Pepsodant Cars2

Vroom..Vroom…Cars2 has not only come to a theater near you but also to the retail store near you.  Cars2 based products will soon be racing into your house(if not already). A plethora of Cars-themed products from toys and clothing to food have been introduced worldwide. In India Pepsodant, Britania has launched products based around Cars2.

Pappa & Pappu both love cars. So here an awesome opportunity to make everyone happy. Just buy a 150gms pack of Pepsodent 2 in 1 and get a Cars 2 dangly free and a chance to win a brand new car.

What is Cars2?

Cars 2 is a 2011 American computer-animated film produced by Disney -Pixar Animation Studios, and it is the sequel to the 2006 film, Cars. In the film, race car Lightning McQueen and tow truck Mater head to Japan and Europe to compete in the World Grand Prix. Cars is the second Pixar film, after Toy Story, to have a sequel.  These Cars have personalities. Instead of saying vroom-vroom, they talk and make jokes i,e they are anthropic. ( Anthropomorphism is a term  to refer to any attribution of human characteristics to non-human animals, non-living things,  etc).

Cars2 on June 24

Cars 2 was released in 4,115 locations, including 2,508 in 3D on June 24 2011. It raced to the top of the box office with $68 million in the first weekend. The original Cars made $60.1 million on debut in 2006. Cars  took a mere half-a-billion dollars at the box office – versus Toy Story 3’s billion. The most technically ambitious Pixar production yet, Cars2 is estimated to have cost slightly less than the $200 million production cost of Toy Story 3.

Cartoons characters and Merchandise

Not very long ago, kids were not very aware of fashion trends and would accept any item handed to them by their parents. While buying apparel or accessories for kids, the purchase decision remained solely with the parents. However, children of today’s generation have become more conscious of the clothes they wear and the accessories they flaunt and hence influence buying decisions to a great extent.

These days a child is accompanied to school by his favorite  animation character. Or such is illusion created by his newly bought bag, pencil box, water bottle, and the lunch box all of which have cartoon character. Ben 10, Spiderman is quite popular among boys while for girls choices are Barbie, Hanna Montana, Dora, Rapunzel. These trendy and colourful bags, stationery are like a dream come true for all the beautiful young girls and boys.

In-fact Companies such as Cartoon Network , Disney, TCS(yes the software giant)  have done surveys to gauge the influence of kids, which shows the extent of influence have on buying decisions at home.

Disney Consumer Products Division

Disney realizing it, has a separate division to sell toys, clothing and other merchandise featuring characters from new films and classics such as Mickey Mouse,  called Disney’s Consumer Products.  It accounts for more than 5 percent of annual revenue of Disney.  Mickey Mouse is the world’s largest licensed character. Products with Mickey Mouse and related characters generated $9 billion in global retail sales in fiscal 2011.

Since Cars’ release in 2006, Disney has sold around 200 million die-cast cars. Half of all six to 11-year-old boys in the United States own a Cars T-shirt. Disney’s consumer products division has made roughly $6billion from Cars, making it the second-most successful film merchandising franchise of all time – trailing only Star Wars.

Disney says Cars2  is on track to sell more tie-in goods than any single previous film, surpassing by a wide margin the current record holder, Toy Story 3, which last year sold $2.8 billion of merchandise. That’s on top of the average $2 billion of Cars merchandise sold annually since 2006.

Disney executives believe Cars is a powerful brand because it combines two elements that separately tend to drive sales: toy vehicles and beloved movie characters. They are projecting Cars2 as “lifestyle brand for young boys”—the male answer to the Disney Princess marketing push that highlighted characters including Snow White and Ariel, the mermaid. What everyday products for boys could be Cars branded, Disney executives concluded the answer was: “All of them.” It is very, very potent in terms of its appeal to kids.

Cars2 Merchandise

Merchandise of Cars2 in India

Disney Consumer Products (DCP), is bringing the ultimate experience of Disney Pixar’s Cars 2 to Indian fans, with merchandise and toys of Cars2. The products will be available across key retails outlets including Landmark, Reliance Time Out and Big Bazaar. Life-size replicas of the much adored race car Lightning McQueen will be on display at Landmark, Phoenix Mills (Mumbai), Landmark Spencer Plaza (Chennai) and other retail stores.

Wheelies and remote-controlled cars from Simba Toys and miniature replicas and play-sets by Mattel Toys will be on sale across key retails stores. This range is inspired by the heroic Disney.Pixar Cars 2 race car characters including Lightning McQueen, Fin McMissile, Marlena, Sebastien and Francesco. Fun games like Disney.Pixar Cars 2 puzzles by Frank, picktureka and monopoly by Funskool and innovative stationary items like pencils and CD cases by HM International.

Why merchandise

As the production cost of big movies skyrockets and DVD sales plunge, Hollywood studios want to spread their risk by focusing on those films with the potential to generate sequels and spin offs, as well as consumer products, games and theme-park attractions.

After Cars2

Disney plans to promote Cars2 into 2012 with a 12-acre Cars Land at a California theme park.

Disney is developing a Cars spin-off titled Planes which will have  direct-to-video release in Spring 2013. Toy Story director and Cars 2 co-director, John Lasseter said that: “We had such a great time exploring the world of ‘Cars’ over the course of two films, so it seemed only natural for us to see where our imaginations would take us in a film where planes where the main characters, by expanding the Cars world, ‘Planes’ gave us a whole new set of fun-filled situations and a great opportunity to introduce some fantastic new characters“. Mr. Lasseter, said that if “Planes” is successful, he may build additional titles around boats, trains and other vehicles. “It’s a bigger idea that can be expanded,” he said.

Conclusion:

Gone are the days when Children would accept any item handed by parents. Children of today’s generation are more conscious of the clothes they wear and the accessories they flaunt . They influence buying decisions to a great extent…
The companies have realized it and are bringing such products in the market, catching them young. Now Pappu will  have more branded merchandise while Papa and Mummy will find out where is the biscuit packet which has the spy card of Cars, their little one has all the cars or atleast the major ones in his cars collection and take their young one to the theaters showing Cars2!!

P.S: This is dedicated to my nephew(Aarush) and my son’s friend(Vedant) who are passionate about Cars and my son and his friends who are vying for the Cars2 merchandise.