Moonbug eyes the Indian kids’ content market

MUMBAI: Kids-focussed entertainment company Moonbug is betting big on the Indian market with its wide bouquet of appealing kid fare for pre-school children. The company – which acquires, creates and distributes content for kids – is in active discussions with some of the leading platforms in India.

The London-headquartered company views India as a key market when it comes to selling its engaging kids content, especially in the context of the proliferation of digital platforms in the country, says Moonbug EMEA head Nicolas Eglau. 

“We would love to work with leading platforms, studios and brands to put Moonbug characters into the hearts and minds of Indian families. The response from the Indian market so far has been very encouraging. And we feel very bullish about India’s prospects in 2020. We are exploring different opportunities within India and are working with both media platforms as well as ed-tech companies like Byju to create even more educational content for our viewers and their families,” Nicolas told Indiantelevision.com in an email interview.

Moonbug seeks to establish itself as a brand known for high-quality, fun, safe and educational kids programming across India. “We’re looking to have a 360-degree exploitation, meaning we’ll be licensing everything from content to toys to merchandising, etc. We have a lot of new licensing deals in the coming months globally, so be on the lookout,” he said optimistically.

India is a massive market for Moonbug as the country is beginning to explode in the field of kids’ programming, especially on digital platforms. Nicolas says that Indian parents are particularly interested in safe and fun content with learning benefits, and this is exactly what Moonbug creates, making its content especially popular. 

According to him, India is an exciting space as more platforms and revenue models such as AVOD, SVOD and TVOD emerge that cater to the fragmented market.

Founded in 2018, Moonbug is one of the prominent digital kids IP owners in the world with its main office also in Los Angeles. Moonbug, which attributes its success to a strong data-backed content strategy, was the third largest kids’ entertainment media organisation in January this year in terms of minutes watched, as per Tubular’s Audience Measurement solution.

Moonbug currently has relationships with 70+ streaming platforms on both local and global scale, including Netflix, Hulu and Roku. “And we are always looking for new licensing partners. We currently license our IPs to these different platforms for an agreed amount of time and in the preferred language(s). Two of our most popular IPs are Little Baby Bum and Supa Strikas, which just premiered on Disney India,” Nicolas said. 

With regard to associations and the content licensing system, Nicolas said that the company takes a strategic, agnostic approach and syndicates its content through numerous channels, OTT platforms and on-demand services.

There is no dearth of content-makers for kids in India. What then is Moonbug’s USP to stand out from the rest? What then distinguishes Moonbug from the others, according to Nicolas, is the fact that it has a unique content offering that is created to be a natural part of a child’s upbringing. “Our wholesome content is focused on healthy values and allowing kids to learn essential life skills, often based on familiar nursery rhymes and music. While local content and IPs have been introduced recently, the market is large and foreign IPs are getting a lot of traction.”

The Indian market, he feels, is pretty similar to the West in terms of kids’ content. While there are of course many languages across the country, he has found that there are many common themes in terms of content interests.

He foresees India as a prominent content-consuming market with the proliferation of more OTT players. “These platforms are not afraid to experiment and thus we’ll start to see more content being consumed across all consumer touchpoints, especially mobile,” he stated.

Nicolas is pretty much amazed by the fact that the world is a large pool of rewatch-happy kids. “One of the biggest trends we’ve witnessed across the globe is that kids are repeating their viewing patterns on all platforms. Instead of looking for the newest or latest content/videos, they look for what’s familiar. Kids will spend hours watching and re-watching their favorite characters and are interacting with these characters more.”

Regarding the Asian market in particular, he said: “We’ve also found that Asian parents, in particular, are keener on learning, especially hard skills like math and reading. However, given all that is happening right now in the world, parents everywhere are looking for more educational content to keep kids busy while at home. We’re continuing to focus on pushing this content and are using these findings to help develop more educational-focused storylines.”