CMC2016 - How To Become a Top 5 Global Kids Brand

Confidential - Dubit

Creating cross-generational content Children’s Media Conference 2016

It is one of the recurring trends from that research that I will be talking through today.

How content that appeals across generations is proving the most popular amongst childrenAnd how to adapt existing content, or launch new brands, that harness the ability to engage kids, parents and grandparents.


Media fragmentationThe top channels are less scheduled

90s: Nickelodeon 10s: YouTube

Media is always switched on:

90s: Television 10s: Mobile / Tablet

Barriers to UGC have been lowered:

90s: Art Attack 10s: Minecraft

One of the big trends that has occurred over the last decade has been the fragmentation of the kids entertainment. this has been driven in part by suppliers, technology and the audience themselves.

The top channels now compete with unscheduled service providers such as YouTube and on demand, which means kids can consume what they want when they want.

The top devices are no longer limited by location, so kids can watch what they want, where they want and this means that kids are consuming far more media than they were 10 years ago, even two years ago

And also kids are no-longer only passive, some of the biggest kids entertainers are kids. the barriers to creating and distributing content have been lowered and as a result kids can literally access any type of content, even their own.

So what does that mean?


Longer tail, fatter head

0%

15%

30%

Mar 2015 Mar 20161005 1129Number of different brands

Top 5 brands (market share) 11.9% 13.3%

Even in the last 18 months, we gave seen the volume of brands kids quote, unprompted, as their favourite brands increase by 10%. So the entertainment tail is growing longer, which means kids have more choice.

But amongst this choice, appears to be fattening at the head of the tail. The top 5 brands own a greater percentage of kids entertainment world, up 1.4% in 18 months.

Creating and distributing content is easier than ever, being discovered is harder and even harder is becoming a regular fixture in kids lives.

At Dubit we have been analysing what commonalities exist amongst those increasingly dominant top-5 and how can we share those learnings with the content we create and advise on.

so to start with, who were the top 5 brands from Jan 2015-March 2016

68%76%


Top 5 loved brands since Jan 2015

These were the 5 brands most mentioned as kids favourites brands. There are two things we quickly noticed, and you may also.

1. No TV led brands. That’s not to say TV is not important, in the top 20, TV led brands account for 102. A mix of traditional and non-traditional entertainment brands, with Lego and Barbie consumer products that have been around for around seven decades and the mobile and gaming brands of Minecraft, Angry

Birds and Candy Crush for less than 7 tenths of a decade.

We also think Candy Crush is very interesting because it really isn’t a kids product. We’ll come back to this later.

The one thing that is not entirely obvious is what commonalities these five brands share. We’ve found three…


Three common themes1. #collaboratitive

2. #familyfriendly

3. #emotionalscheduling

… and today I am going to talk about the second most important of the three - family friendly. The art of creating content that appeals across generations.


Cross-generational matrix

Is played by parents

Never played by parents

Benefits child

Doesn’t benefit child

We asked three generations of family members to identify what they perceived family entertainment to mean, and it fell into two pots:

- has a benefit to my child, for example impacts on the child’s learning and development - as seen on the y-axis - is something I have used or are using, so the older generations relationship with the product, shown on the x axis

Across territories there are different elements that sit under benefit’s my child, for example in the US and Malaysia education is high, in the UK and Australia developing a sense of humour is high and in less evolved media markets, such as South Africa and the ME, discussing social and cultural values is high.

But ultimately these two pots were consistent


The acceptable zoneacceptable

not acceptable



Benefits child


We then asked parents and children to undertake three tasks:

1. Rank brands by their benefit to their child2. Rank brands by the level of parental usage3. Rank brands by how acceptable they see it for their child. I’ll explain what acceptable means soon, and why its important

Once we had completed this exercise we were able to identify where the most acceptable brands sat on the matrix and produce a heat map.

As you can see, and are probably not surprised the more beneficial to the child and the more exposure to the parent the more acceptable the brand.


Top 5 sit in the ‘acceptable’ zone



Benefits child


This is where those top 5 brands sit, almost exclusively in the ‘acceptable’ zone.

Barbie does sit on the border and this is of all the brands we tested created the most conflict, depending heavily on whether or not the parent had played, in which case they saw it as a great tool for social and role play, and this who had not, who has issues with representation.

But for the most part you can see Lego scoring very


Methodology

Before I run through some of the common themes in more detail, let me quickly explain methodology.

