'The Business of Kids'
Sander Schwartz: President, Warner Bros. Animation, USA

“The kids market is new every six to seven years and when considering investment you go back to the properties that have done well or sold lots of apparel. You try and gauge the market and see where the demand is and meet that demand.”                               Sander Schwartz

Brent Chambers (Flux Animation) gave a brief background on Warner Bros’s presence in New Zealand , in particular their long relationship with the New Zealand animation industry, before inviting Sander Schwartz to talk a bit more about his career, and the key to his success in children’s programming.

Sander: When I started in the [animation] business Saturday morning cartoon shows on the American networks were virtually the only avenue open to animation producers to reach an audience.  Now there are multiple avenues to reach an audience, including more TV buyers, the direct to video market, and the internet (sites like You-Tube receive hundreds of millions of hits from people watching animation), etc.

Getting the finance to make animation is still a huge challenge, however, animation travels better than anything else. If you have the right product and get it to market it can be dubbed very easily into other markets as well.

Warner Brothers has the ability to tap into a huge back catalogue including the Hanna Barbara library.  The kids market is new every six to seven years and when considering investment you go back to the properties that have done well or sold lots of apparel. You try and gauge the market and see where the demand is and meet that demand.  The best form of marketing is to have a show on the air regularly that kids want to watch and to have a relationship with that show.

Brent: How do you like to receive a pitch?

Sander: There is no right or wrong way.  I need to see a few pieces of artwork, pitch pages, synopsis, some character ideas but not necessary to spend a lot of money doing a minute of animation.

Brent: What level of input do you have?

Sander: WB finance 100% of the project, so we take a huge interest in it and whether it suits the needs of our network.

Brent: How does an animation company get to retain creative power over a show when they may only have a 20% stake in a production?

Sander: The answer is you can’t if you only own 20%. Whoever is paying for it they have the right to control creative aspects. It’s the studio’s money, the studio’s risk and if they can’t be persuaded about a creative decision then the money counts over and above anything else.  

For a creative producer to have that influence over decision-making they have to use their producer skills, their ability to sell to other producers, their creative chops and strength of character to convince everyone that you have the vision.

We always seek to buy the rights rather than license, for us it’s all about adding negatives to the library and building it. Other companies do however licence rights for 10, 15 or 20 years. WB has the ability to tap into a huge back catalogue including the Hanna Barbara library.

The best form of marketing is to have a show on the air regularly that kids want to watch and to have a relationship with that show.

Brent: What are the best international markets to attend?

Sander: I’ve never been, but others recommend Kidscreen market in New York . Mipcom would be the second choice.

Brent: What’s your strategy when it comes to marketing to parents?

Sander: In our pre-school programming for age 2 to five years parents do make the bulk of purchase decisions but when it comes to those over five it’s the kids that make their own choices. They shun the choices made by their parents so we market to kids – anything from sponsored place mats for school lunches, mass marketing through websites, online games, and stickers. We go out to try and build an audience and loyalty.

Brent: What’s your core target-demo?

Sander: Warner Brothers is fortunate in that we have the Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbara library. We have a much broader demographic in our pre-school programming.  For six to nine year olds it’s mostly boys and action adventure from our DC library. The six to 11 year olds are the sweet spot for us, that’s our core business.  Beyond that the older DC Universe original names the fans are boys/collectors from 15 to 35 years.

Brent: On the Internet?

Sander: We are an old line media company and when it comes to animation on the internet we are not front-runners in that area.   WB’s digital strategy is currently trying to work out how to make it economically viable to produce new material for the internet. The financial challenges have yet to be figured out, but we expect the importance of television will diminish in the next few years and the internet will rise to exceed that of television.

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