Turner International India has been appointed as Warner Bros Consumer Products' (WBCP) master licensee for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
Turner will manage Warner Bros' (WB) portfolio of globally acclaimed franchises including classic cartoons like Tom & Jerry, The Looney Tunes Show, Scooby Doo along with WB blockbuster movie franchises like Harry Potter and DC Comic's superhero league including Batman and Superman.
"We will be working on a royalty-based license fee model for the WBCP portfolio. The current arrangement is valid till the end of 2017," Turner International India, South Asia Managing Director Siddharth Jain told PTI.
The portfolio also includes popular TV series Friends.
Turner will be responsible for growing the WBCP business across categories such as toys and games, sporting goods, gifts and novelties, automotive, home furnishing, housewares, stationery and paper products among others.
"We have already signed deals for WBCP with Titan, Firefox, Crompton Greaves, Creative Portico, Funskool, Parle, Vanessa amongst others," Jain said.
The WB products will be available in over three lakh outlets, across all distribution channels including mass distribution, mom & pop stores, e-commerce websites and large format stores.
"As pioneers in the kids' genre of television entertainment, we will be showcasing the classic cartoon properties such as The Looney Tunes Show, Tom & Jerry and others on Pogo while superhero series of Batman and Superman will be aired on Toonami.
"Since the DC Comic properties are very popular in the young adult age group, we intend to partner with a number of lifestyle and youth-centric brands," he said.
The size of the licensing and merchandising industry is estimated at Rs 4,000 crore.
"Although a mere 4 per cent of the global industry, in our experience, the Indian market is evolving at a fast pace. Fuelled by the recent e-commerce boom, we can easily aim for double digit growth in the character led licensing and merchandising business in the coming year," he added.
