Brand Building Strategies Showcased at TV Kids Summer Festival

9 Story Media Group’s Katrina Hitz-Tough, Epic Story’s Ken Faier, Aardman’s Rob Goodchild and Cookbook Media’s Rob Bencal shared their perspectives on developing successful brand-building strategies at the TV Kids Summer Festival.

Hitz-Tough is senior VP of franchise strategy and marketing at 9 Story. Faier is el presidente and CEO of Epic Story Media and its subsidiary Epic Story Interactive. Goodchild is the commercial director at Aardman. Bencal is co-founder of Cookbook. In a conversation with TV Kids’ Anna Carugati that you can watch here, they talked about strengthening IP on screens and at retail.

The session began with a conversation about how the need to be on multiple platforms informs brand-building strategies.

“There are so many ways to reach kids,” Faier said. “When thinking about brand strategy, you have to think about where the audience is, where it is going to be, and develop your content strategy, engagement strategy accordingly.”

Hitz-Tough added: “There are lots of different directions you can go in in terms of how you build a brand. And there’s no longer one size, one model fits all. There are multiple different ways to begin a brand and to evolve and grow it over time.”

It’s key, she said, to know where your audience is and “how they operate in all of those different spaces. What are they looking for? So many brands can say, I’m on social media, I’m in Roblox, but the experience they have is obviously marketing. It is not an experience that’s true to the DNA of how kids play or the DNA of the IP, the content itself. You start with: What is the core intrinsic DNA of the content? What is it about? Why will kids care about it? Why are they going to be passionate about it? How are they going to want to take it into their life and make it their own? How are you going to provide that?”

Bencal added: “It’s never been easier to reach a consumer, but it’s also never been harder because it is so distributed out there. Also, it’s expensive for brands to reach all those different platforms. It’s almost like mining for gold. You’re hitting a couple of these different platforms to see which one strikes. It’s time-consuming. And it requires spending upfront.”

Goodchild added that where your brand is in its life cycle must inform your strategy. Shaun the Sheep, for example, was birthed on linear TV and has been extended across live events, gaming and more. “If we were building the brand today, it wouldn’t start in the same place, and you’d build it in a different way.” He added: “It really is about making decisions about where it is just for a touchpoint because you feel you need to be there and where you really want to invest your time and energy to make it the most compelling and the deepest experience it can possibly be.”

As for when you start thinking about brand potential, Goodchild said: “Day one. The more you can think about how you build that world and how it will iterate across other platforms, the more it stays true to the DNA. Now that’s very different from saying, when should I launch or when should I go to market? You can go too early and mess yourself up for five years.”

Faier agreed, noting that Epic Story was founded with the intention of building franchises, with creators at the heart of the conversations. “Some creators don’t want to have the toy partner in the room or the gaming partner in the room. It’s about educating the whole chain of creativity throughout the IP development.”

Bencal added, “The economic realities of where we are as an industry and as a business, you have to think about it from day one. Just making the financials work off of content alone is a very tough thing in the day of platforms and building a brand through digital. Creators really have to think about it from the start.”

“To grow [a concept] into a brand, we need to know what other stories we can tell,” Hitz-Tough added. “What other experiences can we tell? How can we take this story and expand it? Yes, we want to know that there’s room and growth and evolution for a second series for television. How do we make sure that we have enough that is at the core of the story, but we have something new to tell? If you’re a true fan and you go to see an experience and it just feels like a repetition of the TV show, that’s boring. There is a whole core component of thinking about expansion; how you are going to keep it fresh and interesting? And when you’re handing a property to kids, they are going to want to make it their own. [Creators need a] level of understanding and comfort of what that might look like and acceptance of that.”

Faier noted that’s crucial to ask creators: “What’s the meaning of this property to the audience and what is the relatability? Everything’s been done. So on the one hand, we want it to be unique. But if you go to Walmart, if it’s too unique, they’re like, I don’t get it. So what is the meaning to the audience, and why do you think this is going to resonate? What does success look like to you? ‘I just want to get it made,’ is not enough. We all want to get properties off the ground. But what does true success look like? And what role do you want to play in all of that? The challenge we all have is kids’ attention spans are so short now. I love the show. Is there a game to play? Are there toys? And books to read? If there are not, they’re going to move on to another property pretty quickly. And even if you have all that, the life cycle of your super fan hopefully is lifelong, but often it might only be a couple of months. That’s very hard to plan around.”

Bencal agreed that since people are “burning through content” you need to have a lot of elements in place to keep consumers engaged. “If there’s not enough there, they can disappear or they just don’t come back because there’s just so much being thrown at them. The one good thing we have is, the preschool audience doesn’t mind rewatching that content over and over and over again. When you get into the older kid, 10-plus, which is always an elusive audience, it’s more challenging.”

“You’ve got to be continuously on in these different areas and think about what’s next,” Goodchild added.

The discussion then moved to the metaverse, with Faier highlighting Epic Story’s launch of a Roblox studio. “It’s a really important new facet of how you can reach audiences and re-engage them to come back to watch on whatever platform they might be on.”

A Roblox game can be made for $100,000, Faier said, while a mobile game could run you more than $1 million. “The monetization is difficult,” he added, but as an engagement tool, it is powerful.

“Brands and IP owners have a unique advantage in today’s world in that as kids exit properties, there’s a chance to have them rediscover it on a different platform or an influencer grabs hold of it,” Bencal noted.

Carugati asked the panelists what inflation, and a cost-of-living crisis, means for the L&M sector.

“When I was in the toy business with Mattel for a number of years, we always said Christmas always comes,” Bencal said. “It was always a silver lining for us. But the reality is that it just might be smaller. Some of the retailers that in the past would support kids’ properties in a big way are no longer with us. Some of them are in different iterations with a smaller footprint. Some of the major ones have a low tolerance for unproven properties to give them a chance in this kind of environment because they just can’t risk something sitting on the shelf, whether it’s physically or in the e-commerce space. It gets a lot tighter for opportunities out there unless you have some of these IPs and proven success in the retail world. Buyers have always been tough out there in retail. But now with consolidated space and consolidated footprint, it’s even more challenging.”

Faier added: “There are some things going on this year with an over purchase of inventory last year tied to Covid and supply chain issues, so that’s working its way through the system. It’s still a big number. So if it’s down 1 or 2 percent, let’s say, or even 10 percent; it was projected to be down a lot more pre-Covid and it was up 20 percent. I do think there’s pent-up demand for travel that’s taking some of that discretionary spending. So, yes, inflation has an impact in terms of the cost of products coming out. But if you have a child who’s a big fan of something, parents are going to continue to purchase it. Retail is more challenging, but 50 percent of toys are sold by e-commerce. There is still the possibility to go direct to consumer. So you can test there, or right-size your investment.”

In this climate, Hitz-Tough noted that IP owners can consider how to “deliver a brand experience at a price that enables everybody to participate. You’ve seen the growth of the dollar stores and all the discount channels. Obviously, those price point price points are lower. So how do you make sure you create a product that is worthy of your brand, that provides real play value for a child or an activity that’s worth doing at a price point that’s truly accessible? Kids are still having birthday parties. They’re still having experiences with the brand as they travel. That in itself is an opportunity. How do you be the brand that fulfills those needs at a price point that is easy for a parent to say yes to.”