After licensing, Chhota Bheem considers franchising as well for expansion

India's favourite home-grown toon character, Chhota Bheem, is evolving, gaining new powers and getting a new storyline. Along with inking licensing pacts with some of the big names in FMCG and lifestyle segment, Green Gold Animation, the parent company of this home-grown property, is also considering franchising as a route to scale up, revealed Samir Jain, COO, Green Gold Animation.

What is new with Chhota Bheem in terms of content?

In terms of content, Chhota Bheem has been re-made in form of a 3D show – a TV movie. So now we have two TV movies in place and the show has been rated very high with Chhota Bheem in a different avatar all together Another is that we are planning to release Chhota Bheem theatrical movie in summer 2017 that movie ‘Kung Fu Dhamaka’ which will be hardcore slapstick out-and-out comedy. Licensing process is going to b rolled out in January because this is going to be converted from a 3D movie to a TV series. Typically it takes three months for a new movie to roll out. The series will be on air from December 2016 with new episode every time and by that time the property will be known and matured enough in the market.

What are your plans regarding Chhota Bheem Classic?

Chhota Bheem Classic has moved in GCC countries and we have released Chhota Bheem Himalayan Adventure as a theatrical movie in UAE in the month of July and now the content through Etisalat BOD and also Emirates Airlines. It is already available on these platforms. The big bang is that this year the brand ambassador of Global Village Dubai is Chhota Bheem. With this the brand is expanding and we are moving ahead with merchandising in the Middle East.

What have been the key markets for Chhota Bheem licensing program?

Globally in terms of content we are present in 12 countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Mauritius etc. and now we are also extending merchandising to these countries.

What per cent of your revenue is driven through licensing?

Total 40 per cent of our revenue is being generated from L&M

What are the recent deals that you’ve inked pacts?

We have inked pact with Monginis for Chhota Bheem cakes, Havmor for ice-cream and Asian Paints for wallpapers, paintings etc. All of them are Pan-India deals. Though Monginis is West dominated brand but is very organized in terms of retail landscape, and has done very good numbers. That is why we have inked pact with them.

Talk to us about your scale-up plans.

At the moment we have 18 stores operating on franchised model and we are also increasing focus on shop-in-shop model with various retailers. We have added two stores operational now in hyper format with Hypercity. Few other alliances are in pipeline. For franchised stores investment will be from Rs 10 lakh onwards and area would be from 300 to 400 sq ft.