Toon celebs edging out others

NEW DELHI: Walk into a serious, non-kid institute like a bank, and you are greeted by Tom & Jerry. The big cat and the little mouse at ICICI Bank are urging kids to open a bank account.

Young Stars, a concept developed by Cartoon Network Enterprises (CNE) and ICICI Bank, is a savings account tailored to suit the banking requirements of children.

The Young Stars account allows children, up to the age of 18 years, to learn and manage their finances; the account is operated and monitored by their parents.

For ICICI Bank, using Tom & Jerry was the ideal way to reach out to the kids. In fact, Chanda Kochhar, executive director, ICICI Bank, is confident that Tom & Jerry will make Young Stars a popular product.

ICICI endorsing Tom & Jerry for its product promotion is yet another example of the non-kid companies realising kids’ influence in family-buying decisions. “Right from the colour of the car to computers, children influence adult decisions. Which is why companies are using kids’ favourite cartoons to connect with them,” says, Jiggy George (pictured), director, India & South, Asia, CNE.

In fact, BPCL, Citibank, ICICI, Ford, All-Out, Raymond, all brands targeted at adults, have been leveraging the equity of toon characters. Citibank, for example had used CNE’s Powerpuff Girls and Scooby Doo to create differentiation in a category where every other player was offering savings accounts to kids. Also, using toons gives a sentimental value to the product.

Companies allure adults by way of reaching out to their children.  Red Label and Surf had used Tom & Jerry and Powerpuff Girls.

So far, Cartoon Network characters such as Tom & Jerry, Scooby Doo, Powerpuff Girls, Dexter, Johnny Bravo, and others have endorsed over 45 brands across many categories.