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Tag: Ra:One

  • Can India become a sports merchandising haven?

    Can India become a sports merchandising haven?

    MUMBAI: The entire business fraternity in India gets buoyed by 500 plus cumulative reach of a sporting event or a movie grossing over Rs 300 crore, but hardly puts any effort in translating this success into other formats. One of the most reached sporting event in India, the Indian Premier League (IPL) over eight years of operation, faltered to develop the merchandising business in India. The story is quite similar in movies too. Star Wars holds the record of largest selling merchandises in movies as it has garnered $12 billion over the years and is still evolving. Indian super hero movies like Krrish and Ra:One hardly managed to scratch the surface of the huge merchandising industry.

    Since last year, PUMA has been pumping some much needed energy into the dormant merchandising industry in India. The sports apparel giant signed a five year deal for approximately $51 million per year with London based English Premier League (EPL) football club Arsenal FC in 2014. Arsenal is ranked seventh in the list of top Soccer team valuations, which is lead by Spanish giants Real Madrid FC.

    This year, PUMA flew all time Arsenal legends Ray Parlour and Sol Campbell to India and made them launch the Home and Away kit. A screening of historical Invincibles documentary was organised alongside road shows. Mehboob Studios in Mumbai turned into a battalion of gunners wearing red and white, welcoming the legends wholeheartedly by cheering out loud and clear.

    Parlour and Campbell were mesmerised, and the eagerness in fans’ eyes to see the new kit unveiled was an encouraging sight for PUMA India managing director Abhishek Ganguly. “India holds 10 per cent of Arsenal’s social media fan base and we feel, we are stronger together. This year’s campaign is named ‘Powered By Fans,’ to make fans feel special to celebrate with them. The new kit is an elevated version of last year, more comfortable, more stylish” he said.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com about the merchandising market in India, PUMA India executive director product and merchandising Atul Bajaj says, “The market is still at a nascent stage. However, the growth potential is huge and as long as the brands involved have synergies it is a win-win situation. Though the size of licensed merchandise globally is much bigger, the growth rate for this segment is in the range of 80-90 per cent.”

    To add to PUMA’s delight, the team broke its trophy jinx by winning the FA Cup in 2014 and wearing PUMA apparel they defended it by winning again in 2015. The fans are more excited now as they believe the league title is inching closer. Sharing PUMA’s aspirations in the second year into the deal Bajaj asserts, “We expect a huge growth in this second year of our association, exceeding 200 per cent. Arsenal has a huge and loyal fanbase, the performances are great with much more to follow and to top it all we have a great merchandise range for the fans. It also helps that Indian fans comprise close to 10 per cent of overall Arsenal fans on social media.” 

    As can be seen below in the graph, the sports merchandising market globally grew to $20.07 billion in 2015 compared to $19.57 billion in 2014.

    The other factor that predominantly hampers the merchandising industry is piracy. Substantial number of football fans are often spotted all over the country wearing club jerseys but seldom are they original. Though for PUMA the target audience is totally different, Bajaj feels knockouts do damage a brand.

    He says, “While knockouts damage a brand, however in terms of business, the target group is completely different. The Arsenal fan and PUMA consumer would never want to buy or wear a cheap fake knockoff. We also have a legal cell in place, which proactively ensures that this menace is minimised.”

    Merchandising is not only limited to jerseys, which is the most expensive one but other exclusive products like training kits, wrist bands and stockings used by the players also attract fans. However, brands do not pay enough attention to those, feels Arsenal’s officially recognised Delhi fan club admin Nishant Singhal.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Singhal says, “Powered By Fans delight every fan and the ones that I interact with wear the official jersey of the team. The problem with merchandising is the range of products. Apart for home jerseys, it is very difficult to find anything available and I would request PUMA to change that. Special thanks to them for getting Ray Parlour and Sol Campbell in India. Pricing is not an issue as it is identical globally and people can buy online to avail many discounts.”

    Speaking on the range of products, Bajaj claims, “PUMA has a complete range of Arsenal products including Replicas, fanwear, footwear, accessories and more. An Arsenal fan will have the complete range of products available to choose from and enough options to showcase his love for the club.”

    Bangalore Arsenal FC official fan club admin Vinay CP is also buoyed by the fact that this year the campaign is named Powered By Fans. He oversaw the proceedings of the 2014 jersey launch. Vinay feels that PUMA is giving adequate visibility to Arsenal products. “In every PUMA store that you enter, you will see Arsenal merchandise everywhere and that’s something I like as a fan. The reason why the merchandising business is not picking up in India is because of the pricing and piracy. Still the number of original jerseys is going up substantially.”

    PUMA has also tied up with Amazon India to enhance its reach. The home jerseys, which are priced at Rs 4299, can be purchased from PUMA outlets, in.Puma.com and Amazon India. “Amazon helps us reach to a far wider group of consumers and markets, which were earlier inaccessible. The ease of purchase encourages people – who either do not have access or do not want to travel, but be able to get the latest products sitting in their homes. Above all, it provides us a great platform to engage with the fans. Our event related posts on Amazon’s social media for example drove top tier engagement rates,” adds Bajaj.

