January 2008: Kids

websites to watch - kids

Club Penguin
Club Penguin is an online world devoted to kids that is completely funded by subscriptions—there is no advertising or marketing of any kind. Using cartoon penguin avatars, players can waddle around, chat, play mini-games, and participate in other activities with one another in a snow-covered virtual world.

Imbee
Imbee is a kid-friendly social network that aims to offer a safer alternative to MySpace, Bebo and Tagworld. Kids can only network with people they know and virtually every change must be approved by a parent.

 
websites to watch - general

Last.fm
CBS has become the first company to create what some consider to be the future of music online—a site where you can listen to any song you want free, supported by advertising.

Disaboom.com
Disaboom.com is the first comprehensive website for people with disabilities and "functional limitations.”

 
blog trends

StrictlyNoPhotography.com
Strictly No Photography is a photo-sharing site for photographs taken where you are not allowed to take them. According to their site, their mission is “to organize the world's forbidden visual information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Daily Idea
Daily Idea is a humorous web show based in Louisville, KY. With hundreds of thousands of monthly viewers, their videos have been featured on many sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, iTunes Yahoo! and Revver. Most recently, The Daily Idea was voted as the 2007 Best Video Blog by Performancing.com.

 
technology trends

MediaCart
MediaCart is revolutionizing shopping with a computerized shopping cart which assists shoppers, delivers targeted communications at the point of purchase and streamlines store operations. The MediaCart system accurately anticipates and responds to shopping needs—letting shoppers locate products, check prices, scan and bag their items seamlessly while shopping.

Tag Reading System
The Tag, the successor to the 1999 hit LeapPad, turns paper books into interactive playthings. While the previous LeapPad system required spiral-bound books to be placed on a clunky, laptop-sized plastic console with a pointing device attached to it, LeapFrog has put all of the Tag’s smarts into a portable inch-and-a-half-thick stylus.

 
marketing - kids focused

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young
Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster websites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. more info

Parents Group Slams Producers for Marketing PG-13 Films to Kids
A coalition of 19 pro-children groups have called on filmmakers today to stop promoting PG-13-rated movies to kids via giveaways and promotions. more info

Entertainment Marketer of the Year: Walt Disney
Once upon a time, in a land where marketers seek to turn ad campaigns into cultural phenomena, there lived a major brand known as The Walt Disney Co. That's the start of a familiar story. But in this telling, the iconic company unleashes cross-platform marketing forces and merchandising efforts that seemed nothing short of magic. more info

 
interesting articles - kids

Dissecting 'Generation Google'
Some sociologists are dubbing kids born after 1993 "Generation Google." Since they've practically been exposed to the Web from birth, they're supposed to excel at seeking out information online. But according to a study by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee, they're actually not much better at searching than their older (Millennials, Gen-Y, Gen-X, etc.) counterparts. more info

 
interesting articles - general

Is It a Recession? Marketers Seem to Think So
Let the economists and politicians debate whether the American economy is in a recession. Madison Avenue is already battening down the hatches. more info

Entertainment To Be Created Within Collaborative Peer Groups
"Circular Entertainment," identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment, predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people by 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. more info

Web Playgrounds of the Very Young
New York Times
December 31, 2007

Forget Second Life. The real virtual world gold rush centers on the grammar-school set.

Trying to duplicate the success of blockbuster Web sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz, children’s entertainment companies are greatly accelerating efforts to build virtual worlds for children. Media conglomerates in particular think these sites — part online role-playing game and part social scene — can deliver quick growth, help keep movie franchises alive and instill brand loyalty in a generation of new customers.

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites.

“Get ready for total inundation,” said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst at the research firm eMarketer, who estimates that 20 million children will be members of a virtual world by 2011, up from 8.2 million today.

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

Club Penguin, where members pay $5.95 a month to dress and groom penguin characters and play games with them, attracts seven times more traffic than Second Life. In one sign of the times, Electric Sheep, a software developer that helps companies market their brands in virtual worlds like Second Life and There.com, last week laid off 22 people, about a third of its staff.

