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Mike Young, co-founder of Mike Young Productions and its subsidiary Taffy Entertainment, argues a passionate case for a move into consumer products without losing the creative heart of the animation business.

Children's animation companies are increasingly looking at consumer product programmes to provide an additional income stream in the face of rising production costs. Independent animation houses, MoonScoop Productions and Mike Young Productions (MYP), decided the best way to maximise the potential for their shows was to establish a subsidiary company, Taffy Entertainment. Taffy Entertainment now acts as distributor and manages licensing and consumer products for both companies, and other third parties. This focus on consumer products shows how important a successful merchandising programme can be in extending a show's presence and providing worthwhile revenue.

LTW interviewed Mike Young, co-founder and partner of MYP, about his views on the animation market and Taffy Entertainment's plans. Young believes that moving into consumer products is a logical development: "I think it's been established that consumer products enhance the entertainment value of brands, and particularly value with kids, it helps them really get into a show.

From a business standpoint, consumer products campaigns are also the vehicles for keeping independent animation studios alive. Production costs have skyrocketed in the past two decades as competition has grown and new technologies like CGI and HD become part of the equation. It's not enough to just make great shows and sell them worldwide. Also, production costs aside, consumer demand for licensed products has never been higher so it makes perfect sense to try and fill that need in the marketplace."

Fighting Spirit.
Young passionately believes it is the quality of the show that is the foundation for any further success, and argues that creativity is more likely to be nurtured and valued in the independent sector. "Our longevity in the business is because we produce good shows. This year, we have nine Emmy nominations, which is more than Disney, Warner Bros and Viacom added together. You've got to be crazy to come over to Los Angeles and set up a studio against these monoliths, but we find there are great opportunities to run through their legs. For one reason or another they're very unlikely to come up with the next big thing - I think this is because they create a huge bureaucracy and gradually the people who actually create the ideas are pushed further and further down the pecking order. The mega, mega hits have always originated from independent studios."

MYP produces its own shows, and also works for third party brands, such as MGA Entertainment's Bratz. The flexibility of having to work within another brand's style can be seen in the studio's own output as well. MYP prides itself n not having a signature style, as Young explains: "That's almost a trademark of ours. We make shows in everything: 3-D CGI, 2-D animation, flash animation - we would even use stop-frame animation. You cast the show, just like you would an actor. For instance; if we had made Dive Olly Dive, which s a cute pre-school show about little submarines, in 2-D or flash, it just wouldn't play. This show has Nemo-esque qualities in its effects, so you need the vista of CGI."

Young is confident that not having a signature style or shows that are overtly about merchandising and toys is not a hindrance to consumer products development. "If you had shown SpongeBob SquarePants to a toy or merchandising company 10 years ago, they would have asked themselves, ‘which aisle of Toys R Us will this go in?', scratched their heads and said "nowhere'. I think if you set out to make totally toy-driven, commercial shows, you will fail."



Anti Trends.
Young is dismissive of any over-riding trends in the animation world, "Trends are very dangerous things. The reason why some of the big movie studios lost their way in feature animation, for instance, and Pixar didn't, is because Pixar made animated films that should be animated, whereas sometimes the studios were making films that could have been filmed in live action. The two key questions when looking at animation are the content of the show - does it need to be animated in the first place? The second is deciding what sort of animation will work best. This can now include flash animation, which is getting more and more sophisticated. We've just made Growing Up Creepie in flash and it's been nominated for an Emmy and for Cartoons on the Bay.

"The benefit of flash is that it is cost-effective, probably 20 per cent cheaper than 2-D animation. Also, with flash, someone in an overseas studio won't end up drawing the character wrongly. With 2-D there's tremendous possibility for erosion of character, with flash, once it's locked in, you really can't go off model. The control it gives you s phenomenal, but in the past it was more limited in animation terms. Now it's getting more and more sophisticated and the overseas studio might as well be in the next room."

Young also feels that the right broadcaster and good scheduling are both crucial in deciding whether a show will reach its audience or not. "You can have great show, and it can still fail to do well if it is either put on the wrong network or the network targets the wrong audience and puts it in the wrong time slot."

However, with opening up of broadband and video-on-demand, he is certain that the extension of choice will be positive for MYP shows, as was shown by the investment in multi-platform kids' programming service, Kabillion. This venture with EM E3ntertainment and Remix Entertainment provides online and VoD through US cable supplier, Comcast.

Catching Your Audience.
The move online reflects the fundamental shift in how the children access their favourite characters. Young comments, "SpongeBob might get a 5 or 6 rating, which is about 5 million kids, but there are nearly 40 million kids in the demographic. These days even the most successful shows on linear television only reach a fraction of the target audience. Most 8-10 year olds are on the net, watch TV, have mobile phones, video-games - the hours they used to spend watching TV are now split up over all of these platforms. Unless you reach them on all these platforms, you have a good chance of missing them entirely."

Young feels that there is going to be colossal growth in VoD in the near future. "Comcast believes that 50 per cent of its business will be VoD within three years, at the moment it's only 10 per cent. Linear television is going through a period of huge change, and within the market kids are proving to be the fastest converters, and the fastest growth area."

One of the big advantages of VoD is it reduce reliance on the whims of the scheduler. Young knows that even after getting a deal with a broadcaster, getting the wrong time-slot, or regular changes of time-slot, can have a big impact in undermining a child's enjoyment of a show. Regular, reliable exposure is vital in building loyalty, and now this can be achieved, even if the broadcaster does move things around.

New Shows To Show off.
Taffy Entertainment is anticipating a busy Licensing International, where it is presenting a number of its brands, as Young details: "We're blessed to have a great number of successful and soon-to-be successful brands which are showcasing at Licensing International. ToddWord, Pet Alien and Code Lyoko continue to garner the highest interest; Taffy Entertainment also recently obtained the rights to the hit series Bobby's World. We're also getting a lot of early interest for shows in development, like Mighty Boltz, Hero: 108 and Chloe's Closet, each of which lends itself to some great products."

Taking a successful children's show and translating it into a successful consumer products programme is not easy. Retailers expect a new listing to fly off the shelves and are resistant to anything that is not already a top-rating, established brand. However, the broadcast model is changing significantly, and Taffy Entertainment's relationship with Kabillion gives it access to children in a way that linear broadcasters have not yet to match. With some fantastic shows to sell - ToddWorld in particular has a distinctive style and established publishing base, which are two important things that will get retailers listening - Taffy Entertainment is confident that it will succeed in building the right consumer products programme for its shows.