They are the ‘hip teenage descendents’ of classic monsters, and now Frankie Stein, Draculaura and Lagoona Blue are doing their first semester in Canada as students of Mattel’s Monster High.
Announced this week, the franchise is being rolled out in Canada with an extensive multimedia campaign targeted at teen and tween girls. The franchise, which debuted in the US earlier this year, is anchored by a line of toys, which includes the ‘frighteningly fashionable’ and cleverly named dolls mentioned above.
The Canadian rollout of the franchise is multi-tiered, with integrated marketing by Toronto’s TrojanOne and media by Carat. Paid media includes on-air and online promotion with both YTV and Teletoon and retail activation partnerships with Toys R Us and Zellers, in which in-store events will allow customers to win swag in the Monster High Prize Locker and get a Monster High Student ID card.
Targeted at seven- to 12-year-old girls, the interactive elements of the campaign include a website, MonsterHigh.ca, which includes a roster of games and interactive features and 12 webisodes running on a YouTube brand channel. A special one-off episode of Monster High will run on both channels on Halloween and a movie and children’s novel are in development for release next year.
Reaching this particular demo can be tricky, Imran Choudhry, director, consumer engagement, TrojanOne, tells MiC, due to the more limited media channels to which this group is exposed.
‘Media partnerships with niche channels like YTV and Teletoon were critical communication vehicles that reach our demographics – girls who will engage in the Monster High content, and even their parents who will make the purchase,’ he explains.
‘Girls ages seven to 12 are interacting with their favourite brands online more than ever before. Therefore, supporting broadcast media with an interactive online component was a key connection point for activation of the Monster High brand; this was the birth of MonsterHigh.ca,’ he continues. ‘A challenge with this platform was to include a ‘boomerang’ element that would entice consumers to return to the website time and time again. Our solution was to have a new online assignment, or game, unlocked every two weeks that ties into a new contest.’
The campaign supporting the Canadian launch of Monster High is set to run until the end of the month.