By contrast, Disney last month introduced a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has worlds on the way for “Cars” and Tinker Bell, among others. Nickelodeon, already home to Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon from Warner Brothers Entertainment, part of Time Warner: a cluster of worlds based on its Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D. C. comics properties.

Add to the mix similar offerings from toy manufacturers like Lego and Mattel. Upstart technology companies, particularly from overseas, are also elbowing for market share. Mind Candy, a British company that last month introduced a world called Moshi Monsters, and Stardoll, a site from Sweden, sign up thousands of members in the United States each day.

“There is a massive opportunity here,” said Steve Wadsworth, president of the Walt Disney Internet Group, in an interview last week.

Behind the virtual world gravy train are fraying traditional business models. As growth engines like television syndication and movie DVD sales sputter or plateau — and the Internet disrupts entertainment distribution in general — Disney, Warner Brothers and Viacom see online games and social networking as a way to keep profits growing.

But more is at stake than cultivating new revenue streams. For nearly 50 years, since the start of Saturday morning cartoons, the television set has served as the front door to the children’s entertainment business. A child encounters Mickey Mouse on the Disney Channel or Buzz Lightyear on a DVD and before long seeks out related merchandise and yearns to visit Walt Disney World.

Now the proliferation of broadband Internet access is forcing players to rethink the ways they reach young people. “Kids are starting to go to the Internet first,” Mr. Wadsworth said.

Disney’s biggest online world is Club Penguin, which it bought in August from three Canadians in a deal worth $700 million. At the time, more than 700,000 members paid fees of $5.95 a month, delivering annual revenue of almost $50 million.

Still, one world, even a very successful one, does not alter the financial landscape at a $35.5 billion company like Disney. So Disney is pursuing a portfolio approach, investing $5 million to $10 million per world to develop a string of as many as 10 virtual properties, people familiar with Disney’s plans said.

Tinker Bell’s world, called Pixie Hollow, illustrates the company’s game plan. Disney is developing the site internally — creative executives who help design new theme park attractions are working on it — and will introduce it this summer to help build buzz for “Tinker Bell,” a big-budget feature film set for a fall 2008 release.

Visitors to a rudimentary version of Pixie Hollow, reachable through Disney.com, have already created four million fairy avatars, or online alter egos, according to Disney. The site will ultimately allow users to play games (“help create the seasons”) and interact with other “fairies.” When avatars move across the screen, they leave a sparkling trail of pixie dust, a carefully designed part of the experience.

“We wanted to come up with a way to make flying around the site feel really good,” said Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing director of Disney Online.
Disney’s goal is to develop a network of worlds that appeal to various age groups, much like the company’s model. Preschool children might start with Pixie Hollow or Toon Town, another of Disney’s worlds, grow into Club Penguin and the one for “Cars” and graduate to “Pirates of the Caribbean” and beyond, perhaps to fantasy football at ESPN.com.

“All the stars are aligning for virtual worlds to become a mass-market form of entertainment, especially for kids and families,” Mr. Yanover said.

If virtual worlds for adults are about escaping from run-of-the-mill lives, sites for children tap into the desire to escape from the confines of reality as run by mom and dad. “I get to decide everything on Club Penguin,” said Nathaniel Wartzman, age 9, of Los Angeles, who also has a membership to a world called RuneScape.

But shopping is a powerful draw, too; most sites let children accumulate virtual points or spend their allowance money to buy digital loot. “It’s really fun to buy whatever you want inside the game,” Nathaniel said in a telephone interview. For his penguin, “like for Christmas I bought a fireplace, a flat-screen TV and a Christmas tree,” he said.

Online worlds, which typically have low overhead and fat profit margins once they are up and running, charge a monthly fee of $5 to $15 and require the adoption of an avatar. Some sites are free and rely on advertising to make money; others are advertising and subscription hybrids. Webkinz relies on the sale of stuffed animals, which come with tags that unlock digital content.

