Nickelodeon is set to kick off the awards season with the ‘Kids Choice Awards’ that gets kids by providing them with an opportunity to vote for their favorites across multiple categories. The property has roped in a slew of sponsors – Dabur Red Paste, Jolly Rancher, Yellow Diamond and Funskool – for the awards which will happen on December 15 at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai.
Speaking on the third edition of the awards, Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Business Head, Kids’ Cluster, Viacom18 said: “At Nickelodeon, we have always believed in empowering children and giving them an opportunity to voice their choices. It is with this belief that we started KCA and with each passing year, not only have we dialed up the connect with our young audiences and their parents but also have exponentially increased the propertyÂ’s appeal to the advertising community. This being Viacom18’s 10th anniversary year, and Nickelodeon being one of the founding brands the network launched with, KCA will be bigger, better, louder and slimier than ever before!â€
Added Harkawal Singh, Head – Marketing (Oral Care), Dabur India: “Through Nickelodeon and KCA, Dabur Red Paste plans to further spread the message about dental hygiene. Also to educate children about best oral care practices with a focused and specially crafted campaign along with some fun and entertainment.†KCA 2017 is being promoted through a 360-degree marketing campaign.
After two successful editions, Nickelodeon is set to host the ‘Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2017’ in December. The award affords children to vote for their favorites. Last year saw Shah Rukh Khan win the title of Icon of the Year and Deepika Padukone win the best actress award for Bajirao Mastani. Kala Chashma, was voted as the best song by kids while Temple Run was nominated as the best mobile game and Leander Peas received the Nickelodeon Khiladiyon Ke Khiladi Award.
This year will also see Nick Toons Motu Patlu, Shiva, Dora, Boots, Doggy Don, Ninja Hatori and Gattu Battu match steps with celebs attending the awards show. Said Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Business Head, Kids entertainment cluster, Viacom18: “Kids are at the centre of all that we do at Nickelodeon. We have once again curated an unmatched family experience with Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards that is not only a category first but more importantly also empowers the young generation by recognising their choices.â€
Nickelodeon has upped the fun and entertainment quotient for kids by launching its latest campaign ‘Nickelodeon Best Friensdshake Forever’ and ‘Sonic School with Toons’ contest. The campaign will be brought alive on-ground by a high decibel school contact programme across 650 schools spanning over 20 cities, notes a communique.
Said Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Business Head, Kids’ Entertainment Cluster, Viacom 18 Media: “Nickelodeon believes in actively engaging with kids outside of television by providing them with an immersive platform to interact with their favourite toons. Our robust school contact programme allows us to connect with kids and curate memorable experiences for them, thus forging an unbreakable bond.  It is a result of such marquee initiatives that nickelodeon and its adorable toons continue to play an eminent role in every child’s daily life.â€
Kids franchise, Nickelodeon is set to rebrand its 2011 launched kids channel – SONIC.  With this rebranding, SONIC, an integral part of the kids franchise, is all set to evolve its content strategy to now include edgy comedy along with riveting action. The evolution in the content strategy will be brought alive through the renewed graphic elements and the new vibrant logo imbued with energy and life. SONIC will go live, starting 3rdMay, 2016.
The channel is already prepped for the transformation through a refreshing programming line-up. This change has already been set into motion with India’s first action comedy series, Shiva moving to SONIC. There will also be new episodes of Pakdam Pakdai and Oggy the Cockroaches along with the ever-green shows Supa Strikas and Shaun The Sheep.
