ARTiSTORY's Four IAI Awards Signal a New Era for Cultural IP: From Licensing Assets to Building Global Cultural Brands
Following four honors at the 26th International Advertising Institute Awards (IAI Awards) and a debut in License Global's Top 60, ARTiSTORY is advancing a model that connects cultural heritage, brand strategy, creative storytelling and global licensing.
SHANGHAI, Sept. 12, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Cultural IP is entering a new phase.
For museums, libraries, heritage organizations and cultural institutions, licensing is no longer simply about placing recognizable artworks, characters or historical imagery on products. Increasingly, the challenge is how to transform cultural assets into compelling contemporary narratives, experiences and brands - without losing the meaning and credibility that made them culturally significant in the first place.
This shift is at the heart of ARTiSTORY's growing international business.
The cultural and art IP licensing and operations company ARTiSTORY has received four honors at the 26th International Advertising Institute Awards (IAI Awards), including a Gold Award for its The British Library × CHAGEE collaboration. The Project Lead and Chief Marketing Officer of ARTiSTORY, Zoe Liang Liu, attended the ceremony to accept the awards. The recognition comes alongside ARTiSTORY's debut at No. 57 in License Global's 2026 Top Global Licensing Agents, with an estimated retail sales value of US$61 million.
For ARTiSTORY, the two recognitions represent more than industry accolades. Together, they point to an emerging model for cultural IP: one that sits at the intersection of culture, creativity, commerce and technology.
Beyond Licensing: Building Cultural Brands
"Licensing is only the beginning," says Zoe Liang Liu, CMO of ARTiSTORY.
"The greater opportunity is to build a cultural IP into a living brand - with a distinctive narrative, meaningful experiences and a system that allows it to evolve across categories and markets."
Liu has been developing this perspective through her work in cultural IP positioning, brand strategy, integrated marketing and international licensing. Her approach focuses on moving cultural IP beyond individual transactions and toward long-term brand development.
At the center of this approach is a simple but fundamental question: How can cultural heritage become relevant to contemporary audiences without becoming diluted or commodified?
ARTiSTORY addresses this through what Liu describes as a Story, Scene and System approach:
Story creates the narrative and cultural meaning.
Scene translates that narrative into products, experiences, retail environments and contemporary consumer touchpoints.
System provides the licensing, operational and technological infrastructure that allows the IP to scale sustainably.
Together, these elements create a pathway for cultural IP to move from a static asset to an evolving cultural brand.
When British Literature Meets Chinese Tea Culture
ARTiSTORY's Gold-winning The British Library × CHAGEE: Afternoon Earl Grey Fresh Milk Tea Series illustrates this approach.
The collaboration brought together CHAGEE's contemporary tea culture with the literary world of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, creating new products and pop-up experiences across Malaysia and Singapore.
Rather than using cultural imagery simply as visual decoration, the campaign established a shared narrative around tea, literature and cross-cultural connection.
It offered audiences a familiar cultural entry point while introducing Chinese tea culture to international consumers.
The project was also shortlisted for Best Licensed Promotion at the 2026 Licensing International Excellence Awards.
For ARTiSTORY, the significance lies in the mechanism behind the collaboration: cultural IP becomes more powerful when it is translated into a story that audiences can experience, participate in and carry into their everyday lives.
From Physical Experiences to Digital Infrastructure
The company is also investing in the infrastructure required to make cultural IP management more scalable.
ARTiSTORY's proprietary LIHUO IP Operation Management System received the IAI Awards' "Annual Most Valuable System Tool / Platform" recognition.
Designed around the principles of productizing cultural assets, systematizing brand development and enabling sustainable operations, the platform currently serves more than 20 cultural organizations and 40 brand partners across more than 100 licensing projects. An AI-powered agent is currently in development.
The move toward technology reflects a larger challenge facing the cultural licensing industry: as cultural IP portfolios become more complex and increasingly international, managing rights, products, partners, content and market opportunities through fragmented processes becomes difficult to scale.