The power of the virtual worlds business was shown recently when Vivendi announced a plan to buy Activision, a publisher of video games for consoles like the Sony PlayStation 3. Vivendi owns World of Warcraft, a virtual world for adults with more than nine million members and revenue of more than $1 billion.

Still, the long-term appetite for the youth-oriented sites is unclear. Fads have always whipsawed the children’s toy market, and Web sites are no different, analysts warn. Parents could tire of paying the fees, while intense competition threatens to undercut the novelty. There are now at least 10 virtual worlds that involve caring for virtual pets.

Privacy and safety are a growing concern, particularly as companies aim at younger children. Some virtual worlds are now meant to appeal to preschoolers, using pictures to control actions so that reading is not required.

And critics are sharpening their knives. “We cannot allow the media and marketing industries to construct a childhood that is all screens, all the time,” said Susan Linn, a Boston psychologist and the director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, a nonprofit group that has complained of ads for movies on Webkinz.com.

Operators shrug off worries about fads and competition. “Are features like creating an avatar a long-term advantage for anyone? Probably not,” Mr. Yanover said. “The viability and sustainability of this business comes from the shifting behavior of kids and how they spend their leisure time.”

As for privacy and safety, companies point to a grid of controls. For instance, Neopets restricts children under 13 from certain areas unless their parents give permission in a fax. Several Neopets employees patrol the site around the clock, and messaging features are limited to approved words and phrases.

“Parents know they can trust our brand to protect kids,” said Steve Youngwood, executive vice president for digital media at Nickelodeon. “We see that as a competitive advantage.”

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Parents Group Slams Producers for Marketing PG-13 Films to Kids
Brandweek
January 17, 2008

A coalition of 19 pro-children groups have called on filmmakers today to stop promoting PG-13-rated movies to kids via giveaways and promotions.

The 19 are all signatories to a letter drafted by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood to the Motion Picture Assn. of America. The CCFC had contacted the Federal Trade Commission this past summer when the film Transformers was allegedly being marketed to kids via TV spots, food promotions and licensed toys. Last week, the FTC acted on CCFC’s complaint by urging the MPAA to adopt guidelines for the marketing of PG-13 movies.

“There is growing evidence that violent media has a negative impact on children’s attitudes and behavior,” said Dr. Susan Linn, the CCFC’s co-founder and director. “PG-13 movies have gotten increasingly violent in recent years, and it’s important for the industry to protect these children,” she added.

The CCFC is hoping its letter will sway the MPAA to heed the FTC’s request to be more vigilant in how films are marketed to youngsters.

For its part, the MPAA said it already has strict advertising guidelines in place.

“We are pleased that the FTC has said that they prefer self-regulation to government intervention,” said Seth Oster, svp and corporate communications officer for the MPAA. “We take their [FTC’s] recommendations seriously, have worked with them closely in the past, and will continue to do so. They made some good recommendations to us and in many cases they are things we are already looking at,” he added.

Among the signatories to the letter (besides the CCFC) are Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Inc., Parents for Ethical Marketing, and the Parents Television Council.

If the MPAA doesn’t voluntarily take further steps to restrict such marketing, Dr. Linn said her group would keep working with the FTC to propose regulations governing such ads.

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Entertainment Marketer of the Year: Walt Disney
Marketing Daily
January 2, 2008

Once upon a time, in a land where marketers seek to turn ad campaigns into cultural phenomena, there lived a major brand known as The Walt Disney Co.

That's the start of a familiar story. But in this telling, the iconic company unleashes cross-platform marketing forces and merchandising efforts that seemed nothing short of magic.

The biggest, brightest star in this kingdom is "High School Musical 2," which in August drew a record number of cable viewers to its premiere. The studio built on that popularity: Live shows helped pull visitors to Disney's parks, building on the original TV movie that attracted 170 million viewers worldwide. Apple sold the original version on iTunes, one of the first digital movies consumers could download from its Web site. That attracted media attention and consumer dollars.

