For
the uninitiated, Beyblade has its origins in ancient
Japanese spinning top 'Bei Goma' and it involves spinning
blades, which are launched into a Beystadium - the
battling arena that is usually two-three feet in diameter.
Two
players play the game and launch their tops into the
Beystadium. The top that manages to fling the other
blade out of the Beystadium is declared the superior
blade and the owner gets to keep both the blades.
Beyblade championship therefore implies winning the
most number of blades.
The
show, which was launched on Cartoon Network on 20
May, has managed to whirl kids into its maze within
no time.
The
show airs from Monday to Friday at 5:30 pm. Interestingly,
in the first month of launch Beyblade on an
average rated 1+ TVR as compared to Pokémon,
which got a TVR of 0.8 in its first month.
Cartoon
Network Enterprise India and South Asia director Jiggy
George says, "Earlier this year the channel launched
merchandising around a strong girl brand - Powerpuff
Girls. Post that we needed to launch a strong
boy property, which would compliment the girl property
and Beyblade was the answer to that."
And
what's more, Cartoon
Network Enterprises inked a deal with Funskool India,
the Beyblades toys have seen a wipeout success. So
much so that there is no new stock in the market till
October. There are about 30 different kinds of Beyblades
in the market, which are priced between Rs 150 - Rs
349.
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|
The
works!!!
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The
toys are popular among kids aged 5 - 13 years and
its popularity is peer group led. Hence if one doesn't
have a Beyblade, he tends to feel left out.
By
Diwali, the Beyblade line of products will
be expanded to include apparel, gifts and novelty,
stationery, plastics, etc. These will be made available
in Shopper's Stop too by Diwali.
"Last
year we had a huge hit in Pokémon but
we didn't have the rights for it on the licensing
and hence we couldn't leverage the show's success
in any other form except for television. We go after
only those properties, which we instinctively think
are going to be larger than life and also those properties
that the network itself is putting all its thrust
behind. After Pokémon, we knew that
the real big property that we were going to go after
was Beyblade," says George.
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Beyblade
Broadcasts
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|
Country
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Network
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US
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ABC
Family & Toon Disney
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Canada
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YTV
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UK
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Toonami
and Five
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Australia
|
Cheez
TV
|
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Ireland
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RTÉ
Two
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India
|
Cartoon
Network
|
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Pakistan
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Cartoon
Network Pakistan
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Norway
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TV2
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Finland
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Nelonen
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Beyblade
is broadcast in more than 60 countries across the
globe. In the US, it airs on Cartoon Network but the
channel doesn't hold the merchandising rights for
it in any other country except India. "The importance
of why it would be huge is because the tops are central
to this show and we were sure that these were going
to be larger than life," says George.
In
India, the network is going easy on the promotions
side and has inked an annual deal with ITC for
Beyblade, which will be rolled out closer
to Diwali. The deal is across ITC's brands like Candy
Man. The network will also be looking at more such
promotional licenses' partners, who compliment the
show and the network.
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Spinning
facts on 'Beyblade'
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Beyblade
has scored the No 1 rating in ABC Family (USA),
YTV (Canada) and Cartoon Network (UK).
-----------------------------
Beyblade has more than 1000 merchandising
licensing products with 300 licensees worldwide.
-----------------------------
It is the No 1 selling toy in Japan, Canada,
UK, Australia and many other countries with
more than 100 million units sold worldwide.
-----------------------------
PS1 and Game Cube video game ranked at No 1
in UK, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium in
November 2003.
-----------------------------
Beyblade has had promotions with top
tier partners like Toyota, National, Burger
King, Kelloggs and Frito Lay in various countries.
-----------------------------
The Beyblade promotion with Kellogg's
in the UK resulted in 10 million packs being
sold across seven brands. In France, Belgium
and Netherlands 11 million packs across five
brands were sold.
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Promotions
with Frito Lay are also in the pipeline but the main
thrust of the business will remain toys for the network.
"When a show launches, usually it takes about
three-four months for it to hot up. Hence we brought
in a conservative number of about 100,000 units of
Beyblade initially. These were sold out in a month.
Starting from this week, we have a sizable quantity
of toys that we're bringing in to meet the huge demand,"
says George.
A
reason, George pointed out as to why Beyblade
has been a run away success, is because it is culturally
relevant to India. Boys have grown up playing with
tops and hence it works as a concept. "From a
toy market perspective it is a great value game rather
than a volume game because it's not paper unlike Pokémon,
which had paper trading cards. Beyblades are proper
toys. Another fact is that no other show has a toy
that is so central to the show itself and hence when
they get the toy, they relate to the show even more,"
says he.
When
the network plans to launch a new show on the channel,
the decision is mostly based on the programming and
how the show has fared in other countries. "Sometimes
there are properties like Pokémon and
Beyblade that work well universally, then in
addition to that we had the licensing rights for the
latter and hence it was a no brainer. We knew that
it was going to big. We get a lot of offers from third
parties to represent Cartoon Networks Enterprises
but we make sure that we work with only those who
will work for us right across," says George.
"We
are trying to bring in Beyblade video games
in India but right now, they don't have too many games
in the formats that work here. India is entirely PC
format whereas the games available are in the Game
Boy format," he adds.
The
introduction of Beyblade tops have actually dipped
the sales of other toys in the boys' category like
GI Joe, Superman, Batman and Justice League apart
from eating into the shares of Funskool's own toys
informs George. Funskool
had launched Pokémon cards and a select
range of toys around it but the speed with which Beyblade
has become popular beats everything else.
What
lies ahead are the different seasons of the show on
Cartoon Network. Beyblade has a total of three seasons
with about 51 episodes in each. The first season gets
over in October, which is when the second season launches.
The third season of Beyblade will launch next
summer. And what's more, each season will see new
tops in the market that will compliment the season
that's on
air.
Coming
to the issue of the rampantly breeding piracy market
where toys are concerned, Cartoon Network Enterprises
is not too bothered about it. George gives his reason
- "What's amazing about Beyblade is that
there is a sense of snobbishness among kids about
the original Beyblade. In the case of printed paper,
it is easy to copy but the Beyblade has a
steel rim around it and the fake one looks distinctly
different from the real one. So I'm not so worried
about piracy."
The
verdict is out. Beyblade is one of the most
popular shows on Indian television and more importantly
one that has captured the pulse of the kids at a greater
speed than any other show ever has.
Does
it get bigger than this? Only time will tell... but
for the time being, it's back to the Beystadiums!
