KID_1011_SOCIAL_EUR_1006_ELLENDER 9/15/11 8:57 PM Page 5
An electronic trail: Classic Media has embraced Facebook, Twitter and other destinations to relaunch Where’s Waldo?
to the U.K. to France to the U.S.... It creates a great built-in network for us to let them know about upcoming products and promotions.” MAKING A CONNECTION
Producers and distributors agree, the most valuable aspect of socialmedia sites is their ability to reach viewers directly and create awareness for a property—but this process must be gradual and lasting. “How we’ve built Peppa Pig and now how we’re building Ben & Holly’s Little Kingdom is that we really want parents and kids to find the properties as opposed to marketing them down their throats,” says eOne Family’s Dumont. “That’s something that we feel extremely strongly about. Obviously, it takes more time, but it’s so much more rewarding in terms of the longevity of the brand.” As Dumont explains, this slow progression has contributed to the success of Peppa Pig in the U.K. “It has been built very patiently over time using social media and blogs and publications, which are more low key as opposed to mass marketing. When a property is too mass marketed you create a spike in interest. People feel like they are part of a craze, but then they just move on to the next thing, as opposed to connecting emotionally in a much deeper manner with the brand.We need to avoid this sort of oversaturation of the market, so we’re very conscious about how we build the brands, and social media is a great way to create that connection with the audience.” Just as it’s important to use social-media sites to provide fans with news, updates and fun tools about a property, it’s important to remember that not all the fans are adults. Children do sit with parents and caretakers as they surf sites, so all material must be fit for little eyes and minds. “The main difficulty when you have a preschool property is ensuring that the content on the Facebook page remains appropriate,” warns DHX Media’s Scherba. “We have to monitor it quite closely and make sure that we remove posts that aren’t appropriate for the brand. That goes for YouTube as well. We’re completely open to people doing their own user-generated content related to the brand, whether it be their kids dancing in front of the television or a kid singing the theme song... but if someone does something inappropriate and changes lyrics or doctors photos, anything that ultimately goes against what the brand is, then we have to be monitoring it closely and remove those right away.” Fans young and old want to feel they are getting something special when they visit a property’s blog, Facebook page or Twitter account. “You really get the sense that it is rewarding the fans of the property, that they have a way to engage with the brand, and we can definitely see that becoming more and more valuable, particularly as we roll out our consumer-products campaigns,” says eOne’s Dumont. As producers and distributors continue to try new ways of strengthening the connection between their brands and viewers, one thing is certain: social media is an indispensible tool.