"The stars aligned for Disney on this campaign, because the target audience was perfect," says Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer. "When the movie came out, Apple had just begun pushing video content on iTunes, so the first "High School Musical" benefited from the spike in interest of the ability to download digital video content from the Internet."

"HSM 2" premiered on the Disney Channel, with exclusive premiere sponsors, such as Wal-Mart, Dannon, Hasbro and Honda. It delivered 17.2 million total viewers, the most for any cable telecast in history, according to Nielsen Media Research. One out of every 10 people and 4 out of every 10 kids ages 6 to 11 watched it.

"'High School Musical' is a great example of how we've leveraged a Disney Channel Original Movie that our audience loved from the start to become a franchise the whole company could get behind," says Adam Sanderson, senior vice president/brand marketing for the Disney-ABC Cable Networks Group.

From consumer products to live events, "HSM" became nothing short of a phenomenon. As of November, "HSM 2" had reached 124 million viewers worldwide. Since its premiere, "HSM" has been seen by more than 250 million unique viewers worldwide.

An extensive campaign on Disney.com preceded the movie's release, complete with stand-alone video and music channels built on Disney's XD (extreme digital) platform. Beginning on Sunday of the week leading up to the premiere, Disney's internal site tracking reported a record average of 7.6 million daily page views at Disney.com/dxd, which debuted in February. Over the weekend, Disney saw an average of 8 million daily page views.

The "HSM"-themed show running at Disney's parks was redesigned to coincide with the premiere of "HSM 2," incorporating music and dance from both movies. The show has hit the live stage, too. By licensing the script for local student theatre productions, Disney saw "High School Musical: On Stage" performed about 8,000 times since fall 2006.

The sequel's soundtrack, released in August, is expected to be the No. 1 album of 2007 on the Billboard Top 200, with more than 5 million units shipped by the end of November.

Another successful tale this year: the marketing and the advertising campaigns for "Ratatouille." Long before the movie's release in June, Disney and its Pixar Animation Studios division began running trailers attached to box office hits such as "Cars," and introduced an all-day TV advertising campaign that included a 90-second spot on "American Idol." It drove viewers to a nine-minute movie clip that gave a glimpse into the story line and a lesson in how to pronounce the title.

As the release date grew nearer, Disney added the scratch-and-sniff book, I Smell a Rat, published by Random House, and a 10-city tour.

And, of course, the year provided an animated fairy-tale princess who gets transported out of her happy-ever-after-land into the wicked world of live-action Manhattan. Disney marketed the musical fairy tale "Enchanted" with a rich MySpace profile, complete with videos, podcasts, celebrity tie-ins, and the chance for users to turn photos of themselves into Disney characters.

All that gave Disney something to be thankful for during the Thanksgiving holiday. The movie topped the five-day weekend box office, grossing $50 million, $35 million of which came in Friday through Sunday – a fairy-tale ending to already charmed year.

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Dissecting 'Generation Google'
Marketing Pilgrim
January 21, 2008

Some sociologists are dubbing kids born after 1993 "Generation Google" – since they've practically been exposed to the Web from birth, they're supposed to excel at seeking out information online. But according to a study by the British Library and the Joint Information Systems Committee, they're actually not much better at searching than their older (Millennials, Gen-Y, Gen-X, etc.) counterparts.

The study found that while Generation Google is "the cut and paste generation" that is "more competent with technology," and is "turning away from being passive consumers of information"-its members are not "expert searchers."

They do not "pick up their computer skills by trial and error" (they read the manual like everyone else), nor do they "find their peers more credible as information sources than authority figures." In fact, the research showed that kids in a secondary school setting valued info from their teachers, textbooks and relatives more than info from the Internet.

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Is It a Recession? Marketers Seem to Think So
New York Times
January 28, 2008

Let the economists and politicians debate whether the American economy is in a recession. Madison Avenue is already battening down the hatches.

