The power of a TV brand lies not just in its ability to dazzle, but also in its tenacity to thrive beyond linear TV. Just ask B1 and B2 from Bananas in Pyjamas; the twin preschool characters who “ambushed” me on the market floor (Ok I lied. I actually hunted them like a crazed Bieber fan just to get this shot). For a 20-year-old brand that’s aired in over 70 countries, the Endemol property’s reinvention – stripping the suited actors and donning the animation pjs – continues to enthrall with a second season this MIP.
Bananas isn’t the only show to see a resurgence. BBC Worldwide’s Joyce Yeung tells me that Teletubbies is still seeing strong digital sales in China – think the famous catch phrase “again, again!” Meanwhile, LazyTown, the Icelandic property saved from the brink of death by Turner EMEA, is back at MIP after a hiatus, as lead character Sportacus sets to declare war on laziness at the lazy (oops!) seaside town of Cannes.
Merchandise continues to sustain brand interest. Baby Jake, the CBeebies preschool series that made baby gurgles popular, has merchandise aplenty – think brand longevity. Billy Macqueen, co-founder of Darrall Macqueen and merchandising rights owner, proudly showed me his collection of Baby Jake memorabilia. I returned home the proud owner of a set of three Baby Jake figurines!
Some kids’ brands are imagined from the most unlikely of sources. MarVista Entertainment’s Robby Amar tells me why Julius Jr. – a preschool spinoff from fashion designer Paul Frank’s iconic monkey – is a unique brand proposition. “Where can you find a brand that can appear both on baby bottles as well as on ash trays?” Amar asserts. Uncomfortable as I was at that, I cannot help but agree.
Firing up audiences’ interest through social media and the digital space, as speakers at MIPCOM tells us, is paramount, and I am sure Honey Boo Boo will redneckognize. The 6-going-on-18 star of Toddlers and Tiaras has since “graduated” from her child pageant series and now fronts her own show (Asian premiere on Discovery Home & Health in February 2013). This, after videos of her oh-so-cute pageant performances went viral on YouTube, proving that in the digital age, child sensations can come younger, blonder, and dare I suggest, cuter than Justin Bieber! I digress.
Speaking of viral, who can ignore Gangnam style? Alex Ooi of CJ E&M tells me how Psy, the K-pop singer who’d have us believe that galloping is cool, was already a sensation in South Korea before all the hullabaloo (who knew?). The difference between a local pop star and an instant international one is – you guess it – YouTube! No wonder why Nigel Lythgoe goes hunting for the next YouTube star. We approve.
For this issue, I flew to Atlanta in search of a frighteningly feverish franchise – the The Walking Dead season 3. I find out from cast and crew just how revoltingly appetising the show has become, and without giving too much away, what to expect in the new feeding frenzy that’s airing on premium channels across Asia as I write. Also in Atlanta, I met Stu Snyder, COO of Cartoon Network, who has enough CN figurines in his office to put any Barbieobsessed girl to shame. Naturally, I exaggerate. Snyder shares his vision for Cartoon Network beyond the big 2 – 0.
This MIP, Reed MIDEM announced that attendance has improved since April, with 12,900 participants by the close of the market. While market sentiments are mixed, there were some decent-sized deals to warrant a possibly good year in TV content sales by year’s end, better than last year some say; and plenty of brands to utilise without exploiting the erotic sensation that is Fifty Shades of Grey. Let’s leave that for the literary world shall we? For now, I’d exalt the wonderful franchises above, with the most unexpected brand this side of the Croisette being the Cartoon Network watch distributed to guests at the MIPJunior lunch. This one, with every CN character imaginable squashed in a claustrophobic mess on the already-large clock face, will have you looking at it every hour for sure. Now how clever is that?
