Animotion Media Group Puts a Premium on Partnerships

A new entrant in the kids’ and family entertainment landscape, Animotion Media Group is a content creation company managing production, distribution and ancillary merchandise business that has put animation at the center of its business. “Animotion relies on multinational and multi-language talent and creates characters that appeal to all children around the world regardless of their culture or nationality,” says Julia Nikolaeva, general manager.

Its new project Mr. Dogood had a market premiere in Annecy at Mifa. Created especially for young puzzle enthusiasts everywhere, the dialogue-free series features everything viewers love about detective stories: the mystery, the clues, the suspects and that unexpected twist. “Our signature dotted line has come to the rescue, which can show what is lost and how Dogood builds his investigation,” says Nikolaeva. “This is how an animated detective story appears understandable to anyone, even without words! It becomes clear why we paid such close attention to music in this project. When there are no words in a series, music comes to the fore. Inventive and vibrant compositions help follow Dogood’s investigation and adventures, highlighting what’s most important.”

Animotion is also developing a second 2D project in its portfolio, Annie & Bennie. The series teaches modern kids to communicate with the natural world and each other. “Most of the series for our target audience take place in fantasy worlds,” Nikolaeva says. “Our goal was to show that the real world is more interesting than any fantasy. The transformation of milk into butter is no less mysterious than the creation of a witch’s potion, and the extraction of honey is no less exciting than an alien invasion. This sincere and cheerful series will teleport you to nature and let you feel the midday heat of July or the January frost, hear the birds singing and the chirping of grasshoppers, feel the fullness of living beings and the beauty of nature in all its manifestations. Our creators worked hard to convey this atmosphere.”

Apart from its developments, Animotion is representing properties such as The Fixies, which has four seasons and a further two in development and delivers billions of views worldwide, along with the Finnick franchise, Tina and Tony and more.

“The Fixies, known via its YouTube channels run by WildBrain, is distributed across 150 countries,” Nikolaeva says. “The Fixies are little creatures that keep technology running, and [the IP] has become a real global franchise bringing not only fun but elements of education. These characters will soon also speak Polish and French on YouTube, with Asia not so far on the horizon with the most recent deal done in Indonesia.”

Tina and Tony is produced in partnership with YouKu Kids (Alibaba Group) and is in the top animated preschool IPs on the platform. Alibaba Group is in charge of licensing and merchandising programs and marketing activities all around China.

Animotion has big ambitions to grow all the ancillary businesses, including exploitation of its own and third-party music, different audio formats (podcasts, fairy tales), collaboration with brands, the creation of digital applications, merchandising and off-screen opportunities, including live events.

The company continues to widen the international presence of the projects through new partnerships. Three seasons of The Fixies are now live on HappyKids in North America. The Fixies will also land on all the platforms of Indosiar: the free-TV Indosiar channel and Mentari TV, Vidio platforms and Nex Parabola. This year, Animotion will also expand its successful cooperation with WildBrain for French and Polish versions, in addition to existing English, Spanish and German channels. Meanwhile, Argentina’s El Reino Infantil picked Beardy Bodo and Tina and Tony to air on its Latin American YouTube channel (which boasts over 60 million subscribers) in Spanish.

“Partnership is the theme in the media at the moment, something truly valued by our company,” Nikolaeva says. “Co-development and co-productions, including hybrid formats, YouTube and FAST channels collaborations, as well as relations with free TV, pay TV and streamers, are all very important to us.” To further these efforts, Animotion has established a new division, led by a multilingual team located across key geographic focus territories headed by Valeria Korotina as its chief commercial officer, based out of Dubai.

An additional business line, Animotion Music, produces music and works with artists whose work is targeted at kids, teenagers and family audiences. “It is noteworthy that the company works both with its own catalog and helps in the development of the musical direction of other animation studios,” Nikolaeva says. The core of the label’s portfolio includes music releases of popular animation projects and characters, as well as rising young talents. The label also features collaborations of animated characters with celebrity talent.