Dubit - R2026 Dubit Trends - SummaryDubit - 10

Over 12k kids and 12k parents

We track over 12k kids aged between 2-15 and their parents each year. As part of this we ask media attitudes, device usage and brand consumption. This allows us to spot multi-platform trends across popular and emerging brands and services.

In addition to the online survey, we also conduct analysis of online analytics, browsing and search behaviours and app store analysis.

Dubit - R2026 Dubit Trends - SummaryDubit - 11

Over

1,000

hours

testing

Once we have identified patterns in the data, we place these into our mobile usability testing lab. In here we test pieces of content and services to help optimise them from a usability, playability and total brand engagement perspective. This allows us to also conduct our own proprietary research into products which are performing well to understand why they have become so important in users lives and what we can learn from them.

PlayLab tests allow us to create best practices from a content perspective.


Defining the ‘acceptable’ zone

I’ve mentioned the word ‘acceptable’ a couple of times in defining content that parents and kids agree are ok for kids to consume without too much disagreement.

Well what does acceptable mean to a parent


Moments of truth

Helps my child achieve something

Creates opportunities I can share with my child

…then my child can use without permission

Positive

Moments

Validate

That

Jan Carlzon - CEO of Scandinavian Airlines, in the quest of consumer centric thinking ‘spoke about becoming a company who flew passengers, not planes’. Stop thinking about content and start thinking about an audience or need in their lives that you can satisfy.

Not TV show creator anymore, your a brand builder, that should help a parent see their child laughing and have the opportunity to be involved in that laughter.

From what we can tell entertainment brands need to focus on creating those same moments of truth where the user can easily observe the benefit to their life. In the forms of children entertainment this should be focussed on removing any frictions from the audiences engagement with that piece of content.

One parent described it as being able to validate that the content or product did not rely on the parent for user considerations or policing inappropriate content.

They have two tick boxes towards that moment of truth or validation.

The first is does it help my child achieve something. This is different across territories for example the US focusses more on education, where the UK has more focus on soft learnings and fun. Countries like South Africa are more interested in entertainment supporting social and cultural learnings.

The second point is how it involves the parent. We’ll talk about this a lot and it is one of the common themes across the top brands. The most common thing 2-15s tell us, is that they would like more time with parents, but not too much. So brands that are able to engage parents for a restricted amount of time, are great at facilitating lots of non-parent play time.

If a piece of entertainment is able to demonstrate positive and social benefits, parents are far happier to do two things:

1. Allow more usage2. Facilitate more spend - I’ve met Grandma’s who bankroll their grandkids Candy Crush to keep them on the same levels.


Why is this important?

So why is it important that a parent validates content?


What kids say

70% 45% 81%

chose content parents

approve of

of kids talk to parents after seeing toy adverts*

chose content with known characters

*2-10S ONLY

From a reach perspective, not only do parents want positive and inclusive entertainment, 70% of kids say they chose content that they their parents will approve of or their parents already approve of

From a monetisation perspective, nearly half of 2-10s will talk to parents after seeing a toy advertised together. If a parent knows the content or observes some of that content, they are far more likely to view. We have seen this recently in YouTube with parents far more likely to see adverts if their child views a video over 10 minutes in length. This also has a positive uplift on the advert effectiveness.

Finally and one of the most important elements is that parents and children both recognise a character. Over 8 in 10 kids chose content with characters their parents know also. This is where some iconic books do so well with Jacqueline Wilson, The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and of course Harry Potter.


Mumometer4 Feet 6 Feet2 Feet0 Feet

4-5 years

Mum is at the centre Mum introduces new

activities Beginning social play

6-8 years

Parents inform interests

Creativity and play Discovering passions

9-10 years

Family comfort blanket Some independence -

social Mastering passions

11-13 years

Competition Monitored

independence Social conformity

And its not just reach, parents, especially Mum are so involved in their children’s entertainment motivations and usage even into teen years.

When conducting in-home immersions we ask kids and parents to take quick pictures. We started observing commonalities by age - especially between boys and mums.

4-5s; Attached. 6-8s; Leaning in. 9-10s; Alongside. 11-13s; Leaning out.

