With the advancement of technology, more and more people are becoming brand conscious. How you feel when you spot a cute gullibly red angry bird or one of your favourite characters from ‘The Inside Out’ on t-shirts or bags? Obviously! They look adorable. With more and more brands adopting licensing and merchandising, the space is growing at 10-12 percent.
Jiggy George, founder and CEO, Dream Theatre, tells exclusively to Moneycontrol that the licensing in India to become a booming business with the increase in retail segment.
According to the Global Licensing Industry Survey Report 2016, licensing globally is estimated to be worth USD 251.7 billion The India licensing market is estimated at USD 1,260 million in retail. He foresees that India will be one of the top 3 growth markets in the next 5 years along with Brazil and China.
When asked about the rate the licensing industry is growing in India, Jiggy replied that globally the industry is growing at a healthy pace of 4-5 percent annually. However, markets like Brazil, China India are witnessing higher growth rates in the 10-12 percent region.
He feels the contributing factors to the growth of the industry in India are the growing brand awareness among people and the massive youth population. “India is one of the largest youth population with 50 percent of its population below the age of 25 and 65 percent below 35 years; this is the age-band where the majority of the target audience of the licensing consumer sits. Nearly 90 percent of retail being un-organized is the biggest stumbling block. Once retail opens up, licensing growth in India will explode,” Jiggy was quoted as saying from the Moneycontrol.
Speaking about the latest addition to their portfolios, Jiggy asserted that the constant urge to provide consumers the best in the growing the licensing business sets them apart. “This has translated into bringing in new genres of licensing and globally iconic brands to India and we are also taking Indian brands to the world,” he added.
Dream Theatre work with the best brands across three business verticals: Entertainment, Sports and Fashion & Lifestyle. On the entertainment side, they have Pokémon, Angry Birds, Beyblade, Oggy, Oddbods, and Candy Crush among others. On the Fashion side, the company works with Smiley, which is seeing massive traction in India. Dream Theatre now represents Saban and its iconic fashion brand, Paul Frank. On the Sports side, again they work with the FIFA and Real Madrid.
In addition, the Dream Theatre is also the global licensing agents for Gummybear and ChuChu TV. ChuChu TV has 15.3 billion views and over 20 million subscribers, whereas, gummy bear has 10 billion views.
The pre-school brand Beebop has an active product line in publishing and baby gift sets and accessories.
Talking about the future initiatives, Jiggy said the company is planning to launch Gummybear programme this summer globally.
“We are excited to take ChuChu TV, a global sensation emanating from India to market across the world. We have FIFA 2018 merchandise launching in March and as a programme, we have seen that grow massively since 2014,” he was quoted as saying from the Moneycontrol.
Speaking on the Xilam and Nazara deal, Jiggy said that the Dream Theatre has facilitated the Oggy collaboration with Nazara Technologies in India and is now a global deal. Nazara will be developing and launching a series of Oggy mobile games.
