The global phenomenon Game of Thrones is coming to an end and with it, brands have been vigilantly leveraging the fan base that the show has created over a span of eight years. With official and unofficial merchandise both available in the market, the question is how will these products fare once the hype around Game of Thrones settles down with the show finale on 26 May 2019.

Desi brands have jumped on board to fan the Game of Thrones obsession. The recent addition is of House of Masaba with its official collaboration with Game of Thrones. The popular celebrity designer Masaba Gupta will be launching the collection soon. “The palette is largely grey, black, white and red. Winter is the essence of the show. You will see a lot of hints of that in the collection,” Masaba Gupta said in a video. “With this, there will be a lot of people who wanted to own a piece of show for the life,” she added.

Mainly catering in apparel (t-shirts, to be precise), these brands have tapped the growing pop-culture market with the evident target audience being savvy youth. These brands, including The Souled Store, RedWolf, EpicStuff etc., have a niche market of devoted fans pan-India. The collection does not restrict to t-shirts only. With quirky posters of one-liners from the show, mugs featuring fan-art or show stills and notebooks with quotes of fan-loved characters, these products have filled a gap in the market where pop-culture products were not an easy find. Other products include coasters, key-rings, backpacks, slippers, lapel pins, badges etc. Mobile covers are a recent rage as well.

“Game of Thrones like other fandoms has a special space in the hearts of their fans and though the response may not be the same as it is now (with the season progressing) we still expect a large number of people wanting GoT merchandise even after the season ends,” The Souled Store Co-founder and Director Vedang Patel told Financial Express Online. “We have seen an exponential increase in the sales of Game of Thrones merchandise. The
beginning of the season has definitely given a big boost to the already soaring sales. We are expecting the numbers to rise with the season progressing and expect a massive response towards the season finale,” he added.

India is not the only market where showrunners have launched Game of Thrones products or collaborated for them. Recently, global footwear brand Adidas had also announced its partnership with HBO to launch Game of Thrones-inspired collection for shoes, based on the various houses and factions that are represented in the show. These include white and blue coloured ‘White Walker’ sneakers and red, orange, black coloured ‘Fire and Blood’ sneakers among others.