 Our next panel discussion is on a topic which is slightly technical, event merchandising and licensing, an easy opportunity, a subject that is not discussed on many industry forums, but it is a very pertinent one, because it defines a whole new remunerative revenue stream. To speak about this, I'm going to invite the experts on stage, Mr Bhavik Wora, he's the founder of Black, White, Orange Brands, Private Limited, along with him, Mr Indranil Das Blah, he's the CEO of Mumbai City FC in the ISL, and moderating this discussion for us is Ms Kanika Sethi Babbar, we've spoken, wow, I like that reaction already, we've spoken in ensemble events and weddings, may we please have you on stage. On a topic which is a very, very efficient brand vehicle, however, quite not optimally utilized at least here. So we're going to talk about it a little holistically and then have a more event focused discussion on how events can use it to sort of enhance revenues, brand recall with their consumers, etc. Tell me, sports licensing accounts for about 11% in the global market. I'll open it to both of you. Where do we stand in India with event merchandising or just merchandising and licensing? Where are we at with stats and what's our space in the market today? In terms of the sports industry itself, I would say it's negligible. If it's 1% of all the revenue and all the work that we do, I think it's a good number, so it's honestly completely negligible. You look at, let's say an evolved property like the IPL, and you look at the kind of monies that the successful teams make out of merchandising, again, it won't be even more than 5% of their overall revenue. So, yeah, to answer your question, it's almost non-existent. Okay, Bhavik, you have a little more sort of a more wider exposure with merchandising and licensing because you not only deal with brands, but also in entertainment, media, movies. So I think one of your recent very successful campaigns has been with Bahubali, and you've also done work internationally with Game of Thrones. So tell us a little about maybe why it is the way it is taking engineers' point forward. One, two, maybe also give us information on the process that we need to follow and the kind of spends because maybe we just don't know enough about it. So, frankly, licensing, merchandising business in India is a very nascent industry. It's a very new business. In fact, there will be hardly four or five agencies like us who do this work because people think it's rocket science. And like the people who introduced the person who introduced us said it's technical, actually it's not rocket science at all, which works for us because people think it's something we should not get into. So that's a great entry barrier. Sports, it's actually pretty difficult to answer that question because what's happening is merchandising is always seen in India as domain. It's always seen as something which is for kids right from the Disney's of the world. So Disney's one of the market leaders in merchandising business in the world. So like Vellumani sir in the morning said, you always look at your neighbor, right? So everybody's looking at what Disney's doing and everybody's following what they are trying to do. What people are not realizing is that times have changed. We are consuming so much content which is outside of kids. The population that we have, the demographic in a country, a large part of it is between 15 to 35 and they are the consuming class. Nobody's targeting them from a merchandise perspective and that class is actually consuming content like Game of Thrones, they're consuming content like soccer, cricket and Bollywood and all these brands. And there's a lack of innovation and disruption in the space because sports, I can't imagine an event like IPL which has media rights which go for 16,000 crores has the most under serviced merchandise program. Like you know frankly when they are putting so much money in an event like IPL where the franchises are paying so much money, I think every avenue of the team has to be monetized and they are missing out a big piece by not monetizing the teams which I think the EPL teams do beautifully. I think if you look at Manchester United or FC Barcelona or Real Madrid or any of these iconic football teams, the way they manage their merchandise program is just outstanding and the kind of revenue they generate out of it is just unheard of. The reason why they do it because it's managed so well by people like Nike or Adidas and all these guys and we work very closely with Nike when we launched FC Barcelona in India and the kind of assets that they develop around the entire team and the culture and everything is so aspirational that you know the fans would love to own a piece of it even if it's expensive. So imagine a country like India where cricket is a religion but the biggest merchandise is sold for Chelsea, Manu and FCB so that's pretty ironic in that sense. If I could just add to that I don't think you know you look at the IPL franchises or you know the other sports franchises I don't think they've not tried it right they've all tried it they've all spent a lot of years trying to develop merchandising and products but it hasn't happened because India is a unique market and you'd know that better than all of us right typically in sports the challenges that a brand faces or franchise face are one piracy right in Mumbai City FC for example we've tried to keep our costs as low as possible but every time you go to a stadium you'll find 70% of the stadium wearing blue and pirated shirts right that's the same across the IPL so piracy is a big problem and costs are a huge problem right not to show how many of you guys know but the FIFA 17 World Cup starting today Nike has created official merchandise and the jersey the official entertainment jersey costs 5,000 rupees right when you go outside the stadium and you're getting that for 100 or 200 bucks why will you spend 5,000 rupees so these are the concerns with the market