Future Furore

The returns don’t justify the investments made in movie merchandising, but players are unperturbed. Like a systematic investment plan, all the stake holders are putting in time, money and resources to hit paydirt in the time to come.

Remember the bizarre black and white dress worn by Sanjay Dutt in Khalnayak? It was one of the points of recall of the movie apart from Madhuri’s choli, and the famous �choli ke peechay’ song and junior Dutt’s infamous run-ins with the law prior to the movie. Dutt’s ensemble aroused enough curiosity amongst the audiences for a few to enquire with the local tailor to stitch �a Khalnayak shirt’ or trouser.

In fact, the neighbourhood tailor needs to watch every Hindi film for the sake of his trade because every time a Bollywood heroine is seen sporting a new style of sari blouse or even saris with interesting patterns, he is asked to ape the style. So much so that these clothing ranges get branded as a Kajol pink or an Aishwarya blue. Considering the number of films we produce and mass hysteria whipped up for the leading stars, movie merchandising should be raking it in right? In reality however, the unorganised market seems to doing a better job in tapping this potential than others.

STARRY JEANS

To be fair to the organised players, there’s ample evidence of effort by various stake holders. Right from the time of Maine Pyaar Kiya to Rang De Basanti, Goal Jodhaa Akbar and Race, movie merchandising has been tapped with varying degrees of success. Siddharth Roy Kapur, COO, UTV Motion Pictures believes be it movie marketing or merchandising, it is all a function of evolving.

Like film marketing, which command as much as 40 % of the cost of production today, from 10-15% earlier, Kapur says that as more professionals enter the film industry, licensing and merchandising will grow as well. “There is surely an opportunity for pure play building and though merchandise may be a small contributor in terms of percentage today, it will grow in the time to come,” states Kapur.

The optimism of future growth is reflected on the kind of monies players are pumping into movie merchandising. Take Jodhaa Akbar for example, for which jewellery brand Tanishq was associated right from the movie’s conceptual stage. Tanishq, over a two year time frame on Jodhaa Akbar has invested close to Rs 5 crore. For Race, Provogue is also investing around Rs 5 crore to merchandise and market the clothesline in the movie.

Jean brand Pepe’s association with Yashraj’s Dhoom 2 involved vying in a pitch which according to market sources involved Levis and Lee Cooper. Pepe’s execution of the project is what won them the merchandising license. Over the six months both YRF and Pepe did huge sales on the D2 range with the jeans sported by Hrithik Roshan (the torn style at Rs 2,999) hitting the jackpot with consumers. Most merchandising deals are done on a minimum guarantee basis which according to market sources varies form Rs 75 lakhs to 2 crore.

WINDOW DRESSING

While marketers still talk about intangibles like positive rub off to the brands, there are instances of the change in the way merchandising is looked at as a potential revenue stream. Retail is where the players are putting their bets on. Brands such as Shopper’s Stop, Pantaloons, Reebok and Tanishq have benefitted from associations with the respective movies right from inception.

While Krrish was a resounding success for Pantaloons making retail honcho Biyani re-look at the potential of movie merchandising, recounting the experience of Shopper’s Stop association with Om Shanti Om (OSO), CEO Govind Shrikhande believes revenues came in because both parties worked together as channel partners. “There were other projects where the product was ready and they just wanted us to sell. We refused. In OSO, there was a detailed mapping with the story narrated to us. It enabled us to adopt the looks for own brands like Mario Zegnoti and Vittorio Frattini,” explains Shrikhande.

He credits the detailed strategy for OSO as the reason for Shopper’s Stop clocking sales of close to Rs 5 crore from the OSO line. Similarly in the case of show brand Reebok, Sajid Shamim, director - marketing, Reebok India, was clear about the association with the movie Goal. “It was a sport based movie and we are rooted to sports. In most cases, merchandising is an after thought. We were involved right at the onset.

Luckily for us, we had sourcing capability, so we were able to offer exactly what John Abraham was wearing to our consumers,” explains Shamim. Without delving on revenues from Goal merchandise, Shamim