1. Objective
To suggest a strategy for Amar Chitra Katha to capture the new age generation in the comic industry and to explore various avenues of investment.
2. About Amar Chitra Katha
Since its inception in 1970s, Amar Chitra Katha witnessed success by entering the niche segment of comic industry, the Indian traditional method of storytelling and transfer of mythological knowledge. It became popular in early 80s with all-time favourite titles like “The Mahabharata” and later by “Tinkle”.
A. Challenges of ACK
Since 90s, with the entry of colour televisions, Amar Chitra Katha has been facing challenges due to the change in the interests of children towards substitute productes. ...view middle of the document...
The stories published by ACK also reflect such ideology.
Changing with times – One of the core capabilities of ACK is to change according to the requirement of contemporary customers. Inviting themes and stories from children and adults highlight their forward thinking mind-set. This was also a great mechanism to increase engagement with target customer.
Affordability with good reach – Unlike other competitors, ACK focus towards catering to the needs of the rural customer highlights their dedication to serving Uncle Pai’s passion. In spite of increasing cost, they tried to price their product within reach of rural customers.
Reputation/Brand Name – ACK enjoys greater amount of brand recognition and recall among its target audience. Its characters are immortal and easily identified by people of all generations.
Recommendations
1. Leveraging Existing Capabilities
For short term initiative, ACK should focus on maximum utilization of existing capabilities and popularity. This includes focusing on existing product portfolio and also extending product range relevant to target customer.
a) Merchandising of popular ACK characters (School bags/ notebooks/ toys)
With a growing market of branded merchandise of animated characters in India, it is an ideal time for Amar Chitra Katha to enter this market by licensing their main characters. Many confectioneries have also used animated characters to promote their sales by giving freebies associated with popular characters. Similarly we can merchandize some of the popular characters of ACK like Suppandi, Shikari Shambu, kalia etc by partnering with school supplies like school bags, water bottles, lunch box etc. We can also promote merchandises like toys, t-shirts, game puzzles of ACK’s special characters with a selected collection of their range of products. Gauging by the present popularity of ACK, this will fetch a considerable revenue for ACK.
b) Tie up with Kids Newspapers for Comic Strip
Children are excited and wait for the newspaper to arrive on that particular day of the week when the newspapers come with a kid’s weekly section such as young world of the Hindu etc. So, we can partner with some of the leading newspapers like The Hindu, Times of India and other regional newspapers to print comic strip on mythology and other characters in their kid’s weekly section. We can publish puzzles, comic strips and also publicize for quizzes and contests that are being held with Camlin and others.
c) Initiatives in foreign and Regional language
ACK should initiate publishing in more foreign and regional language. The success of Japanese manga in European and South East Asian countries highlight the presence of a nascent market there. Even Chota Bheem has also penetrated in 12 other foreign markets where it enjoyed considerable success.
d) Comic Con Festival
Comic Con India is the comic-based convention held in India. A Comic Con generally lasts for 2 days, and includes several workshops,...