Key point - even at an older age, kids need re-assurance and points of connection. Its why The Beano, Simpsons and SpongeBob stay in kids media repertoires for so long


“We think that laughing together is the best feeling in the world! When we design Gigglebug games and stories, we think about evergreen play and learning patterns that make kids smile in the real world, and we do our best to interpret those experiences for touch screens and tv.”

And noticeable a lot of those brands that do break down age bands are the ones who make different generations laugh. Jeff ‘Swampy’ Marsh spoke in 2012 at the CMC keynote about how he wanted his jokes to go over kids heads and hit the parent sat on the sofa behind them. Parent laughs, kid asks why, parent explains, or shuffles awkwardly and a moment has been created.

But how do you retain that connection when screens become more and more solo. Well the founders of Gigglebug often talk about the infectious nature of giggling. If they can make a child giggle, then parents giggle, a child turns and they giggle together.

And interestingly both of these creatives are aiming for a moment they can never measure. In an age of metrics where collecting a like or a view is akin to the sale of ad space, Gigglebug and Phineas and Ferb are aiming for the unmeasurable - encouraging the child to turn from the on-screen content and connect with their family.


Case studies


“I help my mum, and my nan, when they get stuck on one of ‘those’ levels”

Likening Candy Crush to Jeff ‘Swampy’ Marsh, may not be an obvious interpretation, but it does one thing really well.

It makes two generations connect. In fact it switches the de facto role of parent as an educator to the child being the educator. Grandma gets stuck on a level of ‘jellies’ or ‘candies’ and it is the child who often, without a word, unsticks them.

So think about all those metrics, A/B testing, optimization and that King have done so well, but when we talk to users across generations one of its crowning glories is that it rewards effort - anyone can be the master and in fact children are often the most efficient problem solvers.


“I feel guilty asking him (son) to stop playing in the middle of a build, I know how frustrated I’d be if someone stopped me halfway through a

task”

Which is kind of similar with Minecraft, there is no hierarchical barrier to entry, you operate at your level and work with peers and the community to improve.

But its another factor that we think Minecraft performs so well and it leans towards the benefit end of the scale we started the presentation with. One American Dad summed it up where he said he actually felt guilty asking his child to stop playing, an emotion he’d never felt turning off a TV mid-show.

Minecraft is a social network, it connects peers and wider communities, it gives a brother and sister in Bognor the opportunity to engage with million+ followed Minecraft-celebs. but perhaps the strongest social network is in the home with older generations boggled by the simplistic graphics, but also influential as both a source of ideas ‘what should I build’ and that point of validation that we mentioned in the Mumometer - ‘look what I’ve built’


“We love marvel and minecraft lego, but we still build the same that I (dad) did when I was young - the best feeling is just picking things up

and starting to build something, anything”

Lego also embraces that inspiration and validation from parents, but there are two consistent factors that we saw with Lego that parents and children mentioned:

1. Parents and kids are both master creators, like Candy Crush, there is a reversal of roles - anyone can be the teacher2. But perhaps the most interesting element was a typical play session we saw. The parent would often be part of the sandbox builds, but when the license figure play began, the parent was often sidelined. Why?

Because the licenses are all characters that parents know, so not only are they emotionally involved they have a different generational interpretation of that character. Which if it created conflict led to parents being told to ‘clear-off’.

1. The other factor Lego have perfected with their license partner choices is that much like Lego, a vast world of infinite imagination, the licenses has huge narrative universes that feel almost infinite. Star Wars a galaxy far away, Marvel and DC providing any superhero power imaginable and Minecraft, being well…Lego-like means that kids and parents can invent limitless stories through the figurines within an almost limitless sandbox backdrop with the Lego bricks themselves


Recommendations

So our three key takeaways

Measure Collaboration Give users a

reason to share positively


Partners The right metrics,

don’t interrupt the experience

Any extensions must compliment

core text

Top tips

Try to create a system that allows generations to share positively

In this age of metrics where a like or a follower is worth $s,don’t forget the long term metric is creating an authentic moment that often can’t be and shouldn’t me measured

Thirdly, chasing partners that maintain and enhance the essence of your own content, can take a struggling product and propel it into a galaxy far far away.


Dubit Limited | The Half Roundhouse | Wellington Road | Leeds | LS12 1DR | UK

Pete Robinson Global Head of Research

[email protected] @PeterRobinson81

Thank you, any questions

mailto:[email protected]

Data & Analytics

CMC2016 - How To Become a Top 5 Global Kids Brand