that teams have tried addressing but so far it hasn't worked so I think exposure with the ISL and I think Mumbai City FC is one team that does make a huge effort you know we've seen some cushions and we've seen some t-shirts and we've seen some silicone bands etc but also football is a new sport in India and the target audience is a young market where the buying capacity is maybe not that high so how do you then strike that balance between a buying power and the aspirational value of innovative products like he said that's also a challenge over here so how do you think through that or I think we're still in phase one factors the ISL is a three-year-old property it's very nascent you are not just trying to grow the brand of Mumbai City or ISL but you're also trying to grow the sport of football so we're still in phase one for us we are not looking at making money out of merchandising right now we are looking at creating the brand right so it might be a slightly controversial thing to say but when I go to a Mumbai when I go to a Mumbai City game and I see a lot of kids wearing Mumbai City jerseys which I know are pirated jerseys it still works for me because that's the brand being integrated into the market right so to answer your question we are not looking at making money out of merchandising over the next three years or so and then as the brand evolves and as people know about Mumbai City FC that's when you can start innovating products or looking at products that will actually add to your bottom line. Okay, so what is it that you look at or what is that step-by-step procedure that you would guide the event organization or the IP owner to kind of follow is there a style guide are there some standard operating procedures that you've looked at so if you could just tell us a little about that. So this business is based on one single premise which is the fans so if you look at licensing and merchandising business it's about the community of fans if you don't have fans you don't have a licensing merchandising business that's the rule that's a thumb rule for any new brand or any brand there has to be a critical mass of fans which will consume that product because they enjoy the equity or they enjoy the the brand in whether it's content or sports or frankly there has to be a community that community could be even boss hating community which is the largest community in the world and tomorrow you can actually create a brand which which helps you vent out your frustrations about your boss and create an entire merchandise program around it but that's the most critical part of it the moment you have that that's your starting point because you know that if I million fans I that's the first audience I have to target and then fans attract more fans like that's how football teams have attracted more fans the moment you your friends enjoy Manu as a team there are other people who start following that team because your friends are enjoying it so that initial critical mass is important and then the the biggest thing which we don't do is we don't make good creative assets on merchandise unlike and the reason why West is so successful in merchandising program is because the kind of assets they develop for their Hollywood movies or even celebrities or legendary stars it just translates beautifully on product but when you when we look at Indian IPs that's the challenge that you know we have to look at the art it was not a celebrity's face on the on the on the t-shirt because that's something that doesn't sell although we have that that colonial thing where we actually were messy and Ronaldo on a t-shirt we won't but we won't wear Mr. Bachchan or Rajni sir Rajni sir maybe you will but but yeah so that that's that's that's that's that's that's the there but creative assets is the most critical part of of any motion like in the real side IPL has tried it I think in most cases they fail because they've not invested on creating a really cool design program they spend crores of rupees on buying the team and you know buying players and creating this entire thing and you know they spend buying the team and you know buying players and creating this entire thing around the franchise but they don't have the intent of spending on the creators like I think the Mumbai City FC jerseys the most good looking jersey out of the entire ISL team and that's a requirement for for a fan to like a team as well they don't want a t-shirt which has you know 15 logos plastered on it because it just doesn't look aspirational enough for them to wear it that and especially when they're paying 1000 rupees for a t-shirt or 1200 rupees for a t-shirt it might as well look good on them that's I think the key point I think completely agree with you the IPL for example right these everyone spend close to a hundred million buying a team you're spending that kind of money it is a business you might have might as well invest a bit in terms of creatives right in terms of designs but it's just so ad hoc and it doesn't make sense to me why such big brands will not invest a bit in terms of creatives right I think that's a big case and you know so commonwealth games when there was a very it was a landmark event and I don't think we utilized it enough be it from a creative point of view retailing point of view what are some impactful online of course but what are other ways to retail the merchandise and also how does one encourage spectator interaction you know how does one make it more accessible whether on-ground free what are the different things that we can look at in terms of really creating that interaction between the merchandise and the consumer or fan because it's also you increase your fan base as well so not just having the fan base is one thing and then merchandising is a way of increasing that as well right so for example every team every team has a fan following like we're talking about IPL and very soon we've been working on one IPL team and we're launching a big program for them next