Interview: Spain’s Zinkia

Interview: Zinkia

Victor M. López, Managing Director, Zinkia Entertainment, sat down with Total Licensing to discuss Pocoyo’s 20th anniversary, new IP and plans for the future.

Can you outline some of the plans for the 20th anniversary of Pocoyo?

The 20th anniversary of Pocoyo will be marked by the evolution of the brand, to be revealed in the new season, which is already the fifth. This rebranding also touches on Zinkia’s corporate brand, which, in this way, will mark a turning point. We would love to make our plans public, but if we do, we would lose the surprise effect. Pocoyo is going to have intense activity, from super-disruptive digital initiatives to more traditional formats, such as music festivals, meet & greets or the figure of Pocoyo in the Wax Museum in Madrid, which has already been recently opened.

And give us some history to how Pocoyo started out…

Pocoyo comes up from the desire to turn our vocation, something that amused us, into our way of earning a living. The need to transform ourselves and our environment into something better. If you add to that excitement, tons of talent, a young team, terribly inexperienced, but with a crazy desire to do different things, the result is Pocoyó. A content that shook the industry by taking a “cartoon” animation style to 3D, taking simplicity as a virtue, putting technology at the service of the stories, something that sadly, seemed to be less valued in CGI.

You have some great news around the brand including signings with Alexa and in Mexico. What’s next for Pocoyo?

Pocoyo is currently undergoing a period of intense activity. In recent months, its growth has been reinforced with the signing of major alliances with HBO Max and Cartoon Network, Disney+ and Netflix, among many others. It has also added licensees, with the incorporation of large companies such as Penguin Random House. In terms of content production, in 2023 we will start the fifth season of the series and we have several special content collaboration projects.

How has Zinkia evolved over the years?

In recent years Zinkia has undergone a huge transformation, from such apparently unimportant aspects as changing our office after 18 years or the corporate identity; to other fundamental aspects such as buying the Canary Islands production company KOYI and its intellectual property assets: Bumpy, which will start production at the beginning of 2023, GhostBros, which will be presented at the next Kidscreen. We have also developed a new IP such as Yanco, Dina and the Dinosaurs, after 15 years without tackling any new project. With Pocoyo, in the last three years we have produced more original content than in the previous 15 years, its international presence has been multiplied and YouTube channels have grown from 11 million subscribers in 2019 to close to 40 million in 2022, going from 1.8 billion videos watched to more than 6.5 billion. The new year is a new starting point.

And can you outline the whole 360 offering of the company?

Our content continues to have the aspiration of becoming a brand, a franchise that reaches its target audience wherever it is: TV channels, platforms, YouTube, social networks, Apps, video games. At Zinkia we have a core team capable of producing or leading each of these kind of projects, keeping the brand values and adapting the content to the medium, working with transmedia narratives and offering original content that inspires children and families. In terms of distribution, we manage our YouTube channels, we manage social networks in coordination with licensing agents in each territory, we have a Fast channel in testing in Spain, an OTT channel in the USA. In addition to, of course, selling our content to TV channels and platforms around the world, we started to manage our means of distribution, establishing a dialogue with our audiences and analysing statistical data that gives us a clue as to where we are getting it right and where we are getting it wrong. In terms of licensing, this is reflected in something that has marked all our projects, where toymakers and licensing agents have always contributed their vision from very early stages.

Which areas of licensing are you specifically focusing on at the moment?

Each content means a target audience and the combination of both, content and audience, has a specific licensing strategy. Toys continue to be key in preschool content, in terms of turnover, retail presence and marketing investment. Publishing continues to be another of the pillars of licensing. Bringing reading closer to children and families, bringing your brand into the home through a book is very enriching and improves parents’ perception of your content. Textiles understood as part of fashion, hygiene products, of course, music and why not art or technology.

And what areas do you think, in general, will be the real growth areas?

The universe of NFT’s makes sense to us if we treat it as digital art. In other words, if it is unique, if it is rare, if it is original, if it has value in itself. We don’t believe in collections of thousands of NFTS’s of speculative value or false added value, we are a bit allergic to that. We love live events, where the technology makes them unique, cinema films where you have to leave the mobile phones on and it offers a completely different experience... Maybe we just like to play, invent and do things a bit differently.

INSIGHTS FAMILY RELEASES FUTURE FORECAST FOR 2023

The Insights Family, the global leader in kids, teens, parents, and family market intelligence, launches their annual Future Forecast 2023 report (get.theinsightsfamily.com/futureforecast ), which predicts twelve key trends in the kids, teens, parents, and family universe to watch out for next year. This report is using their class of one insight methodology and ties into their purpose that aims to put kids, teens, parents, and families at the heart of everything they do. The report which uses the company’s extensive knowledge and insight of surveying more than c700,000 family members across 22 countries every year, has continued to track and monitor the impact of several key factors such as environment, economy, education, technology and changing audience habit. This results in a real-time understanding of these factors into how they are transforming the attitudes, behaviour, and consumption of kids, teens, parents and families around the world.

This year’s predictions include:

• The perfect storm of post covid impact and economic downturn will inevitably impact the sea of subscriptions on offer to consumers. Subscriptions will need to merge to stay relevant against this global economic background;

• Gaming will come to the high street by merging virtual experiences with real time shopping and event-based high street fun;

• Gamified communities will become a greater factor in your brand ecosystem in order to reach a target audience. How it is executed will be critical;

• Demonstrating values and sustainability mission in an authentic way will be important in a world where audiences continue to increase their power and collective voice on brands that do or DON’T adhere to their high standards – and most critically their spending power en masse could make or break a brand;

• Linear is making a return in the wake of economic concerns and the growing urge to cut costs;

A kid-first world will continue to grow with non-kid focused sectors looking to develop their brand and marketing strategies to include family and kids. The power is with kids and that trend is only getting stronger; The eco system available to brands to reach an increasingly fragmented audience is growing. An ecosystem approach to your brand is critical to face 2023 with the chance of reaching kids, teens, parents and families. Nick Richardson, Founder and CEO at The Insights Family commented, “The world is changing. We are seeing throughout our data that kids and teens are becoming more influential within their households and amongst the family. Their attitudes, behaviour, and consumption patterns are developing in line with the beliefs they hold true to themselves and will act upon. Kids and teens increased financial empowerment and connectivity has granted them greater power and influence than they have ever had before. That’s why here at The Insights Family, we have realigned our purpose to inspire organisations to put kids, teens, parents, and families at the heart of everything they do.”

TOONZ AND ELE ANIMATIONS

Global kids and family entertainment major Toonz Media Group has partnered with India’s ELE Animations Pvt Ltd to co-produce Drac and Skeletons, both companies said in a joint statement recently. Developed and owned by Toonz and ELE, it has an international appeal for kids 4 to 7 years old. The spooky chase comedy series will be produced into a 78 x 7” animated series in 2D Digital format in two versions— an International version in English and an Indian version in Hindi. Toonz will undertake the responsibility for the entire pre & post-production of the series. Voice-over and post-production of the international version will be handled by Telegael, a Toonz affiliate company based in Ireland. Toonz will also have the exclusive distribution rights to exploit the series in all media and platforms including L&M rights worldwide, except Ireland. ELE Animations will undertake the responsibility for the entire animation production of the Series. “We consider this agreement with ELE Animations to co-produce this Indian IP as a strategic one as Drac and Skeletons has a universal theme,” P Jayakumar, Chief Executive Officer of Toonz Media Group said and added that there will be both domestic and international versions because of the major interest from broadcasters.