Jeffrey Conrad

World Screen Weekly, July 5, 2007

Jeffrey Conrad

Senior VP, Creative Studios

American Greetings Properties

American Greetings Properties (AGP) is a fairly new face on the kids’ programming block. Jeffrey Conrad, the senior VP of the company’s creative studios, recalls the reception he received at his first outing to children’s content market about three years ago: “People were saying, why are you here? You do greeting cards!”

And American Greetings certainly is a giant in that arena—more than 100 years old, the company is the world’s largest publicly owned creator, manufacturer and distributor of social expressions products. Following the multi-billion-dollar success of two of its key brands, Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake, the company established AGP with a view to developing multiplatform entertainment, licensing and promotional campaigns for existing properties, as well as creating new ones. Conrad created one of the division’s newest offerings, Maryoku Yummy—in conjunction with India’s DQ Entertainment, AG is producing 52 11-minute episodes for a fall 2008 debut. The series, for preschoolers, is set in a world inhabited by as-yet-unfulfilled wishes. “The Yummy take care of your wish until it’s ready to be granted,” Conrad says. “The thing about the storytelling is, even though we’re focusing on 3- to 5-year olds, it’s going to be quirky, so you and I will be able to sit down, have some popcorn, sit back and enjoy it as well. It’s not going to be �ber-soft, where an adult won’t want to watch it.”

Conrad says that he expects to have a 3- to 5-minute teaser available to show broadcasters at MIPCOM Junior. A comprehensive licensing and merchandising program is already in the works.

Another new property is Sushi Pack, which AGP is producing with DIC Entertainment. The show is part of the company’s attempt to “flesh out and populate our portfolio with properties other than just [those targeted at] girls,” Conrad says, citing AG’s history with the Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Holly Hobbie. “We really have been focusing on ageing up some properties, and also going with some neutral properties and some boy properties. Sushi Pack falls in that boy, neutral area.”

The series launches this fall on the Saturday morning kids’ block on CBS, chronicling the adventures of crime-fighting pieces of sushi in Wharf City. “You’re going to laugh, you’re going to cry, you’re going to get hungry and order carry-out sushi!” Conrad quips.

Also slated for a fall launch on CBS is an all new Care Bears series, part of a host of initiatives celebrating the brand’s 25th anniversary this year. The launch of the series will follow the August premiere of Oopsy Does It!, a CGI animated feature introducing a new Care Bear character, Oopsy.

“We really changed the storytelling, we contemporized it a bit,” Conrad says of the new series. “Music is a big component. The characters have changed. And then the series itself is all centered on emotional intelligence. It’s one of those things that you have to deal with as an adult in all facets of your life. We’re trying to use the Care Bears to help kids understand their emotions and their intelligence about their emotions. It doesn’t beat you over the head, but it is a learning message that we thread through all the storytelling. It’s done in a transparent way, but I think it’s highly effective.”

In his role at AGP, Conrad is overseeing a host of other properties, all in a range of mediums. Twisted Whiskers launched as a line of greeting cards; Pretty Freekin Scary is an older-skewing lifestyle brand; and TinPo started as a line of “urban vinyl” figurines and has since become a series of shorts. “These little guys will be doing these interstitials dealing with problem solving, for a child to see another way to fix something or to see something in a different way,” Conrad says of the TinPo series.

For Conrad, bringing AG brands into the entertainment space has been a natural evolution. A 17-year veteran of the company, Conrad got his start as an illustrator, writer and designer, working on more than 1,500 social expressions products. “For the first ten years of my career I was building an emotional connection with someone—telling a story through pictures and words on a greeting card. So for me it’s an easy transition from greeting card to storytelling in long form. We are an emotional connection company. It’s what we do. It’s awesome that we have the corporation behind us to make the stuff we’re making, taking chances, taking steps to the plate and making them work.”

—By Mansha Daswani