by Tiffany Tasker, head of industry, toys, SuperAwesome
Marketers can benefit from today’s digital media landscape by leveraging existing behavioral patterns at scale. Brands can find success by creating safe, online spaces for girls to experience and share what they love with others in a branded or brand-sponsored environment.
Last issue, we spoke about inclusivity and diversity. Keeping those best practices in mind, in this issue, we’re going to highlight some of the ways to promote brands, products, and initiatives with today’s cohort of girls and kids who identify as girls. Our three core campaign tenets are all interconnected: talkability, passions, and connectivity.
Brand campaigns for girls have to take into consideration the talkability factor. Bottom line, talkability has to be interesting. Girls respond positively to talkability — in fact, it is the most important driver for brand discovery, awareness, and desire for them. Why? Because this factor feeds into and supports one of the top passions and pastimes of girls ages 7-12: connecting with friends.
It’s also important to differentiate between passions and hobbies. Although the uptick in crafting during the COVID-19 pandemic could be considered a hobby, girls ages 7-12 seem to have different passions. According to SuperAwesome’s primary research, girls ages 7-12 are most passionate about activities like gaming, music, content, video chatting, watching influencer content, and posting photos and videos.
Connection is extremely important for kids developmentally because it’s how they make sense of the world and understand how to be a part of it. Whether online or offline, sharing experiences and connecting with friends, brands, or passions is essential. Connection with a community provides a sense of belonging, inclusiveness, and recognition of their opinions, thoughts, and feelings.
So, what does this look like in practice? How can we bring together talkability and passions while supporting girls to build connections with brands and each other in kid-safe spaces?
First, choosing a platform that aligns with passions is important. Spreading media across digital, social, and gaming is critical to reach girls’ audiences in 2022 — and you need to know where your audience is spending their time. Younger girls ages 6-7 are more immersed in Roblox and proto-metaverses, while their older counterparts, ages 10 and up, are strongly influenced by TikTok and other social platforms.
Second, giving your audience a kid-safe call to action is a great way to foster talkability, connection, and engagement with your target audience.
On Roblox, when SuperAwesome integrated Spirit from Spirit Untamed into the popular game Horse Valley, we tapped into the passion girls have for Roblox and for horses. We developed connection through a clear call to action to finish the Spirit Quest and win Spirit for their in-game stable. In just three weeks, kids won more than 350,000 Spirit horses. Those horses still digitally live on in Roblox, creating a community of like-minded players that have an ongoing connection to the brand.
The talkability factor was powerful. The limited-time integration offered players the chance to win something valuable for their ongoing gameplay, reinforced through conversations with the movie characters in-game. Within one day of the campaign launch, kid creators posted user-generated content of the Spirit integration on YouTube, further proving the talkability of the game’s integration.
As we look toward the second half of the year and the all-important holiday season, it’s important to consider the talkability of your marketing strategy — the social amplification factor that’s deeper and more effective than engagement and dwell time. Remember that aligning with both your brand’s identity and your audience’s passions is key for authenticity, and to be inclusive and supportive in your approach.
And finally — remember to always be kid-safe!
This article was originally published in the June 2022 edition of the Toy Book. Click here to read the full issue!
