The live events at the centre allow parents to transfer the intangible and invaluable nostalgia from their childhood to their children growing up in a digital, screen-dominated world. We’ve seen tremendous success and are now licensing this out to multiple venues across India.
Last year, we inaugurated our very first ACK Alive Centre in Hyderabad allowing children to experience the stories of Amar Chitra Katha through live events and an after school program called Kala Gurukul. The global success of Kidzania is another fine example of the entertainment and educational value of experiential licensing. The need to feel this real contact is almost at a visceral level and the experience in turn brings in much satisfaction. As our lives get more and more digital and wired, we human beings crave more and more ‘real’ contact whether it with friends or with the stories and brands we love. Whether it is the Kellogg’s cereal café, Louis Vuitton restaurants, or closer home, Tinkle (the children’s magazine) birthday parties, or the ‘sacred’ party I mentioned earlier, these experiences allow consumers and fans to experience their favourite brands with all their senses. This is a trend which is becoming popular across the world. As I shared this with our marketing team, we began to discuss the new trends in the licensing space and here are the top 3 we could see were imminent. The invite carried branding and visuals from the show and promised an evening that would be a live experience of the show. The interesting thing was this was not a promotional event for the show, but a specially crafted, ticketed event. The restaurant was hosting a special ‘sacred’ party, themed on a popular show on Netflix. I recently received an unusual invite on whatsapp from a live music resto-pub that I have been to in the past.