BRAND LICENSING EUROPE 2011
MICHAEL ACTONSMITH - KEYNOTE SPEAKER
THE SECRETS OF SUCCESS– 5 THINGS WE LEARNT TODAY ABOUT
Olympia, London, Tuesday 18 October 2011 – Mi chael Acton Smith, CEO and founder of Mind Candy, the UK-based social onlin e gaming company behind global children’s phenomenon, Moshi Monste rs, delivered today’s keynote speech at Brand Licensing Europe 20 11 to a packed hall. So popular was his appearance, only standing room was available in the Licensing Academy as hundreds of business professionals ca me to hear first-hand about the spectacular success of Moshi Monsters.
< span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"'>&nb sp;
Smith is the driving force behind one of the biggest children’s licensing success stories of the past few years and as such, has become a very influential f igure in the industry worldwide. In less than three years since its launch, Moshi Monsters - an online community of adoptable pet monsters for children - has attracted almost 50 million users globally. Currently half o f all children in the UK aged 6-12 have one and in the US the figure is one in five children in that age group and growing rapidly.
Moshi Monsters brought it s immense popularity to the licensing world in January 2010 with the launch of a range of merchandise, including trading cards, a Vivid Imaginations t oy line, books from Penguin and a bestselling self-published magazine. Mind Candy expects gross retail sales of all Moshi Monsters related prod uct to be over $100m this year alone, signalling an influential new licensi ng model for the first generation of ‘digital’ children, direct ly challenging traditional children’s media.
Smith said there are five main reasons why Moshi Monsters has become so successful -
1. “Moshi Mon sters’ players drive development. We work hard to get the audienc e involved; we constantly ask for opinions, for ideas, for feedback. For ex ample we recently had thousands of ideas submitted when we asked about trad ing cards. When we use a suggestion, we always do our best to give the kids the credit for their ideas, giving them social currency to show off in fro nt of their friends.”
2. “We use many different channels to promote and grow Moshi Monsters, and we’ll always make brave choices if w e think it’s best for the brand. For example, many people told us not to move into print, telling us we’d be better off sticking to our co re digital offering. Despite this, we launched Moshi Monsters magazi ne, which is now the number one best selling children’s magazine in t he UK.”
3 . “We never rest, we are always evolving the Moshi Monsters wo rld, adding new content to ensure the brand remains fresh and exciting. Bei ng digitally based allows us the flexibility to iterate quickly and continu ously introduce new characters in real time, something that is restricted b y the production processes of film and TV. We have now built up to over 200 hugely popular characters. Our content can be easily tweaked depending on its popularity. This is the appeal for kids – they have control of th is world in a way they just don’t in the real world, so rather than a media owner telling them what they will and won’t like, they make th ose choices.”
4. “Moshi Monsters has an exceptional marketing team, cov ering live events, PR and brand marketing. But even more importantly, we ha ve the product right. Between 2007 and 2009 we had very little marketing, b ecause we knew product was the key – in my experience marketing is of ten used to mask problems with a product. We knew we had it right in mid-20 09 when it suddenly took off. The Eureka moment was realising the kids want social interaction online just as much as adults, so we overlaid the digit al game with ways to connect, share and talk about it. Suddenly it was a hi t. A tip from us - marketing should be an accelerant to the fire, not the s park that gets the fire going.”
5. “We make sure we are the best licensing par tner we can possibly be, responding quickly and approving or suggesting ide as as proactively as we possibly can. Our partnerships are critical to the expansion of Moshi Monsters. For example, Moshlings, a sub-brand of creatures, has become one of our biggest areas of expansion, with opportuni ties in many sectors, even a Moshling fashion range.”
- ends -
For more information please contact Braben at ble@braben.co. uk or Rachel Froggatt, BLE 2011 PR Team Leader on 0044 (0) 7515 587 199.
For f urther information on Mind Candy/Moshi Monsters please contact Nicol a Duarte, Head of PR on nicola@mindcandy.com or 0044 (0) 207 501 1926.
