BARCELONA – Being “multiplatform by design” affords Christina Miller a crystal ball view into the wants and desires of Generation Z, also known as the Plurals generation. “We were serving millennials 25 years ago,” recalls the President of Cartoon Network.
So what’s the difference? While millennials were digital natives, Plurals are mobile natives with an expectation of seamless content consumption across devices and platforms. “Kids want what they want,” Miller says in this interview with Beet.TV at Mobile World Congress 2017. “It’s not about changing habits. They’re born into it.”
Plurals “have the capacity for choice and control in a way that maybe millennials didn’t,” Miller adds. “Multiplatform by design is really what we’re doing. We’re doing it in our marketing and we’re doing it in our content creation.”
While millennials were more prone to expecting lists of digital offerings (top 10 this or that) the next generation wants to mix and match on its own, according to Miller. Desire and control are key, as ADWEEK reports.
“If you give them your content and you let them experience your brand and participate they will evangelize for you. They are your greatest asset I building fans,” says Miller.
Plurals are highly visually oriented, to the point of live streaming their activities whereas millennials were better known for rapid-fire texting.
Asked for examples of successful multiplatform development catering to the visual generation, Miller cites the “reimagined version” of the globally successful Ben 10, which was launched with a Hero Time app at the end of 2016. Then there is Mighty Magiswords, which started life as 15-second content on CN Anything and has blossomed into a linear TV and gaming offering linked by an app called MagiMobile.
“You hold it up and it collects it off the TV every time there’s a sword that pops up,” Miller explains. “You’re able to move around and tie that vertical together. It gives a very deep robust immersive fan experience.”
Miller’s team keeps tabs daily on activity on Cartoon’s VOD platform, video mobile app and on-air programming, which provide a “plus plus plus multiplier. We see extremely high engagement across those platforms.”
This video was produced in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress 2017. The series is sponsored by Turner. Please visit this page for additional segments from MWC.
