Give and Keep’s Manoj Dayalji on the opportunities – and challenges – around building a brand

Manoj, thanks for making time. To kick us off, can you give us a bit of background on the development of Give and Keep?
The journey of creating Give and Keep began when an aunt of ours welcomed a newborn baby girl into the world. Wanting to create something special for her that conveyed our heartfelt sentiments, we set about to find a suitable gift… Nothing was quite fitting the bill, so we eventually decided to create something bespoke.

At the time, Vijay – co-creator of Give and Keep – and I were running a custom garment decoration business and so decided to ship in a high-quality plush teddy bear to be personalised as a gift for the new arrival. After producing the bespoke teddy, it was then left to one side in our studio ready for when we would eventually be visiting. To our confusion and surprise, the teddy generated huge interest, leading to requests from friends, relatives and clients.

We were scratching our heads at the time wondering as to why it was creating such a buzz. Soon our teddies were being sold to overseas customers in Europe, US, Canada and as far afield as India!

“We can see our brand being a good fit for stationery and greetings items.”

As demand for the teddies grew, we embarked on a brand creation journey by putting together a ‘Brand Our Bear’ competition setting out our criteria for the ideal name. Teaching staff at the local school once attended by Vijay were delighted to support our competition. After going through hundreds of entries and shortlisting a few candidates, the winning entry was selected and shortly after our brand was created.

How did it morph from bear to the angel character?
Well, once the logo for Give and Keep had been formulated, we could see that there would also be a possibility of our digital angel to become an animated character. This then led to the idea of adding a digital experience by using QR codes and digital animation. The receiver would receive a Give and Keep product and scan the QR code on the item. This would then reveal Sam The Dancing Digital Angel coming to life and dancing with a message on their smart phone device.

At this point in our journey, the vision was to create a digital themed gifts brand with a cute, fun loving dancing angel as this main character had now entered our minds. The main philosophy behind Give and Keep is to embody the spirit of a fun-loving and cheeky angel by sharing fun, positive and uplifting experiences with others – in both the physical and digital worlds.

And can I ask, why call the angel Sam?
Sam is an acronym for Smiling at Millions!

Ah! Got it! Now, I know you are looking at licensing your content and character to third parties. What is your sales pitch to licensees?
Although we understand the need for a sales pitch, our preference would be for a licensee to be inspired from within and choose to work with Give and Keep by seeing our brand’s potential… Even though there are plenty of choices available to you, you just have that solid feeling of knowing that ‘this is the one’ when something is right for you… We’re hoping there will be a couple of licensees who get that same feeling when they stumble upon Sam The Dancing Digital Angel and all things Give and Keep.

We would also invite potential collaborators to play one or two of our animations from our YouTube channel to your friends, family members and colleagues. Watch their expressions as they do this… If they reveal a pure smile from the heart and you would like to be a part of creating more of this in other human beings, get your angels to call our angels and let’s make something special happen!

A spirited approach! How have you found it trying to get a foothold in the market?
It has been extremely challenging. I suppose the focus for most licensees is to go for established brands as opposed to emerging brands like ours. Although it can be exhausting, what keeps us motivated is when we see a complete stranger light up with a heartfelt smile when they interact with Sam and Give and Keep branding.

The main lesson we have learnt to date is that you need plenty of visuals available to demonstrate your concepts, as potential collaborators may not always understand what you are referring to by spoken word alone. This is why we have spent considerable time producing a diverse range of animations and product visuals to demonstrate possibilities with Sam and Give and Keep.

We can see our brand initially being a good fit for simpler products like stationery and greetings items… At the other end of the spectrum, we can also see partnerships happening with fully fledged animation studios where we can produce bespoke cartoon animations. Another area we see Give and Keep being a good fit for is the gaming industry, where Sam fights against sadness and unhappiness in a virtual world.

You recently attended the Informa License to Retail Day. How did you find the day?
It was truly an inspiring event and incredibly well organised, with industry giants attending from the retail and entertainment sectors. The presentations were packed full of information. We’re truly grateful for the opportunity to be able to network with several of these companies who might have otherwise been quite challenging to speak to in person.

You have a branded Give and Keep car – how and when do you use it ?
The Give and Keep brand car MIMI – named after the mechanic who took this thing apart and put it back together with Give and Keep styling – is an absolute beauty and really does embody the spirit and vision of our brand. We use MIMI to raise awareness of the Give and Keep brand. As our brand grows, we can see MIMI being used for promotional purposes in front of flagship stores for major retailers that will be stocking G&K products – or to raise awareness at corporate events in the licensing industry.

What have you got planned for the brand for the rest of 2024?
Our main goal at this point is to secure a couple of licensing deals and explore further opportunities to build upon our brand exposure. We understand this is a gradual process, so in the meantime we will continue to build our portfolio of
animations which can be used for future product launches or campaigns with licensees.

Thanks for taking time out for this. One last question – beyond your own character, what your favourite animated character of all time?
Homer Simpson. He is completely clueless and still seems to make it through life somehow! I think the funniest people in the world are those who don’t know they are funny or how they are coming across… They just continue to make people around them laugh and smile by just being authentic and innocent.

Good answer! Thanks again.