“Our flagship Kids channel Nick has been the genre leader for almost 2 years now and our Kids portfolio is amongst the top 2 in India. Seen in this light, the rebranding exercise for Sonic is part of an evolving  content strategy aimed at building Sonic up as a strong second to Nick, thereby increasing the combined viewership share of our Kids portfolio as we aim to cement our position as the number one Kids’ content destination in India,†said Sudhanshu Vats – Group CEO, Viacom18, as he further underlined the importance of the Kids genre, “Our commitment to the genre is reflected in how we’ve placed it across our network through Consumer Products and a dedicated section in our OTT service Voot.â€
Talking about the rebranding of SONIC, Nina Elavia Jaipuria -EVP and Head – Kids Cluster, Viacom18 said “While Nickelodeon continues its dream run, our focus for this year is on building SONIC into a formidable channel that becomes a part of every child’s daily life. Our research shows that Children love action but with a significant dash of comedy.  It is aligning to this insight that we have curated the all new SONIC that is fun, refreshing, vibrant, full of action and entertainment  and with an edgy sense of humor which we are sure that children will love.â€
The refreshed look of the channel will be brought to life with the Shiva campaign. The expansive marketing campaign will have promotions with an extensive cross channel plan, large scale on-ground, ambient engagement and interesting on-line interactivity. Adding to this will be the on-ground initiatives like retail and mall partnerships, the association with Pantaloons for the Junior Fashion Icon, SHIVA themed games and meet-and-greets at Funcity, etc, all of which will introduce as well as allow kids’ to engage with their all new SONIC.
With an enthralling programming lineup and an enhanced visual experience, SONIC is all set to zoom into the daily life of every child in India.
It’s been a big year for Nickelodeon, both in terms of revenue as well as viewership. Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Executive Vice President and Business Head of the Kids Cluster at Viacom 18 shares with Anuka Roy how the last business year, her big plans for the brand. Read on…
So how is Shiva doing? That was the highlight of the last year among the various new things you did…
Yes, Shiva is one of the many highlights that we had. One of them being, we have been #1 for the past 20 months, but the fact that Shiva broke all the roles in one shot. I have worked for this category for almost a decade now and I haven’t seen a launch like Shiva. So, I’ll just take a step back to explain to you why. Normally when you launch a show on a channel, it’s a new character and children of course have not seen too much of that character. They are currently watching a toon or a character that they really love, a show that they really love and therefore they fall in love and are habituated to watching what they really like to watch. When a new character is launched, it usually takes some time for kids to warm up to the character, you have to start liking the character, the character has to grow on you.
Shiva broke all the rules because in the first week of Shiva’s launch, it was the second slot in the category in the second week onward, it was the number one show in the genre. So, not just for Nickelodeon but as a category I am saying. It continues till date to have at least two, three or four slots in the Top 10 of the category. Highlight is an underestimation. We had done an extensive need gap study to say that Nickelodeon as a franchise doesn’t have an action- comedy genre. And therefore, we identified it as a need gap, gone after it, created a show which had fabulous storytelling, character and animation. So, all put together it was like a full masala-action-adventure-comedy plot. I think that was what probably clicked with kids and continues to click with them. Even as of date today it continues to be 12 % of our ratings. Even though it is only five months old and has limited episodes, because episodes are in the making whereas Motu Patlu and Pakdam Pakdai have significant library, but even with a limited library Shiva has made a big mark. And that is why I am going to continue without even asking what the story is. The story is we are moving Shiva to Sonic and that’s a very bold, brave and strategic decision we are making. That’s the focus for this year as well that while we maintain the number one position in Nick, we take Sonic to an all new high and hope that channel as well to become a very strong second competitor. For that reason, we are taking all the loyal viewers of Nick and Shiva and moving them to Sonic. Hopefully, the audience will move with show as well, that’s what the hypothesis is. And we have a huge summer campaign to follow it up in the vacation which will create awareness about Shiva on Sonic.
Fiscal year 2015-16 has been yet another year of leadership for Nickelodeon. We saw it launching in HD. And we have seen the entry of the BARC ratings plus rural numbers. How has the year been for Nick? Not just Nick, but the entire slew of channels under the categories you look.
