Nyan Cat's Creator Talks to BNET About Marketing, Merchandising and Pirates
Christopher Torres spent about four hours one evening in early April creating Nyan Cat -- an animated feline with a Pop-Tart for a body that flies through space leaving a rainbow trail. Five months later, and Nyan Cat is a bizarre global phenomenon with nearly 40 million views on YouTube, an iPhone app, at least 10 games on the web and a series of merchandising deals.
Nyan Cat is an example of the discordant future of marketing, a universe in which the brand comes first and only later, depending on demand, are products created.
But all is not perfect in the land of stars, rainbows and kittens. Torres doesn't own the copyright to the Nyan Cat song and has had to hire an intellectual property lawyer to stop companies pirating his invention without his permission.
Torres -- in real life he's a 25-year-old who works at a Dallas insurance agency and draws comics in his spare time -- talked to BNET last week about what's next for Nyan Cat.
Next: What's next for Nyan Cat.
BNET: How did you create Nyan Cat?
Torres: Basically, Nyan Cat the actual image itself was created by me back around April 1. I was doing a charity art drive for the American Red Cross. I was in a chat room where you ask people what they want to see. Someone asked for a Pop Tart and someone asked for a cat. The actual animated cat came after that. I had started trying to make pixel art. I wanted a challenge. It took three or four hours to complete in one night. It was not paired with the music at that time.
BNET: What did you think would happen to Nyan Cat?
Torres: At the time it was not intended to be for anything. I posted it on several forums, I love animated avatars for forums. That was what I wanted it to be. I tend to go for a retro Nintendo look.
BNET: Where did the song come from?
Torres: The song itself was created last year. It's called "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya" by Japanese artist Daniwell-P. Later on it was remixed by the Utauloid Momo Momone. [A Utauloid is basically an animated software singer that others can compose music for]. I know them both now. They're awesome people. I love them to death, but before that I didn't know about the song; it was paired to a different video of Hatsune Miku. It's very popular in Japan and that's kind of how it started. Four days later a YouTube user by the name of saraj00n she decided to pair the song with the music and it turned into a cuteness overload. I learned about it two days later. I believe it's had almost at 40 million views.
BNET: What is the situation with the copyright holders?
Torres: I own all the copyrights to the Nyan Cat gif, since it's my art. I do not own the song, the song was created by Momo Momone and Daniwell-P. They're the ones who rightfully own the song. They wish to not have the song used for commercial purposes.
BNET: Why not?
Torres: I do not know the answer to that.
BNET: But the song is such a huge art of Nyan Cat!
Torres: I don't know the answer to that question.
Next: Nike meets Nyan Cat.
BNET: What are you working on for Nyan Cat right now?
Torres: There's always going to be a next step for Nyan Cat. It's the Hello Kitty of our generation, it can go on anything. At this time I'm working closely with companies like Nike, on their Back to the Future, project to benefit the Michael J. Fox Foundation. They wanted to showcase their new Back to the Future shoes on eBay, and if you go on the web site Back4theFfuture.com, if you type in time circa March 2, 2011, you'll see a small animation. I have gotten sever requests for commercials. Sprint has signed me up for three different campaigns. One was a movie theater commercial. And the Nexis 4G commercial, Nyan Cat was featured in that one as well.
BNET: What other companies are interested in working with Nyan Cat?
Torres: We have several companies that are interested in working with me for actual products. I'm hoping to get a company that will get stuff like plush toys, iPhone cases. I already have key chains. I believe we've sold over 50,000 T-shirts since we launched. I have a new central website to showcase everything there about Nyan Cat. You can get jewelry at heychickadee.com and shirts, pin sets, and mugs at poptartcat.com. Through them both we sell button pins, T-shirts and mugs. Hopefully we can get bigger and greater things to come out way.
Nyan Cat's popularity has gotten me several invitations, people want me to travel to their conventions and be on panels. I went on to San Japan in San Antonio, Texas. They had me as a guest on a panel for Nyan Cat. It was pretty great. The line was down the hall, there were so many people there. The room got full in less than a minute.
BNET: What types of companies have approached you?
Torres: I have a few licensing stores wanting to make certain types of merchandise. I've had people wanting it on soft drinks, on iPhone cases. I would personally like to centralize and work with one agency I can trust and do the job. I'm pretty picky. I have several people interested [in that task]. We're weighing our options. Everyday I check my email and there's dozens of requests.
BNET: What types of products do you think Nyan Cat could become?
Torres: A number of Nyan Cat games have cropped up on the web and in apps.
BNET: Do you have any rights over those games?
Torres: Most of those are games like Nyanicorn.com that have asked for my blessing and I've said OK, you've got a great job go ahead. As long as they don't sell the game for a profit I'm totally fine with it.
Next: Kellogg not interested.
BNET: Who have you not heard from that you thought might be interested?
Torres: I would say the biggest company that I have not heard from -- I'm surprised because everyone on the internet talks about this -- is Kellogg, because Nyan Cat is a toaster pastry cat. I'm surprised they haven't contacted me to make Nyanberry Pop Tarts. I've seen people make mock-ups of how the box would look.
I'm also surprised I haven't gotten word from certain video game companies. I think Nyan Cat could make an awesome platform as a spaceshooter or Super Mario type-game, or something.
And also Sanrio for Hello Kitty. They share a similar vision to mine of what I'd like Nyan Cat to become and I'm kind of surprised I haven't heard from them.
There's a few soda companies that want to put it on their cans, energy drinks, that would be cool. I believe it can work for every age group. It totally works for children. I haven't thought of TV shows.
BNET: How much money have you made from Nyan Cat?
Torres: I'm not sure how to answer that question. It's been pretty great. It's not as much as people believe. People say aren't you buying million dollar homes? It's nothing like that. I have to share revenue with several people I work with. I don't actually know the figures at this time. Most of the stuff people buy is not official merchandise. There's a lot of people right now using the image for their own profit without my approval. Luckily I've got an amazing guy who can take care of that.
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