A number of brands have taken to merchandising and D2C businesses in recent times to strengthen their footprint. Understanding the pulse of the audience, Pocket Aces too has forayed into D2C products with the launch of merchandise for their popular show Little Things and now for their esports drama Clutch. The model for Clutch merchandise is unique; the original jerseys that the characters wore during the show have been auctioned to audiences. Pocket Aces is doubling this amount and all proceeds are going to an organisation called Enabling Leadership for their “Just for Kicks” program.
Clutch received immense love and appreciation from fans, crossing over 25 million views. Taking this fandom of the show forward for a good cause, Dice Media is auctioning jerseys worn by the lead star cast in the series. Vishal Vashishtha, Ahsaas Channa, Saurabh Ghadge, Pratiek Pachori and Tirth Joisher have autographed their respective jerseys, which fans can get their hands on through this fundraiser on Dice Media’s Instagram handle ‘@dicemediaindia’. The auction that commenced on 19 November has raised a whopping Rs 30,000 from audiences in just 5 days. Pocket Aces will be doubling this amount and donating Rs 60,000 to charity.
What makes this auction even more exciting is the selection of charity chosen to share the proceeds with. The ‘Just For Kicks’ program by Enabling Leadership impacts 3600+ students across India, Battambang, Cambodia. With the motto ‘Everyone Plays’, Just For Kicks works in schools to help children garner multiple benefits of leadership development using football as a medium.
Enabling Leadership founder and CEO Ravi Sonnad shared, “We are thrilled to have received support from Pocket Aces. The ‘Clutch Jersey’ auction will help us draw attention to our ‘Just for Kicks’ program, while the funds will ensure every child we work with is equipped with the required training tools to grow them into tomorrow’s leaders through the powerful medium of team sports. We eagerly look forward to opportunities like these that nurture our vision to build a better and brighter future for all our children.”
Showrunner for Clutch and CEO, co-founder of Pocket Aces Aditi Shrivastava was thrilled to share, “The marriage between entertainment IP (be it films or shows) and merchandise is extremely well developed internationally, but still quite nascent in India. We are trying to kickstart this here with the goal of giving our audiences high quality memorabilia of their favorite shows and characters. We are experimenting with different merchandise models for our popular shows such as Little Things and Clutch, and we are glad to see such an amazing reception for it. The auction-for-charity model we adopted with Clutch is especially close to my heart – sports as a sector is quite underfunded in India, and since Clutch is a sports drama, the Just For Kicks program was the perfect way to give back.”
