About Brands Untapped

Brands Untapped – What is it?

Brands Untapped is a site for the global licensing industry, focusing on the design and creativity behind licensed product.

As well as insightful interviews with brand owners, we’ll have news and exclusive chats with those working in design and licensing; be it fashion designers, video game developers, authors, film producers, theatre directors, toy inventors, TV showrunners and creatives from the world of sports, homewares and food and drink.

Brands Untapped will also play host to a suite of events taking place across the year; more announcements on those to follow soon!

Categories we cover: Celebrity, Experiences, Fashion, Film & TV, Food & Drink, Health & Wellbeing, Homewares, Music, Publishing, Sports, Toys & Games and Video Games

Our Team

Name: Billy Langsworthy
Title: Co Founder, Brands Untapped

Billy Langsworthy is the co-founder of Mojo Nation – a leading platform and body for the global toy design and invention community – and Brands Untapped, a new site for the creative community around licensing. The company boasts a line-up of popular events across the toys and licensing sectors, including the Play Creators Conference, the Play Creators Awards and the Mojo Pitch. Prior to starting Mojo back in 2017, Langsworthy was the editor of ToyNews Magazine and Licensing.biz.

Contact Billy here

Name: Adam Butler
Title: Co Founder, Brands Untapped

Adam Butler is the co-founder of Mojo Nation – a leading platform and body for the global toy design and invention community – and Brands Untapped, a new site for the creative community around licensing. The company boasts a line-up of popular events across the toys and licensing sectors, including the Play Creators Conference, the Play Creators Awards and the Mojo Pitch. Prior to starting Mojo back in 2017, Butler was the Head of Event Marketing at NewBay Media and Group Head of Design and Production at Intent Media before that.

Contact Adam here

Name: Sarah Goldhawk
Title: Busines Development Manager

An experienced sales manager, Sarah has experience with Biz Media, Future Publishing and NewBay Media.

Sarah formerly worked on ToyNews and Licensing.biz and joins Brands Untapped to work with partners on areas including event sponsorship, editorial partnerships and site advertising opportunities.

Contact Sarah here

Name: Deej Johnson
Title: Writer

A freelance writer, speaker and creative consultant, Deej Johnson’s end clients include Disney Store, Costa Coffee, Hasbro and ITV Studios. He is the author of four poorly-selling books.

Contact Deej here

Name: Ian Downes
Title: Founder of Start Licensing and Non Exec of Brands Untapped

Ian Downes has worked in the Licensing industry for over 30 years. He started his licensing career at Copyright Promotions and worked on brands such as Star Wars, Mr Men and Jurassic Park. Ian held various roles at Copyright Promotions initially selling publishing rights – one highlight selling the publishing rights to The X Files which included a pair of books that sold over 1 million copies between them. Ian went onto be the European Sales Manager for Copyright Promotions which lead to his involvement in a number of significant Pan-European licensing campaigns. Ian also set up Copyright Promotion’s Brand Licensing division whose clients included the Discovery Channel, the NSPCC and IPC Magazines.

Ian moved from Copyright Promotions to join Fox Kids where he was UK Managing Director in the Consumer Products division and he was promoted to Group Managing Director where he managed a network of 10 offices and licensing activity in nearly 30 countries. Fox Kids’ rights included Power Rangers and Digimon whilst the Fox Kids brand itself was successfully extended into Live Events, sticker collections, music compilations and publishing including a magazine that was syndicated in a number of territories.

Ian left Fox Kids to establish his own agency and consultancy Start Licensing in 2003. Start Licensing is a bespoke licensing operation that is firmly established in the industry and is regarded as a forward thinking agency. Start’s clients include Aardman Animations, The Ashmolean Museum, Asterix, Britvic Soft Drinks and Julie Dodsworth. The company has a very successful consultancy arm that has advised the likes of the National Gallery, Sky Television, Penguin Random House, Channel 4 and Guinness World Records. Start also advise celebrity clients such as Nadiya Hussain and Jane Devonshire.

Ian won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Licensing Awards in 2016 and is a Trustee of the UK Licensing industry charity The Light Fund. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Contact Ian here