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TV KIDS
Connecting with friends: Ozie Boo! from Cyber Group already has a number of product extensions in place.
She also notes that the category has expanded to include new types of products. “These days, backto-school is not only supplies; it’s also things like clothing and electronics, including laptops, cell phones and iPods.The best back-to-school sales, however, are still the supplies: the backpacks, notebooks, pencils and glue sticks that make up the K-12 school lists that local teachers pass out each fall. Top-selling merchandise includes backpacks, book bags and fleece.” Another area that is becoming increasingly important is new media. Mondo TV is already on board with this, says Azoury. “We are building ad-hoc websites for each of our series, to be very interactive with kids. As we all know, nowadays from an early age, kids are at their computers and well-connected to the Internet, so they are searching always for web pages to spend time related to branded properties and series they love and follow on TV. Interactive games also are the key attraction on such websites.” Toonzone Studios has also realized the licensing potential of new-media extensions, says Konnie Kwak, the company’s president and CEO. “With mobile technology becoming more and more affordable for kids, this is definitely one avenue we’re developing. This will include mobile game apps for the iPhone, iPad and other non-Apple products.”
“We’re developing a mobile YooHoo & Friends quest game, where our adorable five characters have to find various discarded garbage items (an old shoe, a broken shopping cart, an old mattress, etc.) and combine these items to help them cross over a waterfall, create a hang glider or rescue a trapped animal,” Kwak adds about Toonzone’s digital initiatives. “We also have plans to expand the YooHoo & Friends website to be more connected to YooHoo products. In fact, we’ll be developing a separate line of online YooHoo characters that can only be accessed and collected through special codes on the toy line. You’ll have the opportunity to create your own YooHoo world and your own quest, based on your particular online characters.” GAME ON
Also boosting the move toward interactive products is kids’ early adoption of technology. Young ones are online and on their mobiles consuming and interacting with content constantly and, increasingly, at younger and younger ages. The age-compression issue of children getting older at an earlier stage in life has made targeting consumer products somewhat tricky for licensors. “Some retail consultants say that it shouldn’t be a surprise or an outrage that kids are tired of toys and clothes by 8, considering that they are exposed to outside influences so much earlier,” notes Mondo TV’s Azoury. “They are in preschool at 3 and on computers at 6. That’s why marketers now target 9-year-olds with apparel and accessories once considered only for teens. But just as the 8- to 12-year-old tweens are pitched with a dizzying array of music, movie and cell phone choices, the nearly 10 million tween girls also are getting more attention from fashion, skin-care and makeup businesses. They have social consciousness at a very young age.”