Do games and toys lend themselves well to animation? what about vicea versa? Do Indians kids prefer to play board games?
Globally comics, board games, toys and other merchandise make up a big chunk of revenue for animation content creators, does the same have potential in India too?
While in Chennai, Animation ‘xpress’ Anand Gurnani met up with Funskool India CEO Raphael Kuriyan. Funskool India is a joint venture between Global games and Toys giant HASBRO and MRF.
Here are excerpts from the chat….
What has been the Funskool experience as far as making games and toys around animated characters is concerned? Which have been your hot sellers, which have been dissapointing?
It is not that animated characters by themselves are relevent to toy making. The relevance is the programming which is associated with the animated characters and the popularity of this programming among children. A lot of programming is available on the different children’s channels and only a few have got their prominence and become popular.
Funskool has obtained license for many of these popular programms and placed products in the market both imported and domestically manufactured. The popular programms have driven sales and has been an overall good experience. Perhaps the more successful have been Pokemon, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine, Power Puff Girls which is to name a few. I must say here that programms which have been normally successful abroad have not sometimes created ripples in India. Hence we must look for programming which must cater to parents and childrens minds.
As far as creating board games and toys are concerned, what are the current trends abroad?
Board Games have always been a large part of the toy business both in India as well as abroad.While Funskool has been a market leader in board games in India, our parent company is the market leaders of the board game market internationally. Even though we generally classify all box games as board games, the current trend is to have 3D game boards with plastic parts placed on the game board adding character and excitement to the game.
Generally speaking , board games can be further sub divided into categories like Family Games,Strategy Games,Preschool Games etc., The trend abroad is to create seperate winners in these categories. However, all time favourites like Monopoly, Scotlandyard, Battleship, Trivial Pursuit have continued to be very popular.In recent times, there has been introduction of electronic game boards adding to visual impact in the game play.
Merchandising is a hot word amongst upcoming studios trying their skills at developing IP. What sort of a potential (in terms of revenue and reach) do you think exists for animated content developers to tie up with companies like Funskool and collaborate in developing exciting games and toys around their characters?
Historically making animated cartoons was a slow process.Characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck,Tom & Jerry were popular through cartoons which were laboriously created. With the advent of sophisticated software, making cartoon films has become a less time consuming process. Currently there has been an explosion in the availability of programming.We can see from the many childrens channels which have now come to India that almost all of them have enough programming to keep their channels exciting and viewed. Perhaps the most exciting has been the Japanese animated cartoon characters which have exploded world around Pokeman, Digimon,Ninja Turtles Power Rangers and many more like that have been extremely popular and have also been very successful IPs.
The process obviously is to first have a successful and exciting story line with sufficient characters which will convert into toys and which are amiable to merchandising. The making of animated series for broadcasting on television and the popularising of these animated characters is a huge marketing exercise with high risks .There are many animated characters but only few have been successful.These are high cost marketing ventures where the cost of developing the IP may be a fraction of the marketing cost. It is the success of the international property which will drive sales of the merchandising and it cannot be the other way. Merchandising cannot drive the success of the animated character.
The launching of an intellectual property is a collaborative effort between the creator of the programming,the televison channel, the marketer/producer and the merchandiser.
What are your plans for accquiring licenses to Indian created animated IP or partnering Indian animation studios?
There is no doubt that as the largest toy company in India and probably the most successful toy manufacturing company in India, we will be keenly interested in partnering to create indian animated characters. The partners in such a venture should include the developers of property ,the television channels and the toy and merchandizers,manufacturers and marketers.
Could you give us an insight into the average Indian consumer who would pick up a Funskool product?
This is a very difficult question. It is very difficult to define an Indian consumer for Funskool products. Easier perhaps to define an indian consumer for toy products.
Funskool products are characterised by the development contents.Funskool has always made products where the child has gained from from playing with the product.Funskool has been a development aid to children.The content of the toy have been well researched and have been internationally accepted.We have also spent considerable amount of efforts in manufacturing international quality standards. The toy we manufacture could sell anywhere in the world both in terms of safety as well as in terms of content.
However, the little research that we have done seems to indicate that young parents both having Post graduate or Graduate education and family income exceeding Rs.30,000/- per month, is more likely the Funskool customer. The preference for Funskool falls off as education falls off. In short, young educated parents are most likely to be Funskool customers.