For ARTiSTORY, technology is therefore not separate from cultural strategy. It is part of the infrastructure needed to turn cultural value into sustainable brand value.
Taking Cultural IP Beyond Traditional Licensing
ARTiSTORY's international expansion reflects the growing movement of cultural IP across borders.
In License Global's 2026 Top Global Licensing Agents ranking, ARTiSTORY entered the global list at No. 57, with an estimated retail sales value of US$61 million, ranking fifth among Chinese agencies.
Its portfolio and partnerships span international cultural institutions and heritage assets, including The British Library, Tate, Centre Pompidou, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Dunhuang Inspiration and Sanxingdui Museum, among others.
The company has also expanded cultural IP into new forms of digital entertainment. In March 2026, ARTiSTORY facilitated a collaboration between The British Library and the mobile game Mr Love: Queen's Choice, integrating Shakespearean drama into interactive storytelling.
The British Library, represented by ARTiSTORY, was also shortlisted for the Newcomer Award at the 2026 Licensing International Asian Awards.
Reflecting on the collaboration, Liu sees digital entertainment as part of a broader evolution in how cultural IP can engage contemporary audiences.
"The future of cultural IP is not simply about putting heritage into more formats. It is about finding the right cultural context for each audience, and creating narratives that allow the IP to live naturally within those experiences."
"Whether it is a game, a fashion collection, a retail environment or a digital experience, the format is only the starting point. What matters is whether the cultural meaning can be translated without losing its integrity—and whether the audience can form a genuine connection with it."
For ARTiSTORY, this means approaching licensing not as the end point of an IP transaction, but as a mechanism for cultural translation - connecting heritage with new audiences, new categories and new forms of participation.
The Next Question for Cultural IP
For Zoe Liang Liu, the future of cultural licensing is ultimately a question of relevance.
"Cultural institutions hold extraordinary intellectual and creative capital," says Liu.
"The challenge is not simply how to license that capital, but how to make it meaningful to people who may encounter it for the first time through a cup of tea, a fashion collection, a retail experience, a game or a digital platform."
"That requires a different mindset. We need to think like cultural strategists, brand builders and storytellers - not only licensing professionals."
Her perspective reflects a wider transformation taking place across the industry.
As museums and cultural organizations seek new revenue models, as brands look for deeper cultural relevance, and as consumers increasingly value meaning alongside products, the space between cultural heritage and commercial creativity is becoming increasingly important.
ARTiSTORY is positioning itself within that space.
Fei Yu, General Manager of the Copyright Business Division of Sinofaith Group and Managing Partner of ARTiSTORY, said:
"ARTiSTORY shares the spirit of the 2026 International Museum Day theme, 'Museums: Bridging the World.' We are committed to helping Chinese cultural and tourism IPs and brands reach global audiences through new forms of storytelling, while creating greater brand value in the age of AI."
Building the Infrastructure for Cultural IP to Travel
ARTiSTORY's four IAI Awards span creative marketing, company recognition and technology, while its growing international licensing business demonstrates the commercial potential of cultural IP beyond its original institutional context.
The company's ambition is not simply to create more licensed products.
It is to build the stories, experiences and systems that allow cultural IP to travel-across borders, industries and generations.
As cultural institutions increasingly engage with global brands and new forms of technology, ARTiSTORY believes the next generation of cultural IP will be defined not by how many licensing deals it can generate, but by how effectively it can create lasting cultural relevance and sustainable brand value.
At the intersection of culture, creativity and commerce, that may be the next chapter of global licensing.
About ARTiSTORY
ARTiSTORY is a cultural and art IP licensing and operations company focused on transforming cultural assets into sustainable brand value. The company works with museums, cultural institutions, heritage organizations and brands to develop IP strategies, licensing programs, brand collaborations, cultural experiences and digital solutions. With a growing portfolio of international cultural IP and partnerships across markets, ARTiSTORY aims to create new connections between cultural heritage and contemporary consumer culture-helping cultural IP reach new audiences while building long-term cultural and commercial value.
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