Genius Brands International has hit a real sweet spot in the music-based “edutainment” space with their award-winning Baby Genius® line of products, which feature engaging songs and fun characters that have struck a resounding chord with the infant to young child segment, as well as parents. The array of videos, books, and other merchandise produced by the company is distributed at wholesale to retail stores and outlet, as well as direct-to-consumer through “deal for a day” sites and the company’s own web portals.
The company is seeing increased traction in target markets going into 2013, with a recent independent study showing that the Baby Genius brand is recognized by 70% of U.S. moms. Those are really good engagement metrics for GNUS, operating as it does within a larger global edutainment market topping $9B (In-Stat 2012). The company has even partnered with mobile space heavyweight Nokia to bring their Ready, Play, Learn™ line of kindergarten readiness apps, featuring the Baby Genius characters, to Windows Phone® platforms.
The first two apps launched in the new mobile venue are from the Sing ‘n Play Pals™ series and will feature the Baby Genius brand’s popular Rexi the Dinosaur and Bubbles the Bear characters in an interactive app that brings the familiar characters to life for kids. Forrester Research projects growth to upwards of $38B by 2015 in the mobile app market and a recent Joan Ganz Cooney Center study shows that 72% of the top selling paid iTunes apps target the same preschool/elementary demographic tapped by GNUS’s portfolio.
The potential here is vast and GNUS knows how to access it. Something proven by a recent company milestone set as the Genius Baby YouTube Channel broke a whopping 10M views, adding another 1.8M at last count in only the short time since the milestone’s announcement. A feat achieved quite soon after Chief Creative Officer, Larry Balaban, creator of the Baby Genius brand, began his stint of spirited advice segments on a nationally syndicated morning news program (175 domestic TV markets), The Daily Buzz. This level of consumer engagement can make or break operators in this space and GNUS has clearly opened up a huge vector here that exposes millions to the company’s DVD, CD, book, and digital download products, as well as offerings like sippy cups, toys, and branded gear.
Other shrewd market space integrations are numerous for GNUS, like the recent (Oct 23, 2012) announcement that the company’s products will be featured premiums in top diaper brand Huggies® Enjoy the Ride Rewards program, an activation/engagement program which currently has millions of mothers enrolled (the synergy between GNUS and Kimberly-Clark is obvious). GNUS clearly understands the vital importance of music to brain development and the value of the enhanced cognitive skills which result. The company’s products really telegraph their knowledge that developing a good product in this category is about far more than satisfying the instinctive love of dancing, rhythm, and rhyme to which a child responds, it is about helping develop lasting linguistic and social skills for the child, as well as essential capacities for memory and coordination.
Genius Brands is continuing to grow the product family as well, which also includes Kid Genius® and Little Genius® (as well as the 123 Favorite Music and Wee Worship brands), by opening up new channels, obtaining rights to new content from other studios, and bringing the characters/brands to new regions through licensing. For instance, the company is gaining considerable extensibility for the products through the recently (Dec 10, 2012) announced development of an animated TV series aimed at 6 to 9 year olds (slated for Fall 2014 season), based on the popular characters from the Baby Genius brand and GNUS has managed to secure the prolific Bolch ‘n’ May (Suzanne Bolch and John May, who have worked on hundreds of other TV episodes) to create/write the series.
GNUS is continuing to prove their philosophy that music makes a fundamental difference in the development and well being of young children, delivering the kind of solid end-market connections that translate directly into growing revenue in the process. The redoubled investment in direct-to-consumer digital markets made in the latter half of 2012 should really start to pan out as 2013 progresses.
For more information on Genius Brands International, visit www.ir.stockpr.com/BabyGenius
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