CHICAGO: Nickelodeon, the media company focused on children, uses four “pillars” to guide its strategy in areas such as brand activation and extensions.

Jennifer Tracy, Nickelodeon’s SVP/partner marketing and creative advertising, discussed this subject at the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2018 Brand Activation Conference.

More specifically, she highlighted four “pillars” that support brand activations and extensions across the full slate of Nickelodeon offerings, as well as its Nick at Night, Nick Jr., Nicktoons, Teen Nick, NickMusic, and TV Land spin-offs:

The first, she reported, involves ensuring that powerful insights underpin and inform the strategic choices that the organisation ultimately makes.

“If you've worked with Nickelodeon,” said Tracy, “you know that we are very much a research-driven organisation.” (For more, read WARC’s in-depth report: How Nickelodeon adds value to its branded properties.)

“We like to understand our audience and their behavior. It's really important for us to know what insight is going to best inform that particular marketing execution.”

Once the research leads to the kind of insights that provide brand direction, she continued, “We look at who is watching certain shows. For a particular show, we look at the attributes that are really resonating with our audience.”

The next fundamental “pillar” for Nickelodeon is that its activity should be “fan-fuelled”. Why? As it has to believe that there’s the kind of integrity that “really creates a way for our fans to participate with us.”

And the third crucial factor, for Tracy, is perhaps the “most adorable” – namely, the importance of building an emotional connection with its young audience.

“When you see a four-year-old respond to a pup on ‘Paw Patrol’ – and when you see the connection that our families have to these events – that's inspiring,” she said.

And, to that end, Tracy’s team works hard “to make sure we're making and establishing that emotional connection every single time.”

The last guardrail for the brand looks at hard actions. “Are we driving our audience to watch the show, attend an event … or just have a laugh, a smile with Nickelodeon through the program that we're designing?” is how Tracy described it.

Sourced from WARC