    Baseline co-founder and director R Ramakrishnan feels that in India, merchandising and licensing has huge growth potential. “India is a lucrative market and that’s why PUMA is aggressively promoting Arsenal merchandises by getting in legends in the country. Football merchandising is always a style quotient, the jerseys are always elegantly designed with one title sponsor on it, which one can wear and flaunt unlike those in IPL where it becomes more billboard and less apparel because of the number of sponsors. Given the youth population in the country, I think elegant merchandising will pick up in India,” he says.

    A merchandising expert on condition of anonymity opines, “The merchandising partners never really ran an interactive on ground campaign be it WWE, football or cricket and hence the merchandising industry never picked up. It’s so ironical that a country like India, where cricket is considered as less sport and more religion, hardly has a substantial merchandising base. On one side, you have Sachin Tendulkar and on the other side Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. India never took merchandising seriously. PUMA is bringing in what was missing in merchandising industry, they got in Arsenal legends, organised a road show, screened Invincibles for the first time in Asia and that’s the way ahead. They have already started putting hoardings on prime locations. As a well wisher of the merchandising industry I feel all the licensed partners should put in more efforts and rejuvenate the industry.”

    IPL chairman Rajiv Shukla in the recent past had said that the BCCI will sell IPL merchandise centrally to boost up the sector. Seven out of the eight teams agreed to that, whereas Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) decided to sell their merchandise separately as they already invested a lot in developing the business. Overall, it remains to be seen if other big names will also join in and contribute to what PUMA has started for the merchandising industry in India to pick pace and reach its potential.

  • Ra.One lacks in the script department

    Ra.One lacks in the script department

    MUMBAI: When you have done just about everything and still find yourself at a stage where you want one box office blockbuster to retain the top spot, you want to do something different. So here we have Ra.One, which is purported to serve that purpose.

     

    Producer: Gauri Khan.
    Director: Anubhav Sinha.
    Cast: Shah Rukh Khan, Kareena Kapoor, Master Armaan Verma, Arjun Rampal, Shahana Goswami, Tom
    Wu, Dalip Tahil, Satish Shah, Suresh Menon.

    TheThe intentions are noble enough. It is the execution and the content which don’t comply! A few reels into the film and you wonder “where is this all leading?”

    We have had a few films about super human – Mr X, Mr India, Krrish– but Ra.One is about bringing a videogame superhero to life.

    Shah Rukh Khan is a computer geek. He and his team are asked to develop a blockbuster video game since the company’s last one flopped badly. If he fails, the office will be converted into a restaurant and Khan and his team will be waiting on the guests; so much for being wizards of the virtual world.

    Shah Rukh plays a docile, meek man whose cute and almost-whiz kid son, Armaan, does not think much of his father, while his wife, Kareena Kapoor, just loves him for what he is.

    The thinking is that to be a computer nerd one has to be a South Indian, so that is what Shah Rukh is cast as while Kareena is supposed to be a Punjabi, for whatever reason.

    The son thinks super heroes are not cool anymore and wants the super villain to be more powerful. With this idea, Shah Rukh begins work on his next video game where the villain is all powerful. This is Ra.One, ArjunRampal, in his final avatar (there being many since he can morph in to anyone’s identity). The hero is a good-hearted G.One, who stands a 0.01 per cent chance of survival against the villain. It is here that the film begins to sag.

    The process of developing the video game and computer lab gizmos make for tedious watching and accounts for almost the entire first half. When the programme is eventually ready and being launched in a grand ceremony, things start going haywire elsewhere as Armaan tries his hand at the game in the lab. He is forced to leave it halfway, which drives Ra.One mad and he decides to emerge out of the virtual world into the real world to destroy Lucifer, Armaan’s video game ID.

    The villain is out on the loose and kills Shah Rukh Khan, who designed him. The mother-son duo go on the run with Ra.One chasing them, first on the trot and later on the bike. One wonders why a villain who can almost fly, leap miles or materialise anywhere out of thin air needs to chase them like a normal human being. But then, this helps provide some thrill, destroying a few cars in the name of entertainment. Meanwhile, Armaan has also managed to bring out G.One to life in the shape and size of Shah Rukh Khan, a protector for the pair. In the end, as it should be, even with 0.01 per cent odds, good wins against the evil. It is a shame that you are too mentally fatigued to understand the intricacies of how and why.

    Ra.One is a technical and special-effects treat if you care for that sort of thing as entertainment. But the fact that it is carried a bit too far is a deterrent. Also, in the absence of decent contribution from the script department, this technical triumph eventually comes to nothing. Dialogue is routine and funnier lines are mostly of the below-the-belt variety. Musically, while, Chhammak Chhalo… has been much hyped, the pick of the lot is Dildaara dildaara. Action is well choreographed but gets repetitive after a point, thereby losing its novelty. Direction is average with many scenes stretched beyond utility point.

