Kids (8 -12 years old) have always loved ice cream, but keeping our brand top of mind against increased snack and media entertainment choices was a big challenge.
Knowing that in order to truly engage our core target of older kids, we created a unique approach that would differentiate us from the rest of our peers who would focus their programs solely around product innovation or consumer promotion.
We have a great asset of a brand character that had been in use in Asia and Australia for some time but primarily on product packaging and advertising: Paddle Pop Lion, that we saw has the potential to exploit it into global roll out. It was a unique opportunity to leverage a previously underutilized asset in order to drive brand differentiation in the extremely competitive market context we were in. After an initial pilot phase, we decided to use him as a basis for a full global 360 Kids entertainment franchise that would take him where no other brand character had been before: Paddle Pop Adventures was born!
Our aim was simple but ambitious: create stories that would bring alive the brand’s essence through its mascots’ adventures and make these as engaging as the cartoons and games kids already loved.
Planning & Execution
We talked to kids globally to understand exactly what they wanted out of entertainment content and our proposition was born:
THE THRILLING AND EXCITING ADVENTURES OF PADDLE POP!
Kids want to be taken on to fantastic journeys to discover new places, meet new people and do cool new things. The concept of good vs. evil resonated with them and they wanted to be a part of that classic battle on the side of good with a hero characters they could relate to. We created adventure stories for that embodied all this and this allowed kids to engage with our brand wholeheartedly.
Recognizing that kids would respond to our insight, we decided to create a range of adventures for Paddle Pop Lion with a full length TV series of 11 x 22 min episodes at their heart. We worked with Hollywood veterans and top-notch animation houses to deliver quality on par with the best kids entertainment.
Kids were also able to watch the content as a 90-minute movie in cinemas, on DVD and online too.
The adventures featured not only our hero Paddle Pop, but also his friend Leena (who appealed to the girls) and a whole a network of friends that would help them thwart the evil Shadow Master.
In addition to the content, we developed a 360-immersion program, keeping kids engaged all summer long. From a Paddle Pop Adventures theme parks, online gaming, live events, to dedicated websites, PR, sponsorships, and competitions (sticks promotions). All these activities together propelled Paddle Pop Adventures to become a truly global kids entertainment property to be reckoned with.
We also included activity to support sales of Kids Ice Cream – Innovative new ice cream products themed with the movies were created so that kids could get to TASTE the adventure too. Paddle Pop Adventures featured in over 1 million Kids Ice Cream POS outlets globally and in TVCs across more than 30 markets.
Effectiveness / Results
In markets where the Paddle Pop brand already existed, we hit new highs in terms of conviction (strengthen kid’s loyalty) up to 71% in Indonesia. In markets where we launched for the first time we generated high awareness up to 90%.
Our content was the key driver and this was proven by the overwhelming response to various media and activities built around it.
Our TV programs performed strongly vs. established kids programming such as Spongebob, High School Musical Phineas & Ferb and Harry Potter in markets such as, Indonesia, Australia, Mexico and India. In Turkey, where the content was introduced in cinema to paying customers, we hit a high of the #3 most watched film in the country performing ahead of Hollywood movies and made Paddle become the number 1 most loved character in Turkey.
Over 1.2M kids in India joined to the Paddle Pop Gaming League and over 5 million DVD’s were redeemed via promotions in Southeast Asia.
The impact of our program translated into unprecedented Ice Cream sales with global growth of +26% and with new markets growing even more strongly at +43%.
Paddle Pop is now the fastest growing global brand platform in the largest Ice Cream company in the world!