Online Alliances Create Kid Appeal

Selling to Kids, Oct 28, 1998

Three is not a crowd for many companies getting into the game of bundling kid content online in an effort to increase brand recognition, awareness and traffic to their Web sites.

America Online [AOL] has a Kids Only channel, America Links Up lists links on its Good Stuff For Kids page, Yahooligans is Yahoo!'s [YHOO] search engine for kids packed with kid-friendly sites.

Netscape [NSCP] joined the craze this month with its launch of a dedicated portal site for kids, KidZone, on its Netcenter portal.

How successful this strategy is for building a global presence is debatable. Data from the Nickelodeon/Just Kid Inc. Global Kids Study released exclusively to S2K reveals computer ownership is not universal around the world in terms of household ownership, says Laurie Klein, of Just Kid Inc. Its ownership is sporadic and correlates to the household income level. Dissecting KidZone

But that's not stopping Netscape's NetCenter partners from participating in KidZone. Most of KidZone's content providers have revenue sharing deals.

Netscape enlisted six partners to provide original content at www.netscape.com/kids, Children's Television Workshop, Ask Jeeves, Headbone Interactive, MaMaMedia Inc., Hoffman Associates and the Yuckiest Site on the Internet. And its looking for more games, activities, educational resources, homework help and teen focused areas for the future.

Netscape would not reveal traffic numbers but says the portal site targets the 83% of U.S. families it says come online for kids and children's educational material. It hand picks the partners, most of which receive links to their sites from KidZone.

It will market the site through a variety of mediums including print and online. Its co-partners eventually will provide KidZone links and promote KidZone on their offline properties, says Martina Lauchengco, group program manager of sports entertainment for kids and family, for Netcenter.

The KidZone logo contains bright primary colors. The font and text size and language have kid appeal. Partners are updating content regularly. (Tina Sharkey, Children's Television Workshop Online, 212/595-3456; Idit Harel, MaMaMedia, 212/334-3277; Mike Selman, Headbone, 206/378-1259 ext. 3025; Martina Lauchengco, Netscape Netcenter, 650/937-2691) KidZone Partners

CTW says it is one step closer to its goal of being "two or three clicks away from any family," says Tina Sharkey, group VP and GM of CTW Online. CTW launched its Family Workshop Web site last month (S2K, 9/30/98) and helped create kid and parent channels with Excite and Web Crawler this summer.

MaMaMedia will benefit from ad revenue sharing on the KidZone co- branded pages, says Idit Harel, CEO. The MaMaMedia Web site (www.mamamedia.com) receives 5 million page views per month and reports 115,000 registered users. MaMaMedia has relationships with AOL's Kids Only channel, and General Mills [GM] Fruit Snacks (S2K 10/14/98), Scholastic [SCHL] Yahoo!, Toys "R" Us [TOY] and BarnesandNoble.com.

Headbone Interactive had its hands in two launches in one week, while managing an internal upgrade. Headbone Zone (www.headbone.com) will offer customized programs like exclusive contests with KidZone, says Mike Selman, marketing director. Headbone's Web site posted a 10 percent to 15 percent increase in traffic after the initial KidZone launch on Oct. 15. Headbone receives 400,000 visitors per month, says Selman.

Headbone partnered with Fleet Financial Group [FLT] to launch fleetkids.com on Oct. 19. The site teaches kids about money management. Both sites are linked.