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On Sunday, July 6, Akshat Singh, the youngest contestant in Viacom18's Hindi general entertainment channel Colors' dance show, Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa, would have been seen by its TV audience in an animated cum live-action dance performance. He had two other characters dancing with him -Nick's Motu and Patlu, from the kids channel's second locally-made show. It is the latest in cross-pollination that Viacom18's kids franchise, Nickelodeon, is using to catch its 'screenager' audience.
Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & business head - kids cluster, says, "With children, it is about reaching them in their homes, schools and today, for the screenagers, the different screens they watch content on. We would be leveraging the strength of our network to create such an ecosystem and cross-pollinate even more." Audience reach is not the only objective of a franchise that has been trailing competition but has been growing fast of late.
Jaipuria says that such technological innovations could make for a compelling sell to advertisers. Kids genre on television is one which may now have command over 7.5 per cent in viewership share (cable and satellite households, four years and above), after Hindi GECs and movies, but its share of the total advertising pie is only 4.2 per cent as per the Ficci-KPMG Indian Media and Entertainment Industry Report 2014 and TAM data. To boost advertiser interest, Jaipuria says such media innovations could also add value to brands for a category (kids) that is "heavily under-indexed". "It is time advertisers gave us our due. We are reaching kids who, these days, act almost like in-house consultants," says Jaipuria.
With the 12-minute advertising cap, Nickelodeon is focusing on these integrations for brands. It had integrated GSK's Horlicks Kesar Badam variant into its show Motu Patlu, for example, by getting one of the characters to drink it. "Instead of a passive placement, we wrote the product into the script," Jaipuria.
Jaipuria also says the strategy of launching channels for each audience group among children should go a long way too to ramp up media planners' spends on the channel. "Kids are entering and exiting age-groups much faster and each have different entertainment needs. The channels are differentiated and won't cannibalise each other." (see box).
The multi-channel strategy has attracted new kinds of advertisers. "Lifestyle brands such as Reebok and Micromax might not have spent earlier but now they have on Sonic,"says Jaipuria. Almost 10-15 per cent are non-kids advertisers and includes telecom, FMCG, durables and even insurance brands. Nick Junior would be dependent on merchandising and edutainment integrations.
Nick and its cousins have trailed other kids channel networks so far (Turner Network's Cartoon Network and POGO, for instance). POGO launched what became a success story in Indian-character merchandising - Chhota Bheem. But now Viacom is trying to catch up. It is expanding its locally-made shows and its opportunities of off-air branding for both international and the local characters. "It (Indian content) took us a while. Our first outing with Little Krishna got tremendous response," says Jaipuria.
It has since launched Motu Patlu with Hindi heartland nuances such as chai-stalls and samosas, and Pakdam Pakdai, a silent chase comedy. Motu Patlu grew its contribution to the channel (Nick) from 22 per cent in April to 37 per cent in viewership ratings in May and June. While the category has grown 8 per cent to 1,326 TVTs (television viewership in thousands, all India, 4-14 years of age) in April-June, 2014 over the same period in 2013, Nick has grown by 11 per cent (200 TVTs in April-June, 2014) and Sonic by 222 per cent (69 TVTs in the same period).
As with the Jhalak initiative, Nickelodeon is now planning to spin more on-ground activities around the Indian characters such as 'meet and greet' at malls, besides online tournaments. It recently tied up with Dominos to license Spongebob toys, one of Nickelodeon's most popular global toons, for Joy Box - a combo meal for kids. It might also take the Dora theatrical, a musical play, for tiny tots, that is ticketed, to more Indian cities this year, after last year's Delhi debut.
With production cost of animation twice that of live-action (the FICCI KPMG report says content costs range between Rs 15 lakh-20 lakh for 30 minutes, much more than most fiction shows on Hindi GECs), Viacom18 would be looking to increase the relevance of its kids shows beyond TV.
A toon for every age
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For toddlers: Nick Jr has a curriculum-based programming. Mostly Viacom's international shows are aired. Dora, the most popular, eggs kids to interact with the show, say by counting along with her
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For 6-10-year olds: Nick packs in different genres of humour from slapstick, family, silent to slice-of-life; With video games and Bollywood popular among kids, Sonic packs in action from good-over-evil, biking etc
- 10-14-year olds: Teen Nick has live action comedies in English such as Drake and Josh from Viacom's stable
