Born brand-crazy

KOCHI: “I don’t want Ben 10. I want Spiderman,” says three-and-a-half year-old  Ayan refusing his green school bag with the picture of cartoon character Ben 10 on it. As the school reopening season draws closer,  students are busy getting their essentials for school. But many are not satisfied with their stuff being just ‘new’!“He will not take anything which you just show him here. He chooses only those goods which have a similarity to those he has seen in the cartoon or in the ads,” says Ayan’s mother Manisha Shahnawaz. “Kids pay attention to even the prints and designs of the items that come on these TV advertisements and specifically look for them while shopping. Quite often we don’t notice but the children seem to have an eye for them,” she says. Items ranging from school bags to umbrellas and raincoats to even slippers have the characters on them. “Little ones are very much specific about the cartoon characters they want on their bags, be it Barbie or Ben 10 or Spiderman. If not available, they simply refuse to take them,” said C Ravi, who runs a school bag shop in Broadway.If the younger children are after cartoon characters children in higher classes go a step further. They are more brand conscious and usually stick to a specific brand. If they don’t get it they refuse to buy it. From shoes to schools bags it is the branded ones that move the fastest, Ravi said.Thanks to this brand consciousness, many shops selling school bags now have the original items of Diesel and Fasttrack on their racks.