Introduction
Nickelodeon is one of the largest kids entertainment brands in the world
Like many of Paramount’s channels, Nickelodeon’s calendar is geared around seasons and tentpole, multi-platform events. The biggest is Kids Choice Awards, a global awards format driven by fan voting that is one of the biggest entertainment moments of the year - a cultural phenomenon.
The Challenge
Using real-time engagement to enhance the TV experience
With the ongoing threat posed to all linear TV channels, and with ad dollars moving to digital platforms, Nickelodeon has always been ahead of the game in creating modern, interactive experiences that feel relevant to kids. Continuing to engage and interact with the audience on digital platforms is a key part of the business strategy, as a way to continue being a household favourite and competing for brand investment via advertising and sponsorship.
With the existing success and profile of Kids Choice Awards, Kids Choice Sports Awards, Trivia Prizefest and other tentpole interactive events, the Nickelodeon team wanted to supercharge their capabilities.
The team had proven that real-time companion experiences could enhance TV experience - getting kids to vote and play along with event television was becoming a growing component to their strategy.
With frustration building around their existing, highly bespoke solution, they went on a hunt for a better platform solution. Rather than building bespoke, costly and hard-to-maintain software, they were looking for a single platform to power high volume voting, play-along and companion experiences that could be rolled out quickly and reliably at scale; integrated with their existing tech stack and complying with the sensitivities of COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
As part of a competitive and analytical process, Monterosa was selected to provide the solution, based on the Monterosa / Interaction Cloud™.
Solution
Creating fully-branded secure voting Experiences
The Nickelodeon team rapidly adopted Monterosa / Interaction Cloud™ and its flexible FanKit web app.
Within weeks, Nickelodeon were fully set up on the platform with their design skins and integrations ready. As with most larger organisations, ensuring compatibility with existing tech stack is essential: using existing APIs we integrated with ad serving, analytics, TV graphics and video.
Once setup, the keys to Monterosa / Studio were handed over to Nickelodeon’s Creators. They loved it.
By setting up and pushing out tailored ‘Elements’, the team were able to operate secure voting, live companion experiences, sweepstakes and play-along games with ease, coming back to Monterosa only when a new integration or design skin was required.
Results
Delivering on Nickelodeon’s goals
The live votes pulled in a huge number of votes and interactions, leading to a hugely successful campaign. Topline results included:
33 million votes
2 million trivia submissions
208k memes created, +20% vs last year
85k memes downloaded, +193% vs last year
Powered by Monterosa / Interaction Cloud™ and with the expertise of our Gamification team, the Screens Up app was relaunched to include a system of points and medals collection
Eagle-eyed viewers get the chance to ‘catch’ QR codes appearing in randomised areas of the TV screen, and then max out their points by proving how closely they’ve been watching and answering an episode-specific question
As points accumulate, they earn and level up their medals, giving them bragging rights among friends and family and rewarding them for their viewership
A key decision in awarding Monterosa the contract was the ability for the Nickelodeon team to be able to set up and manage their interactive experiences and make changes at speed
M/IC and the Studio delivers the control and agileness that the Nick team demand to be able to interact with their audiences.
200m+
Votes since 2018
26
Territories launched in 2022
“Monterosa has given us the ability to reach our audience in a new way. They’ve been instrumental in our growth, making sure our offering can keep up with the latest from Instagram and Facebook. We love working with the team. It’s a real partnership, we’re able to iterate together on products, and control everything ourselves via the M/IC Studio. We would highly recommend both Monterosa and the Monterosa / Interaction Cloud platform.”
Michelle Cauchi
