BUANASENI

UPIN AND IPIN: THE EPITOME INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MONETISATION FROM MALAYSIA

By Johan Ishak

MD Awesome TV

15 February 2021

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP) means nothing if it does not generate money. There is no need for a creative practitioner to boast about their creative production if at the end of the day, the cost of production cannot be recovered by revenues sufficiently with a decent profit margin. The key to this is to plan for the revenue streams that an IP can generate. Only then, it is justifiable to embark on the production of creative offerings. One IP, that epitomises such careful revenue streaming is the pair of twins that is famously known to have shouted the iconic words, "Betul! Betul! Betul".

Upin and Ipin, the two twin brothers, have captured the hearts of many Malaysians going beyond its intended targeted audiences such as toddlers and children to also include parents and grandparents. In fact, the Malay archipelago presents the language diaspora that had also spread Upin and Ipin to conquer Indonesia, so much so that even the kids of Indonesia had begun to speak with the slang and dialect of the Malaysian twins. Perhaps Upin and Ipin is our (South East Asia's) own resurrection of the success of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The acid test for this is whether there are enough pirated products for the IP. Of course, Upin and Ipin had achieved this.

The initial plan for Upin and Ipin was to sell the broadcasting rights to Malaysian television stations (TV9 and TV3 being the original homes and later Astro Ceria) and earn airtime licensing income. Soon, that propensity to earn compounded when the broadcasting license travelled across the globe to many countries. Naturally, the next monetisation would be to reduce the grandure of Upin and Ipin to merchandises such as toys, stationeries and apparels. In fact, the owners, Les Copaque that was founded by Haji Burhanuddin, had ventured into food and beverages outlet that capitalises the IP. 

Returning to the subject of monetisation being the essence of an IP's worth, the variety of revenue streams not only provide a solid historical financial results, it also becomes a sound basis and assumption for investors to project and forecast what revenues it (IP) can potentially earn in the future. Accountants and bankers would take that future earnings and discount it back to the current time using the cost of financing or the rate of return of an alternative investment to establish the value of the IP. Simply put, whoever pays to acquire the rights to the IP is actually buying that future cash flow. This is what IP valuation means.

One would wonder how much would Upin and Ipin fetch if a valuation is done on the back of its future economic potential. What you see is not the end. An IP like Upin and Ipin can go further and farther emulating the ancient animation, Mickey Mouse. What it may need is to escape from the Malaysian centricity and mutate to cater for the entire Planet Earth. This may be easy for an English based cartoon like Mickey Mouse and hence, a tall order for its non-English base contemporaries. However, the Japanese (Saban Entertainment) had proven otherwise when Power Rangers hit the World particularly the United States of America. Power Rangers had even been reproduced with American elements instead of its Japanese origin.

So, if you ask whether Upin and Ipin can conquer the World, one would certainly answer, "Betul! Betul! Betul!"

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