Children’s podcasts have been popping up for a while now, including a few based on licensed IP. Almost a third of parents (32%) say they are very or somewhat likely to purchase a subscription to a paid podcast service for their child, according to a survey conducted by Morning Consult in November. Half of children […]
Archive | Content
Calm in the Storm
Meditation and mindfulness apps saw a spike in usage after the global pandemic hit. In the seven days beginning March 29, two weeks after the start of the lockdown in the U.S., downloads for such apps were up 25% from the weekly average in January and February, reaching 750,000 downloads, according to App Annie figures […]
In the Background
Since the coronavirus lockdown began, usage of video chat and teleconferencing apps has grown significantly as employees and consumers around the world utilize them to participate in virtual meetings, cocktail parties, trivia contests, and Easter and Passover celebrations. Zoom in particular has hit the mainstream in a big way, reporting a 151% increase in daily […]
Sticking to the Message
Characters and other imagery associated with instant messaging apps have given rise to a number of licensed product initiatives, many of which have become strong programs globally in terms of retail sales. Such initiatives can be organized into three major groups: Proprietary characters created by messaging apps. LINE Corporation oversees a wide range of products […]
Acknowledging ASMR
By Karen Raugust on March 28, 2019 in Branding/marketing, Content, Design and content themes, Wellness
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) videos have become a big trend online, especially among viewers 18-24. ASMR is the scientifically unproven but increasingly popular idea that certain soft, slow, and/or repetitive sounds tend to make users happy and relaxed, sometimes to the point that they feel a tingling sensation starting at the back of the […]
Continuing Education
Alliances between owners of licensed properties and providers of educational curriculum can take many forms. They involve a diverse roster of property types and can target the whole spectrum of age groups, as these recent deals attest: Sesame Workshop licensed McGraw-Hill Education to use its Sesame Street characters in a free version of MHE’s Wonders […]
Giving Voice to Smart Electronics
One of the biggest topics of conversation at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was the prominence of voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google’s Assistant, Apple’s Siri, Samsung’s Bixby, Roku’s Entertainment Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana. Not only are such voice assistants associated with smart speakers (e.g., Amazon’s Echo or Google’s Home), which […]
Tech Tidbits from the Digital Kids Conference
The 2017 Digital Kids Conference, held at Current at Chelsea Piers in New York on February 20, 2017, focused on the intersection of technology and kids’ media, entertainment, and marketing. A few takeaways of potential interest to the licensing community: By a margin of more than two to one, the members of Generation Z (ages […]
Kickstarting New Content
Some of the most successful crowdfunding programs to date have been those supporting the creation of new content based on classic characters: Aardman Animations ran a campaign to relaunch Morph, a stop-motion-animated character that had not appeared on television for 15 years. It generated £110,000 ($158,390) to fund 15 one-minute episodes for YouTube; U.K. children’s […]
Fostering Acceptance
By Karen Raugust on January 25, 2016 in Branding/marketing, Character/Entertainment, Content, Licensing
Over the past few years, a handful of catalogs and marketing campaigns have featured models with special needs, such as Down’s syndrome or physical disabilities. In general, the intent is not to call attention to these conditions, but simply to better represent the diversity of the marketers’ customer base. Examples have ranged from a Target […]