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... [continues]

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