Marketing
The Great Muppet Social Caper
The Great Muppet Social Caper
A Little Muppet History:
The past week has seen Sesame Street celebrate its 40th year on air. However one of the Muppets most iconic characters will actually celebrate the 55th anniversary of his small screen debut in 2010. Back in 1955 a 19 year old Jim Henson was asked to produce a five minute show for a Washington TV station. The show was called ‘Sam and Friends‘ and featured puppets in the distinctive ‘muppet’ style and a lizard like character called Kermit. The show ran for six successful years, ending a full eight years before Sesame Street arrived on the TV. The Muppets debuted on two ABC specials in the 1970’s and also featured in the first series of the long running American show Saturday Night Live. However all three major US networks (CBS, ABC and NBC) turned down the opportunity to produce a full Muppet Show series, so ITV’s Lew Grade produced the show in the UK and syndicated it world wide. The rest is history…
Muppet Marketing Machine
While Kermit may have roots dating back over half a century, the Muppet marketing machine has utilised Youtube as means of both updating its brand, by providing exclusive web only content, and a way of reaching fans new and old.
A few weeks back I stumbled upon a clip featuring the incredibly cute Beaker. I was fully expecting the clip be to uploaded by a fan and to be of dodgy quality. Little did I expect it was an exclusive web only clip, and not only was it on Beakers Youtube Channel, but several of the Muppet characters including Fozzie, The Swedish Chef and Gonzo all have Youtube Channels.
While each character has there own themed channel the content on each is the same. The clips are added to on a semi regular basis with the most recent content being uploaded last month. The new content also takes into account the viewing platform. Whereas once Statler and Waldorf sat in the stage left Muppet Theatre balcony heckling every performer, each Youtube clip ends with a webcam view of the pair sitting in front of a laptop doing what they do best and slating what they have just seen.
As a slight aside, this isn’t the first time the pair have starred in exclusive web content. Between February 2005 and September 2006 the pair hosted their own award winning film review show on Movies.com. This gave birth to a list of ‘balconisims’ such as
- HACK-tors: Cut-rate actors who replace big stars in cheap sequels to their hit movies
- OS-carred: When a person is unable to get anymore work after winning an Oscar
- TRAVOLTED: When one key film role rescues an actor’s career from years of struggle and puts them back on the map
So back to the Beaker clip – ‘Ode To Joy’. This clip raced to 2 million views within its first fortnight and ranks as the 33rd most favourited Youtube clip of all time. It picked up a ‘Webby’, or online Oscar, award back in May. Currently it has over 7.5 million hits. According to this case study from March this year, the author, David Concepcion, highlights if 1% of viewers of Ode to Joy bought a Muppets DVD it would generate between $1 and $1.5 million in revenue for the company. That figure was based upon 4.5 million views. Now lets use the same equation for all the views of the Muppet channels, which amount to a staggering 13 million views, with 1% purchasing a DVD this would generate between $3 and $4.5 million in revenue. When you account for costs in production (David suggests $100,000 per viral) it still leaves a substantial amount of revenue. To boot, these are fixed costs, with no additional costs incurred with further viewing into the future. (No doubt this was a major reason why Channel 4 signed a deal for Youtube to host its catch up service 4OD).
While these figure are pie in the sky (if anyone has the exact ones feel free to post them here or mail me), they are interesting for a franchise that has produced just two Muppet-only films and one TV special in the past decade.
2010 and Beyond
Such is the success of the Muppet virals next year will see the release of several more including; Bohemian Rhapsody, American Woman, and Ghost Hunting. No doubt as a means of generating more interest in the brand in time for the 2010 release of ‘The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made’ – a film idea that has been in development since 1985.
The Muppet brand is also embracing other platforms with various I-Phone Apps in development and set for release beginning later this year and into the next. These include ‘Animal’s Drum Set’, ‘Gonzo Grams’ and ‘Statler & Waldorf’s Theater App’, the latter of which is due towards the end of 2010.
The FAO Schwartz online store features the Muppet ‘What Not’ Workshop, which allows customers to design and create their own ‘What Not’. A what not is the name given to one of the extras in the Muppets. For $145 you can design your own What Not, picking their body, eyes, hair, nose, and clothes for delivery (while this service is only available in the States at present, building your own Muppet on screen is a nice time-waster). Later this year the What Not Workshop will be running a competition for the best ‘What Not’. The winner will receive Muppeteer training and perform alongside other Muppets in a future Youtube viral.
While building your own Muppet on screen provides minutes of entertainment, might I suggest the Muppet Wiki to provide hours of entertainment. It features a staggering 20,000 articles on just about every Jim Henson related subject, including the non Muppet films such as Labyrinth. It’s generally rated as one of the best Wiki’s around, even Jimmy Wales the co-founder of Wikipedia cites it in lectures and public talks as a successful example of how to build an online community.
The Final Word;
The embracing of Youtube by the Muppets provides a successful example of using video to market a brand. The content has been updated to take account of its new platform, without being ‘cheesey’ or trying to be ‘cool with the kids’ and staying true to its spirit. However, I did find it strange that there is no presence on other social networking sites such as Facebook or Bebo (I choose the latter as it is still the most popular here in Ireland), save for some 3rd party app’s such as a quiz and a give a muppet as a gift app. There are several Facebook unofficial Muppet pages, the largest has over 350,000 members – and no update since June 2008! Where is the official presence on Facebook? With 350,000 members of an unofficial Facebook page surely this proves the audience is there and given the viral effect of the Facebook platform this will only increase hits, and with content such as the brilliant Ode To Joy, it can only help to increase fans too.
However, the real last word goes to the duo that always have the last say in all things Muppet related… Statler and Waldorf
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