Stuart Snyder is the head of Time Warner’s Cartoon Network. Last year, they found out their rating has been faltering so they decided to find more ways on how to reach out to the young audiences. Yes, because the most coveted market these days are the “BOYS”, which comprise nearly 30 million ages 5 to 19 in the United States population.
Boys are one-of-a-kind consumers who spend billions each year on toys, food, apparels, video games and gadgets. So as Cartoon Network’s strategy to reach this dominant-gender market, they add more live action shows. In mid-August this year, it premiered two shows – Bobb’e Says, a show about a kid going around telling people what not to do, and Dude, What Would Happen, about three teens conducting science experiments.
Moreover, they had three shows coming that are boy-centric, which have been greeted positively with its stable advertisers including Lego, who created a promotional campaign awarding tie-in toys for George Lucas’ Star Wars: The Clone Wars program.
Another indication of the potential boys market is the acquisition of Walt Disney of Marvel Entertainment. The cost was estimated to be about $4 billion dollars.
In the case of News Corporation’s FUELTV, an action sports channel for ages 13-24 years old, it has attracted major advertisers such as Mountain Dew, Red Bull and Electronic Arts. The potential of the boys market is truly an emerging one. More and more businesses are tapping it.
Although many would still believe that boys are harder to get than girls probably because of the shopaholic nature of girls. But when it comes to boy-centric business, it would probably be something that softens a boy’s heart, just like a father softens her heart for her daughter.
With these new profound strategies, companies are looking forward that business and ratings would eventually recover.