It has been fabulous. From a financial year perspective our toplines have really grown. The Nick yield is the biggest highlight for me, which has growing two years in a now. Last year, we grew it by 40%. So, monetisation of Nick along with the number one position is the big highlight for me and the fact that, we have grown our entire topline which consists of Ad Sales, Ancillary revenue. All of that has grown by a robust percentage and we have tripled our bottom line as well, two years consecutively. So, we are a profitable vertical at Viacom 18, which is delivering to the Viacom 18 profits now. From the genre perspective, adsales grew as well. It has been consistently growing year after year. So, we are correcting the under indexation and I am happy to say that, finally, it is in the right trajectory. A lot of growth expected in the adsales pie as well. While it was at a 1%, today it is at 3% of the adsales pie. We have a lot of non-kid advertisers joining in. Almost 58% of our advertisers today are non-kid. I do From a viewership perspective also we continue to grow and continue to have 6% of our total viewership is the kids’ genre, so, that hasn’t gone away anywhere. In fact, in the urban it is at 8%. We are a very big genre, bigger than news, music, sports, infotainment and all of that.  It’s a big genre with total viewership coverage of about 6-8%…
Any noteworthy trends that you would like to highlight.
The trend is very clearly the fact that kids are taken to Indian local content we have creating. The trend seems to continue because we have got success stories on our own franchise to talk about when we started with Motu Patlu and then we have Pakdam Pakdai and now we have Shiva. So, you should watch out for more of them . We are storytellers, content makers and we would continue to invest in that part of the business big time. That’s really the trend from a perspective to say that, there Indian local content, which is now being extended beyond series into movies. Kid movies made for television making into the hearts of our kids; to me is another big trend. A trend I would look at from the adsales perspective would be to say that there are big takers and brands are now looking forward to it. They look at customisation, integration and in show placements to get the access and their brand out there for kids to see and consume. Another trend is that the ecosystems for kids’ franchises are really growing. We have made big moves into consumer products and we have grown from 25 to 40 categories today and the whole back to school range that’s going to launch this summer. So, a consumer product is something that will only grow as characters and character affinities grow. Kids will like to have consumer products of those characters. We see a lot of potential there and of course the affinity towards brands and characters as well and we have got into licensing in a big way. We had Britannia and Tiger biscuits doing it with Ninja, McVities with MotuPatlu. So, we have partnered with Boost as well and their licensing as well, Mother Dairy has also come on board. There is the trend of this ecosystem going beyond television. I think it’s growing into all forms of engagement. We are also looking into digital. The Shiva digital games have already got 1.5 million game plays in a couple of months that we launched. Digital is creating a lot of engagement for marketeers. We are able to engage our toons beyond television in digital as well. So, that’s a new trend. All these trends have potential which will grow.
How has been the acceptance of Nick amongst rural audiences Vs urban
Typically, the category gets about 65% of its ratings from urban and 35% of their ratings from rural. And that trend is very significant which says that pretty much tells us that the content which we have in the channel today is appealing across a different tiers of market s and different markets as well. Even in urban we do as well in 0.1 million as we do in megacities as we do now in rural. And, because of the fact that we now have English, Hindi, Tamil and Telegu dubs which has actually been able to penetrate and we do get 35% of our ratings from the rural market. That’s how appealing the content is to every child in the country today.
The success of any business is viewed in terms of revenues. Please do talk us through that.
Topline has really grown. Ad sales for Nick have really grown. The top line yield has grown by 40%. Sonic has also grown by significant leaps and bounds. There are lot of people who have sampled the channel and have now brought it into their consideration. 35% growth on the total top line is a great success story and how well we have been able to monetize the number one position. That growth has come in the period of two years. Subsequent in two years we have grown our Ad sales and top line and profits as well. A profitable growing business along with growing viewership as well.
What about audience engagement drives? How have those panned out
Fantastically well. We have over 1000 touch points in the year, we do a lot of stuff outside of television and digital as well which is more or less in terms of mall activation, we do many school programmes in the year. In fact for the summer campaign, we have partnered with retail outlets to ensure that the partnership goes forward. We have partnered with Pantaloons on their stores, Fun City which is a gaming zone, with McDonalds, with malls to do meet-and-greets, so and so forth. This year, we have partnered with National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) for its kids fiesta. Every year they do kids plays and workshops and this year, our toons are a part of their syllabi and meet and greet. All of these gives us a lot of touch, feel and play because it’s about a character you watch on TV and when it comes out of TV there is this whole tangablisation of the character which is what engagement gives us.
