Teletoon’s Stoked is bringing putting the surf back in the web with new interactive French and English microsites designed to expand the brand online and engage its viewers in a more hands-on way.
The animated show, which airs on Teletoon Thursdays at 7 p.m. ET, follows a group of surfer bums spending a summer working odd jobs and pursuing their passion. Soft-launched last fall, the microsites aim to bring that far-out surf culture to life with interactive features such as character-to-character text messaging, ‘Stoked Radio’ featuring songs from the series and games such as ‘Sandwich Defender!’ New games will roll out starting April 29, including the ‘Rippin’ Remixer’ music video editing module and ‘Grom Life,’ a simulation game where players become surf groms (slang for ‘kids’).
The official launch was timed to coincide with new episodes of the series this week and the premiere of the second season in September. The new episodes will be promoted on-air with two 15- and 30-second ads during the Really Really Really Awesome programming block (6 to 9 p.m. ET) starting March 13, and on-air promotion for the rollout of the new Stoked games will begin April 29 in the same block.
The games and features offer up some unique sponsorship and content-integration opportunities, and it’s an area the media partners are actively pursuing, Matt Hornburg, executive producer, Marblemedia, tells MiC.
He hopes that a strategy of continuously updated content – released on a ‘staggered launch’ schedule – will keep viewers coming back more often and also allow for more partnership opportunities.
‘That’s part of our media strategy, to launch new games and activities every four months for the rest of the year. It’s a way to keep the content fresh and engaging and keep kids coming back.’
According to stats provided by Teletoon, Hornburg says Stoked-related games like ‘Suitcase Sling,’ ‘Surf or Sink’ and ‘Wipeout’s Wipeouts’ have registered over 1.2 million plays in the five months the site has been up, without any promotion.
