As part of our Meet The Member series, we asked
Danilo to tell us a bit about their story.
What is the name of your company?
Danilo
When did you first start the company?
1st October 1977
Where is your business based?
London
Why did you decide to set up your company?
Following the death of Elvis Presley, our Chairman, Laurence Prince, recognised the public’s mood to celebrate Elvis’s life, thus spotting a crucial niche in the market for commemorative celebrity calendars. It was Laurence’s initiative and entrepreneurial spirit that led to him successfully obtaining the rights to publish Elvis’s first official calendar from Colonel Tom Parker in 1977, and the licensed calendar and Danilo were born from there. Danilo in 1999 began producing Licensed greeting Cards.
What is the Unique Selling Point of your business? What makes your products particularly special?
As a license specialist, we have strong relationships with all major Licensors, enabling us to build a strong and varied portfolio of official licensed properties. With such talented creative and production teams, it also means that Danilo always produces high-quality, innovative products and our dynamic supply chain enables us to offer very quick speed to market for our retail customers. We all have a passion at Danilo to continually improve and transform what we do and our design, sales and management teams always strive to consistently deliver a fantastic product and service experience, which helps us stand out from the crowd. We have the ability to spot licensed trends in the market very quickly.
What is your best selling Greeting Card?
Minions
How do you sell your products? (Online only, wholesale, via a physical shop etc)
We sell via all channels (online, personalised, High Street and Grocers)
What do you like most about the industry?
The calendar and greetings card industry is a wonderful community to be a part of. To create products which help people to share messages of positivity, love and understanding, especially in difficult times such as these, is something I am very grateful for. We get to work with some amazing partners and brands and I especially enjoy the pace of of this industry which requires us to be fast moving and react quickly to new trends.
How can people find you?
Hot Topic Additional Question: Diversity and Inclusion are key values to the GCA and we’d love to know more about what your company does to support Diversity and Inclusion?
Diversity and inclusion have become a key focus in Danilo’s sustainability piece. Whilst we support a variety of licenses across our portfolio and are inclusive in our staff and recruitment policies, we are working now and in the future to ensure that we go beyond this, so that diversity and inclusion is fully integrated into every area of our business and supply chain.
Hot Topic Additional Question: The GCA is committed to ensuring that our industry is environmentally friendly and we’re keen to hear more about your business does to help the environment.
Sustainability forms an essential part of our business strategy and we are currently implementing several changes to help us become more environmentally-friendly. This year, in particular, we have removed plastics from products such as our desk block calendars, reduced 95% of cello wrapping from cards, added clear and concise recycling labels to all 2021 products, trialed a tree planting scheme and have converted over to full LED Lighting in the office. We also are working with fantastic environmentally-led official licenses such as BBC Earth and with our retail partners to investigate new ways that we can continue to move forward together sustainably. Additionally, our new internal green team will ensure that Danilo stays on track towards becoming climate positive by 2024.
Are you a member of the GCA? Would you like to be featured in a Meet The Member article? If so, get in touch with the GCA.
