SOUNDING OFF: Wyland brand adds value to Laguna

Recently, the Coastline Pilot’s editorial about Wyland [“When art and commerce collide,” July 4] noted how regular economic conflicts develop as a natural result of the perceived value art has between buyers and sellers.

This is common, particularly if the buyer, in this case the California Coastal Commission, has an unclear understanding of how to value art in the form of intellectual property.

At this point, we have a creative force in conflict with a bureaucracy, untrained in artistic-economic valuations.

As an analyst and manager with 30 years’ experience in the entertainment and media markets, I have faced this dilemma — communicating value of intellectual property — many times. Economically, I can professionally calculate that Laguna Beach is much more fortunate to have Wyland contributing to our business community than we are to have the Coastal Commission administering its bylaws to us.

Based on our estimates, Wyland directly generates $500,000-plus in annual sales and property taxes that are paid in and to the city of Laguna. the Wyland Foundation also contributes $10,000 annually to scholarships at the Laguna College of Art and Design.

In addition, the economic benefit his gallery provides to tourists would amount to many millions of dollars more in tourism/leisure-time activity value (as there are many, many more people who are entertained by visiting the Wyland Gallery, than those who buy a Wyland work).

Furthermore, the goodwill that Wyland’s brand generates for Laguna Beach globally valued in economic terms would cross over into the hotel and food and beverage markets due to the pleasure foreign tourists receive when spending their vacations in Laguna Beach, again paying our hotel motel tax.

It’s a fact: The majority of foreign tourists take home an impression of our market deeply influenced by our ocean coastline, demonstrated artistically to the mass market by no one better than Wyland.

Therefore, Wyland made a valuable contribution in-good-faith to California, by what we would call “informally licensing” his work to the Coastal Commission for use on license plates. What other artist could help sell license plates and generate such value for the Coastal Commission?

I know that if Wyland would have requested the usual artistic intellectual property licensing fee for this work 14 years ago, the Coastal Commission would not have had the economic insight to calculate the enormous demand for whale-tail license plates, and subsequently would have lost out on the goodwill and financial benefits that Wyland’s work generated for them.

Fourteen years ago, it was a great business strategy for Wyland to showcase his brand, and a tremendous opportunity for the Coastal Commission to align themselves with Wyland’s art to extend their agency’s goodwill.

After all, how many whale-tail license plates would the Coastal Commission have sold if the name Wyland was not associated with the plate? My estimation: none.

The Wyland art/Coastal Commission licensing was a very ingenious way to allow those consumers who could not afford a retail Wyland artwork a way to own a small piece of Wyland and at the same time help the Coastal Commission’s preservation efforts.

We have found in business there are four stages to a high-performing organization: forming, storming, norm-ing, and performing.

Meaning that you first have to come together, and then, naturally, conflicts arise, so you have to resolve conflicts, and then move on to being a higher performing organization.

During the ’90s I lived on Venice Beach. We would have been honored to have had a Wyland gallery, or any other “art-brand” associated with our coastline, instead of gang-related leisure activities like rap and a market of cheap T-shirts or sunglasses. The Coastal Commission would do us all a great service by taking a deep breath and restoring their honor by formally recognizing what is due to Wyland. But as a public agency, the Coastal Commission will do nothing without public input. Contact them to let them know they should stop being free riders on a part of the Laguna Beach brand.

LOU VOLPANO lives in Laguna Beach and is the managing partner of ascertain-ment, a consulting firm that provides market research and strategic analysis to entertainment and media companies and their investors.