    As for performances, Shah Rukh does what he has been doing all along. He is cute and playful when in normal role but when he enacts the video game character, the ghost of My Name Is Khan seems to possess him and he acts as if he is affected by Aspergers syndrome again. Kareena Kapoor is good. Master Armaan steals the show. Rest have limited scope.

    On the whole, Ra.One opened to below expectations response due to wrong release day (Diwali). Having picked up handsomely on second day, it started its slide on third day. The appreciation being poor, the film’s box office potential stand hugely challenged.

    Tell Me O Khuda is a good idea treated in an old- fashioned way

    Tell Me O Khuda is meant to be a re-launch vehicle for the almost forgotten Esha Deol. Mother Hema Malini is the one to do the needful. In what seems like a wise move, the story chosen needs three veteran actors, all stars to reckon with in their own heydays, in Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor.

     

    Producer: Hema Malini.
    Director: Mayur Puri.
    Cast: Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor, Hema Malini, Esha Deol, Arjan Bajwa, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Farooq Sheikh, Deepti Naval, Madhoo, Johny Lever, Sudhanshu Pandey, Sharat Saxena, Gurbachan.

     Hema Malini herself puts in a cameo along with some critically acclaimed oldtimers such as Faroooq Sheikh, Deepti Naval and Madhu. Further, to make it pleasant to the movie watchers‘ eyes, this three episode drama is shot in three of the most picturesque locations, Rajasthan, Turkey and Goa. The packaging is near perfect.

    Esha Deol is a writer who has been brought up by Farooq Sheikh and Deepti Naval with all the love and affection in the world, until one day she finds out that she is their adopted child.

    Esha decides not to rest until she finds her real parents and discovers why they deserted her.

    It has been 24 years and the municipal hospital is not sure it has all the records since a day after Esha was born; the hospital had caught a major fire. Esha‘s search leads her first to Vinod Khanna, a Rajasthani royal whose wife had a baby girl (though one wonders why a Rajasthan royal‘s wife should be delivering a baby in a Mumbai‘s municipal hospital!). She died in child birth but instructed her maid not to take the baby girl home since the thakur, Vinod Khanna, believed in and wanted only a male heir.

    This section of the film also has some interesting behind-the-scene royal politics between Vinod Khanna‘s nephew and heir apparent. Esha wins over Vinod Khanna while proving she can do anything as well as or better than any son and makes him change his steadfast beliefs about a girl child. But then the maid who was a witness to the child‘s birth 24 years back reveals that it is not Esha but the girl she has brought up as her own who is his daughter.

    Back to square one, Esha pays another visit to the municipal hospital‘s records department. This is quite enjoyable as Johny Lever is the clerk in charge (so what if his desk sports a symbol of Ashok Chakra!). The clerk has another father for Esha to visit, this time in Turkey, where Rishi Kapoor has shifted from his Bandra residence. Rishi Kapoor‘s wife, Turkish actor Meltem Cumbul, has taken her newborn‘s death in the hospital fire badly and gone into a shell ever since. When he sees that his wife is warming up to Esha, Rishi Kapoor goes along with her belief that finally she had found her parents. Meltem Cumbul is cured and Esha realises that these are not her parents but she was only used by Rishi Kapoor for his wife‘s sake.

    It is third time lucky for Esha when her beau, Arjan Bajwa, finds out that there was one more possibility, Dharmendra, who is now a don in Goa. A love child of Dharmendra and Hema Malini, she had been abandoned by the latter to keep her away from her lover‘s illegal ways. Hema Malini herself became a nun!

    Dharmendra‘s being a don also offers scope for an action climax. It all ends happily as all her ‘four fathers‘ are present for her wedding with Arjan Bajwa.

    Tell Me O Khuda swings between the story of a girl in search of her antecedents and a do-gooder, a girl always in hurry to call every next person she traces as daddy.

    It is a good idea treated in an old- fashioned way. The absence of a single director‘s vision is obvious. The film never touches you as nowhere does it make you feel sympathetic towards Esha‘s plight or cause. Esha Deol is as much to blame as is the treatment as both fall short of delivering. Music is of little help. Rest of the aspects are routine. Tell Me O Khuda is a poor contender at the box office.

  • Shah Rukh Khan trying to rope in Schumacher for Ra.One

    Shah Rukh Khan trying to rope in Schumacher for Ra.One

    MUMBAI: Shah Rukh Khan is leaving no stone unturned to make his ambitious film Ra. One into a hit.

    The star is planning a tie-up with the Formula One World Championship to promote Ra.One during the Grand Prix that will take place in Noida on 30 October. He is also trying to get Michael Schumacher to race in the Grand Prix with the title Ra.One embossed on his car.

    According to the actor‘s plans, all cars participating in the Grand
    Prix should sport Ra.One logos.