested that we remove it from our portfolio, we were initially disappointed,” Pennie explained, “However, when we posed the question to them about a formal contractual agreement, we were over the moon when they agreed to the use of its brands, with us developing an entire new range under licence.”
The win doubles down on trophies for Tache this year as the publisher also picked up a Louie Award back in April, when the foxy design in their newest Wild Moon collection beat off hundreds of entries from companies of all sizes to lift the Best Blank Card ($5 & below) title in the contest run by the American Greeting Card Association, the US equivalent of The Henries awards.
And the Famous Foods range, which includes British favourites Bovril, Pot Noodle, Cornetto and Coleman’s Mustard as well as Marmite, is also a finalist in the Best Licensed Card Range at The Henries, where the winners will be announced at the 50s-themed big night at London’s Royal Lancaster Hotel, on Thursday, 6 October, 2022. To book tickets click here.
Top: Tache co-owners Pennie and Frank on stage with host Tom Allen
