WildBrain Alums Launch Next-Gen IP Studio TeamFalco

Former WildBrain executives Nico Lockhart and Jessie Stephenson have teamed up to launch TeamFalco, an IP development studio and agency focused on data-driven content development and audience-first creativity.

“Many commissioners and IP owners are still struggling to capitalize on YouTube, as they are failing at the first hurdle, which is thinking about discovery in development,” Lockhart said. “The art of reaching targeted audiences with programming and creative decisions has been lost in the move to video on demand, and brands and IP owners are paying the price. YouTube has leveled the playing field, but to stand out from the crowd, brands have to keep pace with shifting audience behaviors.”

The TeamFalco founders have spent over the last decade in digital, with Lockhart heading up the digital production studio at WildBrain and Stephenson working as a platform and content strategist at Little Dot Studios, WildBrain and Lunar X. They have gained expertise in developing, rebooting and launching original IP for YouTube. The programs they have worked on have amassed millions of views online and have found life on traditional platforms as well, such as on Netflix, BBC iPlayer, ITVX, CCTV, Cartoon Network, Kidoodle.TV, Cartoonito and Peacock.

Using their knowledge of audience behavior and algorithmic discovery, they plan to provide strategic solutions and rich development to the challenges in the market to ensure IP isn’t just discovered but also loved.

“People are still looking for great stories and compelling characters—but helping audiences both find the creative and stick with it is hard,” Stephenson added. “Creative with an eye to distribution and consumption isn’t new and neither is the idea of using data, but too often, brands don’t know what data is useful nor how to use the bits that are in an additive manner. By starting with great creative and applying meaningful insights, we turn eyeballs into audiences, and audiences into fans.”

“YouTube Studio is unlike any other for informing strategy, but that isn’t news,” Lockhart said. “What we have been doing for years is taking it to inform and enhance the creative as we learn more about an audience. This has been a tactic maximized in the creator economy, but traditional media seem to be slow on the uptake. We are fusing these approaches together at scale.”