Ex-BBR housemates clinch T-shirts deal

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Wednesday January 13, 2010 00:00

 

Now Ramontshonyana and other former housemates have teamed up with the designers, offering to be the brand ambassadors of the designs in their respective countries.

'As brand ambassadors they would market and wear (promote) the t-shirts and in return they would get a share of profits from the sales in their countries,' one of the co-owners Emmanuel Choga explained in an interview with Mmegi yesterday. His company, Charmington Produxionz, co-owns the brands with the Masili Creative Lab Designers, both based in South Africa.

He stated that the opportunity to launch their t-shirts on the show came when Endemol were impressed by the products and used them to pair up the housemates into comrades in arms.

Choga explained that there has been a fair demand from all the housemates' countries with South Africa being on top of the list, mainly because that is were the production is taking place.

He revealed that they also have many customers based in other African countries namely Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Angola and Nigeria. 'I have also received enquiries from as far ashore as New Zealand, the United States of America (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). Our criteria for getting a distributor or retailer is obviously giving priority to a company that has a national footprint in the respective country,' he said.

For now it will be a bit of a hassle to order from Botswana, as they have not yet managed to conclude talks with retailers for walk in buying.

'There can only currently order the t-shirts from Facebook and this is until about mid-year when we are expecting to have concluded talks with a retailer who can give them access to the physical t-shirts before they make any purchase (walk in),' he said.

Choga added that the message on their t-shirts is to give hope to the African youth and show them that with determination, will and passion, anything is possible. 'One of the catch phrases of our company's 'Put your passion to action!' So we are intent on encouraging them to do nothing but that as we as a small unknown company had managed to accomplish,' he said.

Ramontshonyana confirmed that they are communicating with Choga over working together to promote each other's merchandise in their countries.

'We agreed that I will promote his line here and he will help push my line which will be launched this month end in South Africa,' Ramontshonyana said of his Rural Swagger line.

'Right now we are waiting for the certification of my company - K-One Originals which should be out by end of this week. It will allow us to publicly advertise the merchandise in the country,' he said.