Upholding the Place of Character Merchandising in Cameroon: Re-igniting its Essence in Today’s Business Era

With the advent and growth of intellectual property models, merchandising of character becomes a crucial aspect in the business world. This is so as commerce has much to do with the techniques of sales and marketing, to which there is the urge to promote products and services through standardized methods of commercializing, in conformity with the rules on customer care and satisfaction. Therefore, it is in this light that character merchandising is considered a practice whereby personality traits such as image, name, sound, or appearance of a certain character is used to brandish, promote and/or advertise a product or service with the aim of benefiting from it (financial or material gain). Although overlooked within the intellectual property framework, this aspect of IP has far reaching effects in the economy of most countries today, and as such requires its valorizations. Findings reveal that there hasn’t been any specific legislation/provision for character merchandising, which for the most part impedes the concrete understanding and growth of this concept/practice. Hence, it is the objective of this research to ascertain the place of character merchandising in Cameroon, with a view to expounding and understanding its prospects and challenges. To this effect, this paper makes use of the doctrinal research methodology, drawing from primary and secondary sources of data. It is therefore recommended among others that, there is need to revitalize and promulgate the practice of character merchandising in Cameroon, especially through well-defined legal provisions pertaining thereto.