What are the plans for the year ahead and specifically for this summer?
We are going to move Shiva onto Sonic. Along with new episodes of Shiva on Sonic, we have new episodes of Pakdam Pakdai, new episodes of Shaun, the sheep and Supa Stikas, some of our very big shows. We would go outside of the network, in channels like Star, Zee and Sab to ensure that we create awareness about Shiva on Sonic. There is a big mass campaign for Shiva in summer, where there will be watch and wins. We will go to theatres as well. Big plan on Nick as well, it will see new episodes of Motu Patlu, new episodes of Ninja after very long and we are launching our 10th movie which is Motu Patlu in Double Trouble. We are doing van activation for Sonic as well. So, the vans go to Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns in 30 days, they do 20-25 cities. Lot of activity and action plan for summer.
The kids’ zone is very big on Voot. Will that be in sync with some of what you are already doing for your channels?
Voot and we are in a win- win position. They grow from us and we grow from them. Therefore, we have become the aggregators of a lot of good content between us and that’s really working for us as we can cross pollinate and we have the flexibility of using so much of the Intellectual Property (IP) that is our own. We can have the toons in the OTT (Over-the-top content) platforms which will only popularise them that much more.
Nickelodeon India continues to lead the league by innovating and engaging with kids across the country. Nickelodeon has announced its game changer initiatives this season – Launch of the action-comedy series Shiva on Nickelodeon; launch of Nick HD+ — India’s first HD channel in the kids category and a strong growth plan for SONIC.
Announcing the high decibel launches for the quarter, Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & Business Head – Kids Cluster, Viacom18 said, “Nickelodeon has always stayed ahead of the curve with its innovative and engaging initiatives. Keeping kids at the core of everything that we do, endearing characters, path breaking content and pioneering initiatives have scripted Nickelodeon’s leadership and success story. The launch of Shiva and Nick HD+ are significant milestones in the category and are sure to be game changers, further fortifying our leadership position.â€
The HD channel will soon be available on all cable and DTH platforms in the country.
Kid’s channel Nickelodeon will celebrate Children’s Day by unveiling “Nickelodeon Be the Boss†campaign. Five kids from across India will be the boss in the corporate office of Nickelodeon in Mumbai where they will decide exactly how their favourite channel will run.
Five kids selected from the nationwide contest will see their favourite Nicktoons personally hand out the appointment letter to each of the winners. To helm the steering wheel of Nickelodeon on Children’s Day, all that the kids need to do is tune in to Nickelodeon starting now to 7th November every Mon-Fri from 6.00 to 7.00pm and participate in the “Nick Be the Boss†contest.
Nina Elavia Jaipuria
Talking about the launch of this inimitable initiative, Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP & Business Head, Kids Cluster said “Nickelodeon has always believed in empowering kids while entertaining them. Taking this promise ahead, the channel that is of the kids and for the kids will now be run by the kids on Children’s Day. We are sure that children with their imaginative minds will add a whole new dimension of fun to Nickelodeon on this special day and I am more than happy to step aside and hand over the reins to the little bossesâ€.
On children’s day we will see the bachcha bosses rule the roost at Nick. Turning the tables around, the newly appointed bosses will decide what gets shown on their favorite channel – Nickelodeon. Subsequently they will also turn celebrities and be brought back on air on Nickelodeon as the face of the channel.
Live Viacom 18 is bringing the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards to India next month. Billed as the only live awards show of the kids, by the kids and for the kids where kids get to vote across categories for their favourites who will get declared the winners!
The Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards has been in existence for over 25 years and is aired in over 33 countries.
Nina Elavia Jaipuria
Said Nina Elavia Jaipuria, Executive Vice President & Business Head, Kids’ Cluster, Viacom 18 Media, “At Nickelodeon, we put kids at the core of all that we do. We believe in empowering kids and giving them the opportunity to make their own choices. With Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards now in India, we are giving them a platform where they can voice their choices. We will be their true mouthpiece in every sense of the word!”
