Merchandise
knock-offs
Zoozoo
rakhis, anyone?
The official Zoozoo
fan club page on social networking site Facebook has
at least 313,129 fans, by Gouri Shah
 Mumbai:
After making their debut on television ads during the Indian
Premier League earlier this year, the lovable egg-headed Zoozoos
quickly made their way onto comic strips, newspaper mastheads,
birthday cakes, wedding cards, shoes, T-shirts, key chains and
even rakhis, as clever local and Chinese marketeers cashed in on
their popularity with fans. Now, creator Vodafone Essar Ltd is
planning to launch official Zoozoo merchandise with retail chain
Shopper’s Stop Ltd.
“We are in discussions and are very close to signing the
deal,” said a senior official from Shopper’s Stop Ltd,
who did not want to be named, citing company policy. This was
also confirmed by a senior advertising executive familiar with
the development, who added that Shopper’s Stop was still
scouting for good suppliers to produce the Zoozoo merchandise.
It’s a delay that could cause the official Zoozoo creators
to lose revenues to pirated merchandise producers.
Shoppers Stop is likely to manufacture and market Zoozoo
T-shirts, bags, clocks, dolls, mugs and key chains, among other
things. “The merchandise should be out soon, possibly
within a month or two,” says Rajiv Rao, executive creative
director, South Asia, Ogilvy and Mather Pvt. Ltd, who created
the Zoozoo campaign.
Shoppers Stop has so far produced branded apparel and
accessories for films such as Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om
and, more recently, for the forthcoming Saif Ali Khan starrer
Love Aaj Kal. Barring a slightly unsuccessful licensing
deal with Disney almost a decade ago, this will be the firm’s
only attempt to produce branded character merchandise. It’s
an area few retailers want to venture into, considering the vast
amount of knock-offs available at every price point in the
market.
“Character merchandising is easy to copy and there really
isn’t any control on violation of intellectual property,”
says Govind Shrikhande, customer care associate and chief
executive for Shoppers Stop Ltd.
He explains that unlike film merchandise, which has a shelf
life of 10-12 weeks—allowing merchandisers to move in and
move out before the knock-offs had even arrived—character
merchandising is a greater challenge, especially if the official
merchandise is expensive, thereby encouraging the demand for
cheaper knock-offs.
According to Shrikhande’s estimates, the size of the
branded merchandise market is around Rs 1,050 crore. Of this,
film merchandise accounts for Rs 50 crore, character merchandise
from the largest player in the market, Disney, for Rs 500 crore
and another Rs 500 crore is for other popular characters such as
Ben 10, SpongeBob SquarePants, Hanuman and so on.
For Indiangiftsportal.com, an e-commerce site hosted by
Intermesh Shopping Network Pvt. Ltd, it made good business sense
to stock products featuring the Zoozoos. “In the last 15
days, the site has sold close to 100 Zoozoo rakhis,” says
managing director Manan Sharma. The rakhis cost Rs 300 each and
include a card, a handmade box, courier and credit card charges.
“The little Zoozoo characters are manufactured and sourced
from China, the colourful rakhi ribbons and threads are added
here,” he says, adding that his attempts to win an official
licence for Zoozoo merchandise had come to nought. Was he
worried that he would be sued for infringement of intellectual
property rights? He says, “Why should it be a problem? We
are making the Zoozoos popular!”
Online merchandise site Myntra Designs Pvt. Ltd has been a
little more cautious.
“We have 4,000 creative designers on our site who
contribute their own designs and in the recent past, we’ve
had to reject at least 15 T-shirt designs that were based on the
Zoozoos due to copyright issues,” says Mukesh Bansal, chief
executive, Myntra Designs, an e-commerce site that also enables
users to create and design their own merchandise. “However,
we allow consumers to place orders with their own images and we’ve
had two-three customized T-shirt orders like that, with images
of Zoozoos.”
No surprise there, considering the character’s broad
appeal and popularity. The official Zoozoo fan club page on
social networking site Facebook has at least 313,129 fans.
Experts maintain that such branded merchandise serves well for
the brand as well as the retail partner. “For the brand,
such merchandise reinforces the image. For the retailer, each
time there is an ad, you get to ride on the popularity of the
character. So in that sense, it works beautifully for both
parties,” says Devangshu Dutta, CEO, Third Eyesight, a
retail consultancy firm.
Vodafone Essar on their part is choosing to remain tightlipped
about the deal. “Discussions are on, but I’m not sure
if we will be able to do anything. To begin with, we have no
experience in this (merchandising) business and secondly, there
is still so much we have to do in the telecom business…we’re
not ruling it out. As and when we have the bandwidth, we will
consider it. As of now, we haven’t zeroed in on anything,”
said Harit Nagpal, director marketing and new businesses,
Vodafone Essar. “We don’t need to overdo a good thing.”
The mobile services provider has three ongoing campaigns: the
pug to convey customer service, Bollywood actor Irrfan Khan to
communicate the brand’s value for money products and the
Zoozoos to communicate their products service and offering.
Industry watchers believe that the last could eventually go on
to promote more than just value-added services for the mobile
services provider. |
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