week in fact will be out for everybody to see the idea is that the owners need to invest in in a long-term proposition for merchandise because it is not just making revenue for you it is creating a legacy for you the players will keep coming and going so a Virat is today playing for RCB but tomorrow somebody else will come but RCB will remain RCB for the next 10 years 15 years 20 years if that's how long IPL will remain so the idea is to create RCB as a franchise and then create an entire culture around the way they play or the way what they stand for and attract fans to that you can actually use Virat and you know all these other players to communicate that at that point and that's what fans will connect to so if I'm a Virat fan if I see him wearing something I will want to follow that and I would want to actually consume it and that's how you you know attract the engagement with them but it's very important that the owners back it the players back it because if the fans are not going to see their favorite players backing their team then they are not going to consume it and I'm going to take that back to you during the ISL games there's a very big hospitality area which is created and that has decision makers owners all of those I have not seen merchandise being really exploited if I can use that word because obviously you can also then segment your target audience and you can create different merchandise but I don't see that happening because it's also a big TV pickup area so broadcast will focus there. Why is that hospitality area with influences not used optimally for merchandising? I think it's a function of cost really because again the hospitality area you're looking at a very limited audience right so the kind of products that you will make will cost a certain amount however having said that I think what we've done successfully in Mumbai city is the maximum jerseys that we sell the official jerseys that we sell at the hospitality lounge because the people there will not mind spending two thousand or three thousand bucks on you know a jersey and a lot of them come there doing the game and then they see a jersey they buy it and wear it but that's a really small audience right our hospitality lounge seats on a best case scenario five hundred people right out of five hundred people maybe a hundred robot jerseys but you look at the entire stadium and it's difficult to get the stadium or 90% of the audience to buy the jerseys but yeah coming back to your question there's certain products that we do sell but having said that I don't think we can invest in creators and producing a line of products because that target audience was way too small but that's something that you would have a vision for you know in the next couple of years etc. Definitely I mean everything that the EPL clubs have done or Barcelona and Real Madrid have done is what we want to replicate and what we want to follow right because they've set the path we just need to follow that but it will take a while I won't even say short or medium term but it will take approximately 10 years for us to get there. Okay I'll move a little into the licensing part of it and I'll throw the question at you and then come back to you on that as well ISL is a central body and then there are the football clubs so does licensing of merchandise work centrally or is it team specific what is the process followed there? I think a franchise or a team will always have the biggest assets if you look at the world over right, classic example the EPL the EPL itself centrally doesn't have merchandise or licensing but it's the clubs that do right so you unite is Chelsea's Liverpool's same thing with the ISL or the EPL it's never going to be the central body but the franchisees actually that will have the licenses because your biggest assets are your players right and you the franchisees have access to your players not centrally. So are there then guidelines that XYZ will be done centrally across all cities and then the football clubs will do ADC so there is no It depends league to league right and every league is very different again I'll speak on behalf of the ISL in the first three years the clubs are allowed to do whatever they wanted is completely up to the club this year I think it's not confirmed but the ISL may explore the possibility of doing all merchandising centrally right so it depends on league to league depends on one of the creatives and the cost of the products and I think it will work for Bombay I don't know if it will work for markets as diverse as let's say the northeast of Goa but for Bombay it should work because it's an investment that we don't have to make and I think all franchises are very very conscious about their final PNL so if the central team is doing it and we get a guaranteed revenue I think it works for us for now. Licensing with international brands that come in here or even a movie like I know I'm going to keep going back to Bahubali I know you've just won the award for the what is it merchandising agency of the year for Bahubali right that and the licensing agency of the year so can you tell us a little more about the licensing process with entertainment, films, media so when we started Blackbird Orange two years back the two things we really wanted to do was is to create really cool aspirational merchandise for Indian brands and we started with Yuvaraj's brand last year we launched his sports fashion brand and two things which we believe are could be the next big driver because if you just target kids it's only that much that you can grow we have the two biggest consuming genre in India category in India which is Bollywood or Indian films and it's the most underserviced in terms of licensing and merchandising in that sense so when we started looking for collaborations on these things Bahubali came as an opportunity and we started working with them it's very important that the producers and the director have shared the same vision that you want to create you want to