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Sravanthi Challapalli

Chennai, July 14 Zapak.com, the online gaming company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, has tied up with 20 movies to distribute merchandise based on them in the next one year.

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Arun Mehra, Chief Marketing Officer of Zapak.com, said the movies were mostly Hindi movies but also included some Hollywood ones. The company has acquired the distribution rights from Cartoon Network’s Pogo channel Pogo for movie merchandise of the recent release LoveStory 2050 starring Priyanka Chopra and Harman Baweja. Prior to this, Zapak had partnered with the movie Bhootnath and released five game packs.

Mr Mehra said that while the movie merchandising market in India was nascent, the prospects were good. The market is estimated to grow to $4-5 million in the next few years. Zapak has sold 50,000 units of the Bhootnath merchandise which included painting and transfer kits and saw repeat demand, he said.

The 3,000 units put out for LoveStory 2050 in the first run have been sold out too, he said. These include toy gizmos such as the Space Carrier which the leading pair commute in, the Space Listener, which enables one to listen to sounds from far away and a robot pet Boo. The prices range from Rs 299 to Rs 999.

According to Mr Mehra, the toys continue to sell even after the movie has completed its run in theatres. The merchandise is being sold through over 3,500 gift/toy/ high-end stationery stores. “Zapak has strong equity with children, over a million of them play on Zapak. Consumer feedback and requests for toys prompted us to get into movie merchandising,” Mr Mehra said.

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