An insightful look at the changing viewing habits of young audiences and how the interact with animated content was part of the opening day panels at The Animation Conference, part of Ottawa Intl. Animation Festival, which takes place in the Canadian capital Sept. 20-24.
Moderated by children media analyst and strategist David Kleeman, senior VP of global trends for U.K.-based research consultancy and digital studio Dubit, the panel featured Steve Coutoure, CEO of Epic Storyworlds; Lauren Martinez, VP of original series and movie development and Warner Bros. Media and Cartoon Network, and Martha Sepulveda, senior development exec at Cake Entertainment.
Kleeman opened the panel by sharing some interesting findings about top brand recognition for 2 to 15 year olds: Bluey, PAW Patrol, LEGO, Roblox, Snapchat and YouTube are some of the most recognized brands in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., according to research done by Dubit. Paw Patrol is the number one spontaneously mentioned brand by kids, 2 to 15. Roblox is the number one most-mentioned game and the most played game across all three countries, while Tiktok and YouTube are two of the most visited destination. He also emphasized the rise of popularity in user-generated content across the board over the past few years.
“When you combine the many ways kids are using video, video becomes the most common, games are the fast-rising part of how kids are using their video screens,” said Kleeman. “Of course, games include animation, so I don’t want to suggest that they’re moving away from animation, but they’re just consuming it in different ways. Video gets the largest amount of time—it’s the biggest amount of time they spend with any of the screens that they’re consuming. By and large, younger kids are the biggest consumers of video and the biggest consumers of animation.”
Discussing the changes in viewing habits over the past few years, Martinez noted, “One thing we’ve seen is a large rise in co-viewing since the pandemic. It was interesting to see that the show Bluey was across top of the board, not just with preschoolers 2 to 5, but also with their parents and their older siblings in the 9 to 14 range. Co-viewing has increased 30 percent so we need to appeal to multiple demographics.”
Coutoure recalled, “For us, in the pre-pandemic world, TV was the best format to tell stories and develop characters, and at one point, when we went to the first MIP market in Cannes after the pandemic, we noticed that there was nobody there. We had the feeling it was slowing down in some markets. Then, we looked at various studies and noticed that Roblox was appearing. It went public during the pandemic, and it became bigger than many established gaming platforms. We saw the rise of these types of non-traditional platforms. We also saw the shift in how kids are consuming entertainment. Looking at a great animated scene in a movie theater used to be a big thing, but now they have direct access to the content creators. Meeting and talking to the entertainment creators used to be close to impossible, but on Roblox and similar platforms, kids have direct access to the creators. That doesn’t mean that TV is dying, but it’s not the only one that can launch a brand and increase awareness of it.”
Martinez also pointed out that she has also noticed that the shows that do perform well in the older kids space (9 to 14) tend to encourage audience engagement. “We are seeing more access to creators on social media over the past few years,” she noted. “There are, of course, shows that have been very successful that don’t offer that kind of direct access, but there are communities that have formed around that space, that allow for that kind of communication and connection to their favorite characters.”
The panelists mentioned that they are also exploring releasing new projects on non-traditional platforms such as Roblox or YouTube first to increase awareness among the target audience rather than going through streamers or linear outlets first. They said these non-traditional venues help creators test out audience response and affinity for new titles without having to invest huge amounts of money on a new I.P.
Martinez said we are going to see a lot more of the Roblox model in the future.“We’re talking about premiering shows there and seeing where the audience is and where the eyeballs land as the streamers and everyone else is trying to figure out what the new model is like,” she said. “The old model does work, but it doesn’t work as robustly as it did a few years ago. We will see more things online, and I’m curious to see if there will be ecosystems that feed into each other, similar to what we had with Pokemon card games and TV shows when I was growing up.
As Kleeman concluded, “For a while, we were talking about transmedia, then there was 360 commissioning and now there’s the metaverse, and what it really boils down to is young kids wanting to connect with their favorite content in different ways, and if we don’t make it for them, they’ll make it for themselves.”
The Ottawa Intl. Animation Festival and The Animation Conference continue through Sunday. For more info visit animationfestival.ca
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