Since September, Wal-Mart Stores, the nation’s largest retailer, has built its entire current advertising approach upon this bald premise: “Save money. Live better.” Skeptics wondered at the time whether Wal-Mart and its new agency, the Martin Agency in Richmond, Va., part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, were fixating on price at the expense of other attractions like fashion or breadth of merchandise.

But the economic problems that followed — falling prices for houses, tightening credit and the gyrations of the stock market — vindicated their decision. Amid widespread consumer anxiety, Wal-Mart weathered a difficult holiday season for retailers, reporting a 2.7 percent increase for December while many of its rivals, including Target, posted losses.

“We don’t profess to have any prophetic abilities to call the economy any better than the folks who do it for a living,” said Stephen Quinn, Wal-Mart’s chief marketing officer. Rather, “when gas prices spiked last spring,” he added, “we saw the pressure this put on our core customers.”

Those customers can find plenty of companies following Wal-Mart’s lead, with many campaigns speaking to Americans as if a recession were already under way.

But while many marketers may be looking to adjust the contents of their campaigns, forecasters believe overall advertising spending will remain strong as a recession looms.

TNS Media Intelligence in New York estimates that ad spending will increase by 4.2 percent (fueled in part by an estimated $5 billion in spending connected to the Summer Olympics and the elections), a steep increase over a 1.7 percent increase a year earlier.

“A large chunk of the core ad economy is in a weakened condition,” said Jon Swallen, senior vice president for research at TNS. He cited retailers, especially “housing-related retail, from the big-box chains to the mom-and-pop home furnishings stores.” On the other hand, in “key categories like automotive,” he added, “ad budgets have been going up as sales have been going down.”

Here are some other campaigns suggesting that advertisers already believe the wolf is at the door:

• A campaign for Sammies, a new sandwich line at Quiznos, stresses the low price ($2 each) as much as the low calorie count (200 to 300 each).
• “Uncertain times call for a very certain rate,” assert advertisements for North Fork Bank, part of Capital One, offering a seven-month certificate of deposit at 4.25 percent.
• TheLadders.com, a jobs Web site, sent e-mail messages last Monday bearing this subject line: “Recession is coming, get your job insurance now!”
• Nissan is pitching the fuel economy of its 2008 Altima sedan, rather than style or performance, with commercials devoted to its ability to go more than 600 miles between fill-ups.
• Ads from a new campaign for Club Med family resorts carry banner headlines declaring that “Kids stay free.”
• Starbucks is testing in Seattle-area stores “short,” or small, coffees priced at $1 a cup — and free refills.
• Sovereign Bank is wooing consumers to open checking accounts with up to $100 in “gas reward cards.”

Those with long memories may recall other times in the last two decades that ads were devoted to encouraging consumer frugality rather than celebrating unchecked spending. For example, there were price-conscious campaigns after the 1987 stock market crash, during the 1990-1 recession and after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000-1.

This time, however, it seems the shift in tone is taking place earlier in the economic cycle. After all, a recession is defined traditionally as two straight quarters of contraction — and officially, there has not even been one.

“California is in a tough economy right now,” said Michael Branigan, vice president for marketing at Sizzler USA Restaurants in Culver City, Calif., which has restaurants in that state and 15 others as well as Puerto Rico.

“It’s not that our consumer doesn’t like us,” he added. “It’s just that they don’t have the money to eat out.”

So Sizzler is starting a campaign from its new agency, Ground Zero in Los Angeles, featuring menu items that are priced between the fare at fast-food restaurants like McDonald’s and casual-dining chains like Chili’s.

To signal what Mr. Branigan called the Sizzler “value equation,” a promotion last week offered an eight-ounce steak for a penny to customers who bought one at regular price. Ground Zero promoted the sale with offbeat video clips on Web sites like MySpace and YouTube.