Jaideep Singh, Senior Vice President and Business Head – INS, Viacom18 added: “There is an impressive line-up of celebrity performances and anchors for Nickelodeon’s first ever Kids’ Choice Awards.
Live Viacom18 is a sub-division of Viacom18’s Integrated Network Solutions and is mandated to create live properties in music and entertainment space for all the brands of network.
Representational photograph (Kids participating in laughter therapy session in in Mumbai… Photograph by Fotocorp)
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By Ananya Saha
There was a time, not so long ago in the 1990’s, when the Sunday slot of Mahabharata and animated series meant family viewing or kids genre. Kids were allowed to watch TV with parental permission. And today, kids genre in television media is the third largest after Hindi GECs at 27.6 per cent and Hindi movies at 11.9 per cent according to the FICCI-KPMG 2012 report.
Anita Nayyar
Acoording to Anita Nayyar, CEO, Havas Media, India & South Asia, the advent of Discovery Channel in 1999 saw a segment of kids watch it for education or interest. “Star World in 2004 had programmes like ‘Full House’ starring kids, but it was really post-2006 when kids became dominant. Their growing viewing needs and dedicated channels for them were addressed by various slots on various channels and some dedicated channels like Cartoon Network, Pogo, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Hungama, etc,” she points out. However, there is no denying the fact that there is not enough programming and print magazines for the young adult making them an underserved audience.
Nina Elavia Jaipuria, EVP and Business Head, Sonic and Nickelodeon India concurs, adding, “In terms of getting their daily dose of entertainment, this TG needs to flirt with options available across multiple platforms – be it TV, online or print.”
Sashwati Banerjee
Apart from television content, on the print content, Sashwati Banerjee, Managing Director, Sesame Workshop Initiatives India PLC added, “Books / print is another matter. This is not a generation that is growing up with print awareness and it is reflected by the recent ASeR report which showcases that children in Grade 5 are reading at Grade 2 level. There is a serious crisis in education, and reading, comprehending and fluency are critical indicators to children’s lifelong learning. There is a large number of publishers in India, but very few publish children’s books and a still smaller number specialize in publishing children’s books. Recent reports have indicated that ebooks have a higher growth potential. However, wider access is still an issue as these books require high end mobile devices (cell phones and tablets) to access and use.”
Nina Elavia Jaipuria
Catering to infants to kids upto eight-years, Galli Galli Sim Sim has evolved in multiple ways since it’s inception in 2006. It evolved the format from the classicSesame Streetmagazine style to a more narrative ‘block style’ based on research that children in India are more used to stories or narration. Considering that access to television is limited, Galli Galli Sim Sim produced a radio programme, that is being aired by 10 community radio stations to reach populations with critical messages around health, hygiene, literacy and girl child education.
Talking about Nicklodean and Sonic, Ms Jaipuria, said that Nickelodeon reaches out to 11 million kids pan India. “With media spends on kids channels approximately in the range of Rs 270cr, It is slated to grow further due to a slew of new channel launches in FY 13, she asserted. She also said that with the launch of Sonic in 2011, the investments in the kids genre has grown.
According to a recent E&Y study the children’s genre has emerged as the largest viewership segment after India’s general entertainment channel (GEC) sector. The segment comprised 18.3 per cent of the viewership among 4-14 year olds in 2011, as compared to 16.9 per cent in 2010. The study also states that advertising revenue generated by the children’s genre totalled Rs 2.4 billion in 2011, up from Rs 2 billion in 2010. This is attributed to the growth in the viewership in the children’s genre from 43 million in 2010 to 48 million in 2011. This segment focuses on its target audience through a total of 14 channels in the age groups of 2-4 years and 4-14 years, comprising the majority of the market, as well as 14-18 years.
The market for kids programming is huge, and the audience in this segment is growing. No wonder then that this November Zee launched ZeeQ, a 24×7 edutainment channel for kids aged 4-to-14-years. There are talks and suggestions of a DD Kids given Doordarshan’s reach. Kids seem to be pampered in the true sense and it is positive pampering.
