ANNUAL COMPENSATION SURVEY FINDS A LARGELY SATISFIED WORK FORCE,
LONG HOURS, AND SOME POSITIVE SIGNS
Results of The Licensing Letter’s Annual Compensation Survey paint a picture of a business of professionals who work long hours, whose compensation has remained stable in challenging times, and who are overwhelmingly satisfied with what they do for a living.
Average salaries and bonuses reported in the survey are within the same general ranges as in recent years, though it should be noted that the reported average salaries by title in the 2007 survey are slightly lower than those in the 2006 survey more than twice as often as they’re higher.
Licensing professionals are pretty happy in their work, with more than 80% claiming a job satisfaction rating of seven or higher on a scale of 1-10. That’s slightly higher than the proportion who gave the same answer a year ago.
For more than half the title categories, a workweek averaging more than 50 hours is the norm, according to survey respondents.
One interesting set of responses relates to compensation by gender. Overall, almost equal numbers of males (51.5%) and females (48.5%) responded to the survey. Among those holding a VP title, males report salaries that are, on average, 24% higher than those reported by their female counterparts. A similar pattern holds true, though to a lesser extent, among those at the Director level, where males report average salaries 5.3% higher than their female counterparts. On the other hand, though, female Managers are paid 17% more than male Managers, according to survey responses.
Responses to some of the questions point toward an overall positive direction for the licensing business. For one thing, the proportion of people reporting they’ve gone more than a year (29%) without a raise dropped nearly seven percentage points from our 2006 survey. Half (51%) last got a raise between six months and a year ago, and 21% got one within the last six months.
The raises reported in the survey are similar to those in past years. Logically, those who got raises in conjunction with a change in title got significantly higher bumps than those who were staying in the same job. (Some 16% of those reporting salary increases also got a new title.)
Another positive sign is that more licensing operations have expanded their headcounts in the past year than have contracted. Nearly three in 10 (28%) say their licensing companies or departments have more employees than they did a year ago, while only 15% say their headcounts have been reduced. More than half (57%) report the same headcount as a year ago.
Most of those who responded to the survey work for fairly small departments or companies. Two thirds (66%) are in operations with five or fewer people directly involved in licensing, and 21% are in operations with between six and 20 people.
Characteristics Of Respondents
• Licensors account for 40% of those who responded to the survey, while 29% are licensees and 19% are agents. The remaining 12% are attorneys, consultants and other service providers.
• Virtually equal proportions (22% each) are based on the West Coast and in the Middle Atlantic states. The next most-represented regions are New England (14%), the Southeast (13%) and Midwest (9%).
• By property type, the largest number are involved in the entertainment/character, trademark/brand, toy/game brand and art sectors.
• By product category, the largest number of licensees are involved in gifts/novelties (39%), stationery/paper (34%), apparel (30%), accessories (26%), and publishing (24%) businesses. (Multiple answers were permitted.)
• It’s a fairly well educated bunch. Six in 10 (60%) have a Bachelor’s degree, 13% an MBA, 11% some other Master’s degree and 5% JDs.
• Nearly half (49%) have been in their current jobs five years or more, and 58% have been involved in licensing for 10 or more years.
The Licensing Letter’s Annual Compensation Survey is an anonymous, confidential online survey conducted in November, 2007. A link to the survey was listed in The Licensing Letter and was emailed to TLL subscribers and executives at companies listed in the EPM Licensing Letter Sourcebook. Respondents were asked about their own compensation, as well as that of employees they supervise.
Reports on bonuses only include those who reported a specific cash bonus as part of their compensation. Non-cash compensation isn’t included in this report, and we treat equally those who reported a bonus of “0” and those who left that spot blank.
