Be it licensing for merchandise or bringing international reality TV shows to india, there is still a lot to happen on the domestic circuit. will the future unfold just as beautifully as predicted by marketers? 4Ps B&M’s Pawan Chabra presents his findings... In 2003, ITC placed a huge order of 4.5 crore comics with Diamond Comics for Sunfeast’s brand launch campaign. The comics were to be distributed free as part of the Sunfeast promotional campaign among kids. It was then that Gulshan Rai spotted a golden opportunity. The Managing Director of Diamond Comics realised that his paper heroes had it in them to ring-in mammoth additional revenues through brand licensing. Rai recalls, “We realised then that there can be a brand licensing program that can be exercised. Our comics have been used by many companies for promotional purposes since then...” An obvious refrain would be that popular characters from the company’s stable – Chacha Choudhary, Pinki and Billu – are way less popular than Walt Disney’s characters or even American super heros like Superman and Batman and therefore would command less goodwill. But Rai believes differently. He argues, “Foreign characters are only popular in metros, but we have a pan-India reach and even people living in remote areas have been reading our comics for years.”
Diamond Comics is also planning a TV Channel named Diamond TV in the next 8-9 months, which will make its popular comic characters all the more familiar with the target audience. Though Rai declined to comment on his revenue targets, but he seemed certain that, “Diamond TV’s launch will phenomenally increase the brand equity of its comic characters...” Besides the TV venture, the company also has plans to launch stationary items, chewing gums, et al, in the coming months, in a bid to extend its brand licensing and merchandising programme. At a time when power brands seem to be singing their way to the banks, the news for regional brands is also not too bad. Marketers believe that even brands with recognition in Tier-II and Tier-III towns will come to assume equal importance as those of the big players, as brand licensing is fast acquiring the shape and form of a mind-boggling $190 billion-worth global phenomenon! It’s the new obsession of the new-age marketers across the world. And the potential for India is tremendous, given the small inroads that have been made so far.
For the uninitiated, brand licensing is worth more than $71.25 billion in countries like US and Canada; Western Europe is catching up with annual earnings of $26 billion from brand licensing. But where exactly does India stand in this fight to make the most by allowing others to exploit your brand? First, the bad news – India, with an annual global licensing market share of just 1% is still a laggard. The good part – despite that, India Inc. has sensed the huge opportunity lying ahead, both for marketers as well as brand licensing experts, who are salivating at prospects of multi-fold growth in this industry in the coming years.
In fact, Gaurav Marya, President, License India (one of the largest Indian companies that has a structured and focused approach toward licensing), estimates the current size of this industry to be around Rs.500 crore with the potential of a strong 40-50% CAGR over the next couple of years. “The biggest advantage that India has is the huge number of world-class manufacturers available in the country,” adds Marya. But what does it take to make a brand licensing program successful in a vast and diverse country like India?
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