Movies' bend for merchandise

Movie makers and production houses have realised the potential of movie based merchandise which is launched in anticipation of the movies’ actual release, cashing in on the avid movie fans’ following and sentiments. It has been attempted from sometime now with movies like Love Aaj Kal, Dabangg, Rockstar, Krish among others, and the practice got highlighted and received due recognition only in the recent times. Yes, RA.One is the movie which is on everybody’s mind and SRK has not left any stone unturned in making an effort to launch the movie’s merchandise, seeping into all possible categories one could think of.

The idea

Bollywood has a larger appeal to the Indian masses as films are believed to be in the blood of most Indians. People share their set of emotional outbursts with the actors in a movie. They identify with the film stars and try to imitate them in their day-to-day activities. They wish to wear and buy merchandise used by the stars in the movies. This has given birth to the concept of film merchandising. In order to gain knowledge as to what the industry insiders perceive, having been a part of similar initiatives, with regards to movie based merchandising, we got in touch with a couple of experts who shared their views about the same.

We came across Pop Culture Publishing which has recently published a graphic novel around the upcoming movie – Shaadi of the Dead – and we connected with Jatin Varma, Publisher, Pop Culture Publishing to understand his take on the same. Varma opines, “Depending upon the movie and its target audience, there can be a lot of takers for the merchandise. In our case, the novel that we are publishing is a precursor to India’s first ever Zombie comedy film, which you can imagine is meant for a certain audience and that the same audience fits in to our target audience for the novel. For the comics industry, this is a very positive development and we are very confident on the success of this novel.” On the same lines, iRock Productions is working on Abhay Deol starrer film ‘Shaadi of the Dead’, which will introduce zombies in the Indian films. Sidhartha M Jain, Producer & CEO, iRock Films, India, iPoP Entertainment comments, “iRock is a film development and production company that believes in developing new genres and franchise film properties. Zombies, sci-fi and vampires are new genres for the Indian audiences, hence the need to use licensing and merchandising to make these genres wider and easier to accept.”

We also spoke with Amarnath and Anupama Amarnath, owners of Bangalore based Chocolate Junction, having learnt that they entered into a deal for Tintin chocolates, in support for the upcoming Tintin movie. “While travelling abroad, I have seen the chocolate merchandising option for various brands and when Tintin opportunity was made available to us, we thought it was a good chance to take the same forward in India as I know that we have not done such activity earlier,” they comment, citing the reason for such merchandise deal.

The scope

While all movies are not the typical kinds to inspire a merchandise collection or line, it should be kept in mind that the movie should be such that it should lend itself to the creation of related products or merchandise. Mudit Khosla, CEO, Seventymm, says, “We undertook customer research and realised that movie merchandising was a hugely underserved yet potentially big category.” Shop.Seventymm.com targets both adults and children with a wide range of offerings – right from designer clothes worn by actresses or mugs spotted in ‘Zindagi Milegi Na Dobara’ with a message about life to Barbie or Doraemon T-shirts. Khosla further shares, “We are now in the right time and the right place as Bollywood merchandise buying is gaining acceptance among the young and middle level professionals and parents who want to own and associate themselves with authentic merchandise like USA, UK, France and Japan.”

Jain points out that the scope is huge, but can only be tapped when ‘merchandise friendly’ films and characters are made. Harish Bijoor, Brand-expert & CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc. shares his take on the scope which this market presents and avers, “Most movie merchandising efforts have a limited shelf life and tenure. In the case of most average offerings, the time duration is all of 6-8 months. The pre-movie tenure is mostly higher than post-movie release tenure. Longer standing properties are, however, possible in terms for movies that have a superhero orientation.”

Shalija Gupta, Digital and Merchandising Head of Red Chillies, shares a positive note on the same and says, “Licensing and merchandising is at a nascent stage in India but very soon it will take off in a big way. The consumers today are well versed with international films and their merchandising and we need to create a market for this by making quality products. We, at RA.One, realised that we can’t really establish a merchandise plan by offering our products at 70-80 stores. Our products are thus, available at 3,500 stores across the country and in a way. they are available everywhere.”