Archives

ANIMATED SERIES

Jana is the newest YouTuber on the block that tells of her many adventures in the Magical Bookstore. We write, animate and produce the latest animated hit series for children to build brand engagement between the country’s oldest and biggest publishing house, Prosvetno Delo, and its youngest readers.

BOOK DESIGN

The goal of our content marketing strategy is to get kids from screens to the client’s bookstores.  We design picture books, coloring books, and activity books, each based on a specific episode of the cartoon.

More episodes and books are on their way!

CHALLENGE

Increase brand engagement, establish a market leader perception and drive more customers in Dreamland, an operator of children’s indoor playgrounds in Skopje.

SOLUTION

We created, wrote and executive-produced SVEKICKATA OGI (OGI THE CANDLE), a YouTube children’s series that combines animation and live action.  In an ocean of clickbait videos aimed at kids, OGI THE CANDLE offers a catalogue of 29 episodes that both entertain and educate toddlers and preschoolers.

CHARACTER DESIGN

Since the client’s core service is hosting children’s birthday parties, we decided our main character to be a live, wish-granting birthday candle. We named it OGI (stemming from “ogan”, the Macedonian word for fire).  Having in mind that we wanted Ogi to be available in the brick and mortar locations of the business and to be identical to what the viewers will watch on screens, we decided the character should be a custom-made mascot based on the original design. He was quickly joined by his animated entourage and the series’ supporting characters: a cute little cupcake named TORTICKA, a hilarious purple rhino named LILA and an all-knowing owl named BUBU.

PRODUCTION

Once we created our characters, we started writing the screenplays and cast the parts. We worked with a set of professional musicians to record the songs featured in the series. We kicked-off the animation process with worldbuilding and then quickly went into full gear with episodes production. Ogi was shot in front of a green screen while everything else was animated.

MARKETING STRATEGY

Our marketing and remarketing campaigns combined Facebook, Instagram, YouTube as well as PR. Our goal was to reach parents of toddlers and preschoolers who lend their devices to their kids. We tested various targeting and retargeting options, ranging from very the broadest of audiences to the narrowest,  in combination with different campaign objectives. We optimized meticulously in order to consistently get successful results for the lowest cost.

IMPACT

Being the first Macedonian animated series for kids on YouTube, OGI THE CANDLE quickly found its audience and a few months after its YouTube premiere it was picked up by TV24, a national cable television channel where it airs twice a week. Also, it attracted the country’s biggest juice producer as a sponsor of the show. The series continues to garner an average of 5.000 daily YouTube views on the Macedonian media market (approx. 2 million people).

BRINGING THE FANS FROM SCREEN TO STORE

Once we established a connection between our lovable character and child viewers we proceeded to introduce OGI THE CANDLE MASCOTS into the playgrounds. They are now part of the clients offer for hosting children’s birthday parties. This distinguished Dreamland from the competition by being the only place where kids can interact with their new favorite fictional character in person!

MERCHANDISE

Our extensive strategy is now in the merchandise phase and we have designed and published the first round of OGI THE CANDLE COLORING BOOKS.  More OGI products are in the works!

LINKS TO SVEKICKATA OGI / OGI THE CANDLE EPISODES

Our TV commercial for Delicia, the most popular cakery in Skopje.

An animated video we made for Toneri, a toner and printing company.

A motion graphics commercial for Zlatna Kopacka, one of the largest chains of sport betting shops in Macedonia.

Here a few of the photos we shot in our studio for a new catalogue for Delicia, the most popular cakery in Skopje.

You can view the published catalogue here.

CHALLENGE

Build brand engagement and attract customers in the newest wedding venue in Skopje.

SOLUTION

We produced a wedding tips Facebook series featuring popular wedding musicians, hair and makeup stylists, dress designers, and wedding photographers. Each episode was dedicated to a particular aspect of wedding and the host interviewed the guest on foot, in and around the newly built wedding venue. The guests gave tips on the specific wedding topic to couples who are soon to be married while having the chance to see and comment about the new wedding venue.

PRODUCTION

We turned the wedding venue into a show set and shot the series with Blackmagic Design Production Camera 4K, combined with the DJI Phantom 4 drone.  The series was hosted by one of the best-known morning show hosts in Macedonia.

MARKETING STRATEGY

The Wedding Tips show was the core of our complete digital marketing strategy for the client. We kicked off the project with a PR campaign and published the episode of the show on Facebook over the course of two months. In order to get the most from the Facebook ads algorithm, we tested various audiences, starting from a very broad audience that fits the age demographics to Facebook users with “Engaged” relationship status, combined with wedding-related interests.  We launched remarketing campaigns on both Facebook and Instagram focused on menus, special offers, and discounts to viewers that watched at least 50% of an episode. We added Google search ads to the mix, in order to capture as much of the wedding-related keywords traffic.

IMPACT

Engagement rates of the venue’s Facebook page went through the roof, while cost per engagement dropped to as low as 0.01$.  Most importantly, the wedding venue had sold 110 weddings for its first-ever season!

EPISODES

Over the course of several months, we shot the building of a brand new wedding venue, which also happens to be the biggest closed membrane construction in Macedonia.