Indiantelevision.com Team

(13 May 2008 4:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Percept, an entertainment, media, and communications company, has stepped into a 50:50 joint venture deal with Future Group to form "Bollywood Retail".

The JV will entail an initial capital outlay of Rs 500 million and open in 8-10 locations in the first phase that include Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Indore, Jaipur, Pune, Delhi and Mumbai.

Bollywood Retail will focus on providing the "Bollywood experience" and "Bollywood merchandising" within the Future Group's retail network.

The first Bollywood Experience Centre is expected to be up and running by the fourth quarter of 2008.

Percept had earlier set up Bollywood Corporation Private Limited, to create and own IPR assets in the Bollywood domain. It aimed to provide the complete "Bollywood experience" including Bollywood cafes, walk throughs, Hall of Fame, Bollywood museums, Bollywood theme Park, merchandising and other experiential offerings for the visitors.

The JV will independently source Bollywood IPR and software from Percept's Bollywood Corporation and use retail infrastructure from the Future Group.

Future Group CEO Kishore Biyani said, "For many, Bollywood is an experience in itself which they aspire to get close to and we will give the audiences an opportunity to do so. Through this partnership with Percept we hope to bring a unique touch and feel of the Bollywood experience to the consumer."

Percept Limited joint managing director Shailendra Singh said, "Bollywood merchandise is just the first of many things to result from this partnership. The international market has been exposed to the concept of merchandising and is a much more mature market than India; the domestic market is still nascent, but I am sure that in due course, the concept of merchandising will be lapped up by the consumers in a big way. The target audience has clearly been demarcated and while we will cater to both international and domestic markets, we will look at a 70:30 ratio in terms of target marketing. We will use Future Group's expertise in the retail business to market and leverage Bollywood Merchandising".