About TLL Daily Advisor

TLL Daily Advisor comes from the same outstanding editorial team that produces The Licensing Letter (TLL), the paid subscription newsletter founded in 1977 and acquired by EPM Communications, Inc., the current publisher, in 1991.

The Licensing Letter  reports on the $108 billion worldwide market for licensed merchandise, compiling data about the business that are regularly cited by The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others.

The newsletter also reports extensively on deals and dealmakers (roughly 150 per twice monthly issue), retail trends, and general news.

TLL is the cornerstone for a wide array of publications and events covering the licensing business, including the introductory "Licensing Business Handbook," which in seven editions over 10 years has become the standard textbook for courses on licensing at New York University, the Fashion Institute of Technology, and other institutions; the directory, "The Licensing Letter Sourcebook" and "International Licensing: A Status Report," an extensive analysis of licensing and merchandising in more than 30 countries.

EPM Communications, the parent company of The Licensing Letter, provides marketing and consumer research to advertising and promotion agencies, brands, media companies, retailers, and others through published newsletters, research studies and directories as well as conferences and seminars; telephone-based short-term consulting; and competitive analysis.

Key subject areas covered, in addition to Licensing are:

ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING. Built around the company's first publication, Entertainment Marketing Letter (EML), this group of products and services provides the necessary tools for the rapidly growing relationship between entertainment companies and consumer brands.

Since 1988, EML has helped entertainment and brand marketers apply the latest marketing and promotion techniques to maximize exposure for their entertainment properties and to leverage the "glamour" of Hollywood in the sale of other goods and services.

In addition to the twice monthly EML, this group includes "The EPM Entertainment Marketing Sourcebook," an annual directory of more than 3000 key players in the entertainment, media, brand, retail and service sectors; and research studies including "On-Demand Advertising & Marketing," "Profiles of the U.S. Entertainment Consumer" and "Profiles of the U.S. Internet User."

TARGETED MARKETING. The newsletters Youth Markets Alert, Marketing To Women, and Marketing To Emerging Majorities keep subscribers abreast of the most current marketing initiatives across all consumer product and service sectors as well as the latest research from private and public sources. You learn what mobile phone services are doing to attract kids, how auto manufacturers market to women, Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans, and trends in leisure, food and beverage, finance, health and beauty aids, and more.

For greater depth, EPM regularly updates such research studies as "Marketing To Tweens & Teens" and annual compilations such as "All About Women Consumers." Published in early March each year, the latter aggregates relevant material about women, by area of interest.

CONSUMER RESEARCH. The core of EPM's insight into consumer trends is rooted in Research Alert, a twice-monthly newsletter that covers the latest research available on every conceivable aspect of consumer behavior. Media use, sexual habits, leisure activities, spending, and more.

While the newsletter reports on the latest research from private, public and university sources as it becomes available, the annual "Research Alert Yearbook" pulls together every research study we've reported in the newsletters Research Alert, Youth Markets Alert, Marketing To Emerging Majorities and Entertainment Marketing Letter and organizes it by subject, providing an instant yet in-depth overview of consumer interests and attitudes.

For subjects of greatest interest to members of the EPM community, the company publishes white papers, research studies and other publications. Examples include "Profiles of the U.S. Food Shopper," "Americans & Their Homes" and "Brand/Package Likeability."

A Personal History of EPM

EPM was founded in 1988 by Ira Mayer and his wife and partner, Riva Bennett.

For 20 years prior to founding the company, Ira's night job was as a rock critic. By day, he wrote about the business of entertainment for newspapers, magazines and research organizations. Beginning in the 1980s, he established a prominent reputation as an entertainment industry and media analyst. Riva, who at the time sold research services for LINK Resources, a new media think tank, was selling some of the research Ira was writing.

After attending several sports and event marketing conferences, Ira and Riva realized no one was covering the entertainment industry purely from the marketing perspective, and that if he could write it and she could sell it well, that's what they should do!

Armed with a Rolodex of about 2000 fax numbers, Riva and Ira took two hour shifts starting at 7 p.m. on a Friday night, and throughout the weekend when the rates were low, they faxed a one-page letter describing a new newsletter they were launching — EPM Report (for Entertainment, Promotion & Marketing).

Monday morning they had three orders in the fax machine in their then-home office. They looked at each other and, like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney (they wish), decided they better launch a newsletter!

While the company retained the EPM moniker, EPM Report morphed into Entertainment Marketing Letter, the better for people to know what the newsletter was about.

After a year publishing Entertainment Marketing Letter, one subscriber asked Ira to gather all the contact names that had appeared at the end of every article and put them in alphabetical order, which he did. Realizing there were plenty of other great entertainment marketing contacts beyond those that could be reported, the fledgling company compiled the first "Entertainment Marketing Sourcebook" — an ambitious directory for a business that until then didn't know it was a community.

Another subscriber said, "It's great that you list all those contacts — but I need to MEET those people." And so the EPM Entertainment Marketing Conference was born. As the company expanded, and its reputation grew, EPM was approached about acquiring other publications, and added a number of them to its product catalog.

Slowly, Riva and Ira added staff in their Brooklyn home office until, with six people — one on the landing between the first and second floors — they realized they needed to move to a "real" office. (Besides, the kids were growing up and bringing friends home after school. "Shhhh!" they would say as they ascended the steps. "There are people working.")

Today, many of EPM's editors are experts in their fields and are often quoted in the general and business media on marketing practices and entertainment, consumer, and retail trends.

With an outstanding professional staff, the company continues to listen to EPM members as it develops new publications, conferences and other products and services.