Marketer: Super RTL-Susanne Schosser, program director; Oliver Schablitzki, project manager for the Angela Anaconda task force; Daria Grevel, editing manager Internet; Sabine Baumgart, advertising manager; Florian Ruckert, marketing director; Sabine Kreft, head of communications

Agencies: (On-line) Decode Entertainment-Toronto and Pixelpark-Cologne; (Print) Castenow-Dusseldorf; (TV) Craxx-Cologne; (Event planning) Tas Eventagentur-Essen

Market: German national

The idea: Launching August 27 on Super RTL, Decode Entertainment’s cut-out series Angela Anaconda is a bit of a tough sell to German kids, who are accustomed to more classic animation and anime series. To get kids into the unique look of the show, Super RTL embarked on a multiplatform convergent program, targeting kids seven to 14, that focuses on Internet, TV and print media.

The campaign: Beginning in May, Super RTL’s TOGGO Tour embarked on a cross-country jaunt that makes stops in 11 German cities through to September. An event roadshow comprised of several themed activity areas based around Super RTL cartoon characters, the tour will showcase a special Angela Anaconda corner this year. This month, a magazine ad run and a series of short TV teaser clips will promote an Angela on-line environment that launches July 7 on Super RTL’s kid-targeting website www.TOGGO.de.

Total campaign value: Approximately US$430,000

The strategy:

Firmly entrenched as a heavy-hitting kids entertainment player in Germany, Super RTL has all the necessary media tentacles to properly launch a new property. The channel boasts a 21% marketshare in the TV landscape, as well as a website that gets more than nine million page impressions per month and a kids magazine called TOGGO that launched at the end of May with a circ base of 200,000. Super RTL harnessed all of these kid-reaching tools to build hype for the unusual Angela Anaconda characters and style.

‘If you want to make a show successful, you need a special strategy to bring it to kids, make it cool, and get the awareness,’ says Oliver Schablitzki, project manager for the Super RTL Angela Anaconda task force. ‘Angela is a very unique and strong property, but we wanted to be careful since the series differs a lot from the currently successful kids shows in Germany.’

Super RTL’s approach was divided into two steps. The first phase involves the TOGGO Tour, giving kids a chance to become familiar with the new show’s characters and tone via craft activities including creating Angela doorhangers with funny sayings from the series. Now in its third year and organized by Super RTL and Tas Eventagentur, the annual tour visits between 11 and 15 cities Germany-wide. Angela character costumes will be incorporated into the event in the future, but were not available this year.

The second part of the campaign begins July 7 and involves using the Internet and TV interstitials to launch the new TV series. ‘What we’re trying with Angela is to have both platforms step into a cycle of permanent mutual marketing,’ says Schablitzki.

To promote Angela’s web presence, Super RTL will air the series’ characters in specially created interstitials driving kids to the website. In terms of on-screen promotional presence, Super RTL generally uses text-based crawls running over the TV image at the bottom of the screen to promote its web worlds, events and sweepstakes. But a visual approach was deemed a better showcase for Angela’s unique aesthetic. ‘It’s not very usual that we have trailers for the Internet on TV,’ says Schablitzki. But the idea is that the interstitials will drive kids to the website, which will, in turn, drive them back to the tube when the show launches in August.

When the Angela website debuts July 7, it will feature seven games, including a cartoon-builder where kids can create their own toon using the show’s characters. Young fans can also enter their pics in the on-line Scantastic contest later this year. Winners will be made into Angela-style characters and featured in a small on-line movie.

From the print side, an ‘Ice-Princess or Nin-For-Nothing’ ad running in July and August issues of various German kid mags (including Kids Zone and Mauslick) highlights the rivalry between Angela and Nanette in its creative and directs kids back to the site. Super RTL’s TOGGO magazine’s July issue also features Angela cartoons and special editorial content.

Other miscellaneous support includes June and July banners on relevant kidsites like www.pokemon.de, as well as a presence at two German TV industry events-the Medienburgerfest and the Cologne Conference.