Log on junior, this one's for you

Tarana Khan

A hard-boiled candy may not be your idea of innovation, but one brand’s marketing strategy in this category is worth a second look. In a country where marketing for kids is still evolving, online spaces for them seem even barer. But ITC would not have you believe that. Online spaces for kids in India are alive and kicking, they will tell you. And to prove the point, they would proudly display the Candyman Club website. So far, marketers have been happy wooing young consumers through one-to-one marketing, television and even comic books. However, the increasingly wired child in India deserves something better.

Cartoon Network’s patented kids’ lifestyle research report ‘New Generations 2005’ offers insight into the role that Internet plays in the lives of children in India. The research, conducted 14 cities covering SEC A, B & C, revealed that 40 per cent of the kids aged 7-14 years used computers. This was further divided as 54 per cent of SEC A, 37 per cent of SEC B and a significant 34 per cent of SEC C. One in six of the children surveyed surfed the web, and the activity increased with age, with 20 per cent of 10-14 year olds accessing the Internet compared to 11 per cent in the 7-9 years age-group. While 58 per cent kids said they usually accessed Internet at school, 26 per cent did it at cyber cafes and 17 per cent at home.

Sweet success
The My Candyman Club website has been generating encouraging response from Indian kids who crave for a space they can call their own on the web. The site offers everything from interactive games, contests, message boards, art room, downloads, and jokes. Online agency BC Web Wise, which created the website, claims that over 14,000 kids have registered on it, and each user spends about 23 minutes at every visit. Noorulamin, Group Brand Manager - Confectionery, ITC, explains “Tech savvy kids are opinion leaders in their peer groups and therefore play a critical role in influencing brand choices amongst their peers. Communicating with these kids is an important part of Candyman's strategy. We also wanted to be the first kids brand in India to put up its website. The My Candyman Club website reflects the Candyman world of adventure and excitement.”

A key feature of the site is that it is divided into the Kids Only (7-9 years) and Tween Club (10-14 years), recognizing a significant need to understand the nuances of children in different age groups. Chaya Brian Carvalho, MD & CEO, BC Web Wise, elaborates “Kids are keenly aware of their age and differentiate sharply between material that is appropriate for them and material for older or younger kids, however close in age they might be. This differentiation, like on the Candyman website, in content and approach helps a lot. Although, campaign messages should refrain from calling them ‘kids’ or ‘tweens’.” ITC has also launched a website for Sunfeast (http://www.sunfeast.net) which has an environmental awareness theme, encouraging kids to do their bit to protect nature.

Loading…fun
The success of Candyman only reflects the growth in the online medium as a whole. Take Kellogg's Chocos, another site developed by BC Web Wise, featuring mascot Coco Monkey and other characters. The breakfast cereal website is not doing too badly in terms of numbers either. The site attracted 13,370 registrations, while the average user spends 14 minutes on it. Kellogg also has an interesting website for its Tony’s Tiger Power cereal which features an Energy Quotient quiz among other fare.

Food and beverage brands seem to be particularly keen on launching online spaces for kids. Virtual Marketing is an interactive agency which has created quite a few of them. Like the Cadbury India website, which exemplifies the chocolate brand’s carefree, dreamlike attitude. General Mills’ Dip Trix website is another one, featuring the Trix rabbit. Preeti Desai, COO - Digital Business, Virtual Marketing explains what it takes to build a great site for kids, “The websites created by us are designed focusing on ‘multiple’ formats of engagement like an interactive application, game, quiz or online buddy. These lead a user from an offline promotion to online or vice versa or through simultaneous interactions created to increase average time spent on site. Dynamic interactive engagement with rich imagery is a must for community sites especially for kids.”

Sunny days ahead?
One would like to believe that kids’ marketers are finally realising the online dream. Chaya of BC Web Wise agrees “Marketers across categories are aggressively targeting the younger age group, so it is necessary to break through this aggressive marketing environment with the online medium. Today marketers know that Generation Y is the first to grow up online, a generation which has never known a world without the computer and digital connections.”

The enthusiasm from the marketers end is borne by the fact that a majority of them approach the agencies with ideas for developing sites for consumers, instead of the other way round. Of course, it is ultimately the agency which figures out how to give it shape. Preeti of Virtual Marketing explains, “After we suggest the content, game and redemption plan depending on the brand requisites and the geographical diversity of the audience, the client enhances the content plan by sharing details on online and offline user engagement.”

Marketers are also aware that they need to keep updating content to hold the interest of kids with a wandering concentration. Candyman’s website donned a FIFA theme for the football season, while Perfetti Van Melle’s website (a Virtual Marketing creation) has a trend alert section for what’s in the monsoon season.

As broadband penetration in India increases, the online medium will get even more exciting – opening up opportunities for the use of rich media content like video. The Internet also throws up a number of opportunities for brands and content developers coming together, also making way for more interactivity by offering interest-specific spaces. Preeti says “Increase in online activities will happen if there increase in edutainment content where well-known brands and schools can collaborate to deliver an interactive recipe for fun and education, for example, an interactive reading club for kids.”

Chaya adds, “As more kids’ focused sites with content exclusive to the net come to play there will be a reason for kids to come online. Portals with a huge traffic such as Yahoo, Rediff, MSN and Sify should ideally focus on building the kids’ traffic with more content that is relevant to them.”

Emphasising the interactivity front, Noorulamin of ITC adds, “Contributions from the kids are put back onto the site which gives the users a sense of pride. It also makes the site more relevant to the kids themselves - speaking to kids in their own language.”

It certainly looks like marketers and agencies alike have got their foothold in the online medium, and have also cracked the key to what it takes to arrest the attention of a click-happy child.

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