Even as the category sees more entrants trying to woo the young audience, in terms of advertising pie, this genre ranks after general entertainment and sports. “We’ve seen a range of products and services making the kid the hero – from financial like insurance say an ICICI Smart Kids with the kid at the dinosaur museum or Bank of India with the kid putting his piggy bank in the locker to a flipkart.com with kid avatars of the elders contemplating a buy; simply because they are either targets or influencers and their starring role has the potential for breaking clutter. We’d estimate the kids ad-market between Rs.200crores to Rs.260crores. The pioneer in using kids to demonstrate pester power was Maruti Suzuki’s Esteem report card commercial,” elaborated Ms Nayyar.
With evolving societal structure as well as keenness on kid’s development for the future, Ms Nayyar predicts that “edutainment” will be the biggest driver in the category growth. Kids today are also more exposed .They are more amenable to instruction through entertainment. According to her, the vehicles that will drive the growth will be television, print and online, with online gaining lead.
“Word-of-mouth in this category has really been underestimated but here is a core audience for this marketing phenomenon,” said Ms Nayyar.
Challenges
Content creators and television channels for kids are increasingly experimenting with applications for cellphones and low-cost tablets and migrating content from a traditional linear medium such as TV to non-linear mediums to expand access to populations that need it the most as well as to enhance and enrich learning experiences for children. Notwithstanding the fact that the advent of digitization in India will be a key driver to the growth of the genre in the near future, mobile devices rather than the television set will be the primary driver to engage children in the future. “We’re seeing this change in theUSas well,” said Banerjee.
But the genre is facing very many challenges even as it looks at growth. As Ms Jaipuria points out:
– The kid’s category is still hugely under-indexed despite the category contributing 8% to viewership on an All India Level at 4+ age group. TV adsales are under 2% for this genre. Hence investments in the business are under pressure.
– The fragmentation in the kid’s category is increasing by the day with over a dozen players existing currently. This makes it possible for the broadcasters to offer differentiated content across genres and platforms.
– Kids as an audience are a tough bunch to target. They do not consume print and outdoor as primary consumers. A large chunk of the marketing investment is on BTL activities such as School Contact Programmes, Retail activation, direct consumer contact using multiple on-round vehicles which have an extremely high cost per contact.
– Distribution and carriage remains a challenge for this category.
Also, as Ms Banerjee explains, children today are “exposed to all kinds of programming especially in single TV homes. There is also extremely low awareness amongst parents on what children should view and what they should not. There is an imperative need to provide rating guidelines as well as awareness on how media affects children.”
While the experts believe that the greatest challenge is the creation of original content, or even good adaptation, quality is a major issue. There needs to be a very clear understanding of the sub-slice segment categories to contain the spill to international programmes, CDs and the online world as also increase the share of viewership of the media vehicle.
Says Ms Nayyar: “A lot of content and marketing is done and created for the Sec A and B but we miss a whole other India which invests heavily to educate its kids to give them another destiny. Here, affordable print with in-school promotions with reach beyond the creamy layer would create a whole new bottomline. Also, regional is a huge emerging market; again content with localization and language are opportunities and challenges. Content as always will be both the game player and game changer!”
The growth might also come from other content and entertainment avenues such as gaming. The only challenge is to tap into the potential with the right content.
Nickelodeon is set to kick off the awards season with the ‘Kids Choice Awards’ that gets kids by providing them with an opportunity to vote for their favorites across multiple categories. The property has roped in a slew of sponsors – Dabur Red Paste, Jolly Rancher, Yellow Diamond and Funskool – for the awards which will happen on December 15 at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai.
After two successful editions, Nickelodeon is set to host the ‘Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards 2017’ in December. The award affords children to vote for their favorites. Last year saw Shah Rukh Khan win the title of Icon of the Year and Deepika Padukone win the best actress award for Bajirao Mastani. Kala Chashma, was voted as the best song by kids while Temple Run was nominated as the best mobile game and Leander Peas received the Nickelodeon Khiladiyon Ke Khiladi Award.