The willingness of Madison Avenue to act as if a recession is under way may seem confusing, because advertisers usually reduce their spending during downturns. Over all, ad outlays have fallen in previous recessions — 6.5 percent in 2001 compared with 2000 and 1.2 percent in 1991 compared with 1990.

However, many marketers spend the same — or even more — during hard times as they do during booms, on the theory that they must make sure to be remembered by any consumers who are still shopping. And advertisers in competitive categories like automobiles, beer or fast food are reluctant to cut spending if their rivals are not.

Quiznos, whose chief rival is Subway, introduced Sammies, a line of flatbread sandwiches, in November. The $2 price is less than half the average Quiznos check, which runs “significantly above $5,” according to Steve Provost, chief marketing officer at Quiznos in Denver.

“Like all retailers, we’re now staring down the barrel of consumer spending actually declining,” he said. “We want to hold on to quality, but at a price point that appeals to a much broader target.”

The Sammies line already accounts for about 15 percent of Quiznos sales, Mr. Provost said. A campaign under way from Cliff Freeman & Partners in New York, part of MDC Partners, carries the theme “Love what you eat” and features a Sammies meal — two sandwiches, a side dish and a fountain drink — for $5.99.

“It has attracted a new customer, more value conscious,” he added, “also more women, and guys looking for a lighter lunch.”

“Even marketers that usually aim products at consumers with more money in their wallets than Sizzler customers are playing “Let’s Make a Deal.”

For instance, the new campaign for the upmarket Club Med resorts stresses the company’s “all inclusive” pricing policy with phrases like “Everything is taken care of.”

“What we are selling is good value for money,” said Henri Giscard d’Estaing, chairman, president and chief executive at Club Méditerranée in Paris, “especially for families.”

“It’s extremely appropriate for the times,” he added.

The English-language version of the campaign, by the Publicis et Nous agency in Paris, part of the Publicis Groupe, carries the theme “Where happiness means the world.”

In French, the theme is “Tous les bonheurs du monde,” which Mr. Giscard d’Estaing translated as, “All the small moments of happiness in the world.”

Over all, Club Med will spend about as much in 2008 as it did in 2007, but plans to change the media mix significantly by adding more online advertising and reducing what it spends for television commercials. Some analysts believe that the ability to more closely monitor the results from Internet campaigns may keep demand for online ads high, regardless of economic conditions.

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Entertainment To Be Created Within Collaborative Peer Groups
Research Brief
January 4, 2008

"Circular Entertainment," identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment, predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people by 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups.

The study, "A Glimpse of the Next Episode" by The Future Laboratory, combines views from industry leading figures with Nokia's research from a sample of 900 million consumers around the world to construct a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years.

Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia, said "... the trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media."

This circular sharing is described in the report like this:

• Someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend...
• That friend adds an MP3 file soundtrack of the evening - then passes it to another friend...
• This friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend...

The content keeps circulating between friends, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."

Tom Savigar, Trends Director at The Future Laboratory, says "Consumers are increasingly demanding their entertainment be truly immersive..."

Of the 9,000 consumers surveyed:

• 23% buy movies in digital format
• 35% buy music on MP3 files
• 25% buy music on mobile devices
• 39% watch TV on the internet
• 23% watch TV on mobile devices
• 46% regularly use IM, 37% on a mobile device
• 29% regularly blog
• 28% regularly access social networking sites
• 22% connect using technologies such as Skype
• 17% take part in Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games
• 17% upload to the internet from a mobile device

The research identified four key driving trends;

• Immersive Living is the rise of lifestyles which blur the reality of being on and offline. Entertainment will no longer be segmented; people can access and create it wherever they are.
• Geek Culture marks a shift as consumers become hungry for more sophisticated entertainment... the boundaries between being commercial and creative will blur.
• A social force in Asia called G Tech, the feminization of technology currently underway, suggests that entertainment will be more collaborative, democratic, emotional and customized.
• Localism, locally-minded sprit emerging in entertainment consumption, will become a key theme whereby Consumers will take pride in seeking out the local and home-grown.