In the two years or so that I have spent at Vision+Media, children’s content has always been high on the agenda: The Northwest already has a long and rich heritage of producing fantastic children’s programming and the region’s future is set to go from strength to strength following the BBC’s decision to relocate both BBC Children’s and BBC Learning to MediaCityUK here in Salford, demonstrating the broadcaster's commitment to children’s content production in the North. So it was perhaps inevitable that, sooner or later, I would find myself at a conference dedicated to children’s content.
That time finally came the week before last as I travelled to Sheffield to attend The Children’s Media Conference (TCMC) for the first time, but not without preparation I might add: At our last event here at Vision+Media, Opportunities on the International Platform which took place the day before the opening day of the conference, attendees heard from BBC Worldwide’s Henrietta Hurford-Jones who used In The Night Garden as a case study of a CBeebies brand successfully exported to China.
Unfortunately I was only able to attend the Thursday (7th July) of TCMC but I had plenty of interesting sessions to choose from. Being of a more digital persuasion, I opted for a timetable of more tech-focused sessions that looked a little like this:
9:30am: Our Survey Said...
Introduction to the day billed as ‘All you need to know about kids’ media in one entertaining hour!’
11:00am: The Connected Living Room
Connected TVs, secondary screens and what’s in it for the kids?
12:45pm: Boo Who?
A lunchtime session exploring an alternative financing model for European TV series My Friend Boo
2:00pm: The AR Impact
Demonstrations of a number of augmented reality campaigns
3:30pm: Facebook Stole My Childhood
The implications of children using social networks of which they are not the target audience
5:00pm: A Tale of Three Apps
Three producers showcase three very different products to share their experience
6:15pm: Building Moshi Monsters to 50 Million Registered Users
Keynote presentations about growing a simple website into a global transmedia brand
If I was to identify a common thread that ran through these sessions, I would say that it was the ease with which children interact with new technologies; both software and hardware. Across various sessions it was generally accepted that kids are much smarter and savvier online than we, their content creators and parents, give them credit for. This doesn’t end with simply being able to navigate their way around tablet applications, for example, either; awareness of online privacy and security amongst children is also thought to be very good. This subject in particular was introduced during the day’s opening session and was later explored further in the Facebook Stole My Childhood session.
The session made plenty of references to the recently published Bailey Review (Letting Children Be Children: the Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood) particularly in regard to the ways in which brands engage with children through social media platforms such as Facebook. With a huge number of under-13s using the social network, despite its age restriction policy, there were calls for brands to act more responsibly, for parents and educators to better inform children of the implications of their interaction with people they don’t know on online networks (brands included), and also for the networks themselves to play a part in this education.
I myself am quite interested in the point at which children opt to move from social networks designed for children to social networks designed for adults. Fortunately, delegates were lucky enough to hear from Michael Acton-Smith, CEO of Mind Candy, creators of the hugely successful virtual world and online game - Moshi Monsters, one such social network designed for children. Michael delivered a refreshingly open presentation recounting some of the successes and failures of growing a brand to 50 million registered users. Lessons learnt along the way were shared with the audience and included exploring different business models and marketing techniques, being prepared to try new things without being afraid to fail in favour of blindly following the market leader, and keeping focus on your audiences’ experience. One point that Michael made clear at the end of his keynote was that “the most successful kids’ properties of tomorrow will originate online.”
In A Tale of Three Apps, two of the three case studies were not kids’ properties that had originated online, but much older IP that had found new life on mobile devices. Marc Williamson of Tag Games shared the studio’s experience of developing Doctor Who: The Mazes of Time for BBC Worldwide and Kate Wilson of Nosy Crow shared her company’s experience of publishing their first interactive children’s book for the iPad; The Three Little Pigs. The third app was another interactive book but created in a much shorter timeframe than the other two case studies, however the commonality between the three was the agreement that the ingredients of a fantastic story and the interactivity that mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad allow, can result in a highly engaging experience for children and adults alike.
Tablet devices also featured highly in the Connected Living Room session. What I expected to be a session focused entirely on Connected TVs ended up being more of a battle between Connect TVs and Secondary screens, with the latter seemingly coming out on top. I have to hold my hands up and say that this surprised me slightly: With lukewarm responses to Nintendo’s recently announced Wii U and with Samsung having already brought a range of Smart TVs to market, I personally felt that Connected TVs stood a much stronger chance of commercial viability, however the main argument that has since made me think otherwise is this: Whilst the living room environment is by definition ‘social’ in terms of family viewing of appointment-to-view television, the applications that are beginning to appear on connected, or smart, TV sets very much relate to the individual and the individual alone. You would not want your Facebook feed running alongside a television programme that the whole family is watching, however you may want to see what your Facebook friends are saying about the programme. Secondary mobile devices such as tablets have the potential to make television social on two levels; in the living room with your family and on social networks with your friends.
Then again this mightn’t be the way that the market is moving. If I learnt one thing from attending The Children’s Media Conference, it is that we may be in the business of producing fantastic content for children, but our main reason for doing so is because of how rewarding it is to be serving an audience that will forever keep us guessing, will never cease to surprise us, and will always be one step ahead of us in terms of what the future of this industry looks like.
For blog reviews of every single session at the conference, please visit The Children's Media Conference blog archive
