I Love NY Logo Brings in Bucks for New York State

When New York State was trying to lure in tourists in the late ‘70s and commissioned the creation of the famous “I Love New York” song and corresponding, it likely had no idea that more than 30 years later, it would be making big bucks from licensing the logo to a wide variety of products.

While many assume it's a campaign touting the Big Apple, it's actually a state tourism and economic development-boosting slogan.

NY State began licensing the logo in 1994, New York Daily News reports, bringing in more than $1.83 million in licensing fees for it in fiscal 2011, up from $1.5 million the previous year.

"It is a multimillion-dollar licensing program that continues to grow," said Empire State Development Corp. spokesman Austin Shafran to the Daily News.

Some of that growth will be found in the sale of such products that incorporate the brand as high-end t-shirts, perfume, and spring water that can be licensed and sold in such places as England and Italy, the paper reports. There is even some consideration of opening an “I Love NY” store, apparently.

"We are huge in Japan," Samira Ali of CMG Worldwide, the state's licensing agent, told the Daily News. "That is our second-largest market."

Or as ESDC vice president Maha Eltobgy puts it: "Everybody in the world loves that logo.”