W3Kids

Guitar Hero to take on ITunes

July 21st, 2008

Following the success of the game “Guitar Hero”, Activision Blizzard, a company formed by the merger of Activision and Vivendi,  has plans to develop a music platform similar to Apple’s ITunes.
Using the now notorious “Guitar Hero” brand (after generating $1 billion in revenues) the brand will be turned into a competitor for the lead in the music download market dominated by Apple.
Adding to the mix, Vivendi, is owned by Universal Music which already has a payment system established and working in “virtually every country in the world”. The company executives believe “Guitar Hero” has a lot of potential, as players can already download tracks to use while playing the games and this would be a natural progression.

Online advertising had the most growth in 2007

July 17th, 2008

To confirm all forecasts, internet ad spend was the fastest growing segment last year in UK.. A research published by the Advertising Association said online grew 39.5% in 2007, followed by cinema, which went up 10%, and outdoor medias which increased 4.6%. Press ads still take 40% of all the spend breakdown, but it dropped it’s share 1.6% compared to 2006. TV ads have the second slice of the market with 24% and Outdoor third with 16%.

Set a good example - stop smoking!

July 16th, 2008

In UK, half of all children are growing up in homes where at least one parent is a smoker. The children in these homes are put in risk because of passive smoking. Because of this, the NHS is launching a campaign highlighting that children are likely to copy their parents and take up their habits later on in life.
A strong appeal made by images of crayons used as a cigarettes, and the Disney sound-track from the movie The Jungle Book - “I wanna be like you”, will be used to influence parents and make them to take the initiative of stop smoking.
Children’s power to persuade, is also being put to good use in a CBBC reality TV show “The SmokeHouse” where six anti-smoking kids and their nicotine addicted parents move into the same house and begin an experiment that enables children and the audience to help their parents to quit a potentially lethal habit.

Radio on the computer

July 15th, 2008

A recent research published by RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) reported that 9.4 million people listened to radio online in the UK. The research which took place between April and May this year, was a comparison to last November’s results.
Half of listeners hadn’t listened to radio  on non digital mediums before, the same amount said they tuned in to radio shows that they had never listened to before. The average hours of radio programming listened was 1.8 hours per week.
Podcasts are also growing in listenership. ITunes is the main supplier, with three quarters of Podcasts users. 53% of the respondent said they didn’t mind listening to adverts on their Podcasts if the Podcast was free.

Brand Makeovers

July 14th, 2008

The nostalgic appeal of older brands from the 80’s to the current adult population is creating a trend by companies to re-release old brands after a quick makeover to get them back on the toy shelves.
Playing up nostalgia, of course, has long been one of the industry’s favorite strategies.

This appeals to parents who have a natural instinct to protect their children and a good way to achieve this is by cocooning their kids as much as possible, wrapping them in nostalgic brands from their own childhoods.
The efforts to create new characters have had mixed results for toy makers in recent years. One of the upsides or reviving an old brand is to explore new opportunities that didn’t exist before such as DVD movies, TV shows, merchandising and video games.

Strawberry Shortcake from American Greetings, now prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, removed her rouge and prefers to just wear a dab of lipstick and spend her time chatting with her friends on her mobile phone. The new look was unveiled on the 10th of June and came with plans for a new toy range from Hasbro.
Warner Brothers is leaving the styling decisions up to the customers. In the new version of KidsWB.com, coming out this summer, users will be able to customize Looney Tunes and Scooby Doo to their liking.

Even Mikey Mouse is in line for a new look. Keeping the core attributes of the characters and updating their environment is at the core of Disney’s strategy to evolve together with the new generation of kids.

W3kids with two projects in the new Taschen book!

July 11th, 2008

A new book by German Design and pop art publisher Taschen will contain  two kids websites developed by W3kids for the Latin American market:

The first is Barbie Hits, a microsite developed to promote the launch of the Barbie Kids sandal by Grendene Kids.

The other project is Together for Nature a joint venture between Grendene Kids, the WWF and Xuxa, the most recognized face in children’s TV in Brazi.

This is the second time that Taschen selects W3Haus works for their books. The first one was on Web Design Studios 2, being selected as one of the best web design studios in the world.

Guitar Hero player in the Guinness Book of Records

July 11th, 2008

A Guitar Hero III player, teenager Chris Chike, had already added his name to the Guinness Book of Records with a score of 840,647 points in the game. Recently, he beat his own mark by reaching the score of 987.786 points on the most difficult song in expert mode. The sound track was ” Through the Fire and the Flames”, from Dragonforce.

Disney launches Family Portal for the UK

July 8th, 2008

Disney is launching a family website, which will offer helpful information on the journey from pre-pregnancy to pre-teen parenthood. The site is a partnership with adult carers and has signed up writers and experts in the area, such as the UK’s leading obstetrician Professor Lesley Regan and clinical psychologist and author, Linda Blair.

UKfamily.com is an ad-funded parenting portal, offering a variety of advertising and sponsorship opportunities. The UK has an estimate of 6.5 million families with children under the age of 13, and more than 4 million mothers are already internet users. The portal aims to be a good opportunity for brands, allowing them to reach their costumers by traditional advertising and targeting specific groups by age, advice areas, user generate content, community and how-to-do videos.

The portal is following in the footsteps of the success of the American version found at Disney Family.com, launched last year. The first phase in the UK is going live on the 17th of July and the second phase, in autumn.

Edgy characters to grab kids attentions

July 7th, 2008

Brands such as Coca Cola and Subway, big multinational brands, are only the latest example of companies using  badly behaved characters to promote their products. In this case, Pete, the dad from the Family Guy TV cartoon show and Stewie, the baby that acts like an adult on the same show.

“We like to use things that are culturally relevant to sell our product, but you have to appeal to the target audience without denigrating your brand” said Mr. Pace, chief marketing officer at the marketing arm of Subway in Milford, Conn., known as the Subway Franchisee Advertising Fund Trust. “Sales were pretty good during that time the campaign ran”.
At Coca-Cola, the strategy was mixed characters, when the good guy wins creating a happy ending feel.
“We loved the balance of Stewie as a contemporary foil to Underdog first and then to Charlie Brown,” says Ms. Bayne, chief marketing officer for the North American operations of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. “Everyone loves Coca-Cola”, she added.
Edgy behaviour is trendy these days. Using cartoon characters, with the sponsor brand in control of the offensiveness is proving very effective.