create the world of Bahubali through merchandising like how best people created through Harry Potter or you know all these big franchises and luckily for us the producers and Rajamali Saru directed the movie had a fantastic vision of what they wanted to create out of the world of Bahubali so it was not just merchandising it was virtual reality, animation, books, graphic novels everything so we started working on the project almost one and a half year before the movie released it's very important that you get early in the game so for us it was not just about slapping Bahubali logo on a t-shirt it was about how can you tell the story of the kingdom of Mahesh Mati or Bhalal they were Bahubali on every product that you make so they were very involved in the whole concept and creation stuff and we saw huge success with merchandise we did almost 25 crore worth of sales on Bahubali merchandise which is I think unheard of from an Indian film industry perspective it's almost become a case study in the way merchandise needs to be handled but that's the time you need to give to the partner who's creating it you can't come to me and say that okay my picture is made now create merchandise out of it then you can only create a mug and a t-shirt and say that okay we launch merchandise that's frankly that's not the way it will happen now in future I think Yash Raj is trying some really innovative stuff I think you guys are doing some really cool stuff on celebrity merchandiser so it's very important that you come in early you know that the movie is releasing at this late you don't change the date that's the most important because when Hollywood says that Jurassic World releases on 30th June 2018 it releases on 30th June 2018 and frankly when people are making merchandise they are investing huge amount of money on inventory so it's important that they are not stuck with those of rupees of inventory that go down so all these factors are a huge play okay so you know just as we wrap up now we are really growing in terms of the event business whether it's sports whether it's entertainment we just had a discussion on IPs etc and we are really focusing on make in India and all of that so maybe two three things you'd like to share with everyone on how we can create value from a merchandising and licensing point of view when we take our events internationally as well so you know an IFA is held internationally EMA held their leadership concave at Antalya so there's a lot of you know outbound events happening as well so any things that you would like to give us as tips as we wrap up on how we can I know that becoming trendsetters is a long drawn thing but things so we can start begin taking merchandising and licensing seriously because I think it is it really can create an emotional connect and increase our fan base or customer base so two three things that you would like to suggest in another three things that you'd like absolutely I think it's time that we make we start there's so much content that's being made locally in India and it's just about time that we create an extension of that and take it to the global market not just for Indians living there but also the locals there for example I think the biggest goldmine that we are sitting on and which we've never used is the legacy of our films like if I can actually come and put together like we Saregama has a bank of assets which where they have rights for dialogues and cassette covers and you know movie posters and stuff imagine launching these products really cool looking products in US or Europe or UK and stuff where a poster for Indian Bollywood film sells for five dollars ten dollars and we actually don't value it here at all I think it creates a great nostalgic value for people who live there for them Bollywood and Cricket are the two roots to which they connect to to India and they don't have any touch and feel of that that brand at all so we are trying that with Bahubali we are taking Bahubali to you we've already done that there are in fact global toy partners like Lego and fun school who are currently talking to us to create the entire world of Bahubali on you know play sets and you know all that so you know if that happens it will be one of its kind at first to to happen so yeah just a couple of points here one like Bhavik rightly mentioned it cannot be a especially in licensing it cannot be a reactive process right there needs to be time allocated to it the reason why Bahubali works so well was because the creative process started much before the release right and it wasn't an afterthought secondly I don't think we need to worry too much about building brands internationally I think the market in India is big enough it's a captive market let's make a use of let's make use of that thirdly I think good things happening right in terms of movies we've had Krish and we've had Ravan which did some amount of merchandising quite a lot yeah but then Bahubali came and has changed the game right similarly if you look at celebrity merchandising or licensing you see brands like HRX you see being human you see wrong and these brands are working today because they are not tied into the celebrity right they're creating much longer brands so tomorrow if a Virat Kohli die not sorry if Virat Kohli retires the brand will still go on because it's not called Virat Kohli right so it's creating legacy and it's just lessons that we're learning from the West that need to be implemented here so really good things are happening in licensing and merchandising we just need to hasten the process which I believe is happening great I think timing is very important giving time to create the right impactful designs and then I think thinking through the accessibility point of view would be three key takeaways from this session okay does anyone have any questions for them thank you thank you very much thank you so much for that I would request Mr Sanjeev Pashreecha group CEO CS direct please come on stage and felicitate them please