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Adrian Clews, Midas

The Midas touch

Adrian Clews Marketing account manager
Midas
Nov 1 2007

As the publisher readies its marketing push for the new Clever Kids range, Adrian Clews tells Tim Ingham what retail can expect from the line-up that aims to fuse good old-fashioned gaming with education...

What exactly are the new Clever Kids games about?

Targeted at the six-12 year age group, Clever Kids has the explicit aim of encouraging youngsters to learn through interaction and exploration of some of their favourite subjects.
Through playing the games they will solve maths puzzles, complete jigsaws, develop observation and memory skills and ultimately become experts on the subject matter of the game.

What factors influenced you to launch a range of multi-format educational products?

First and foremost the Clever Kids titles are games with an educational bias. All the games in the range put fun first, harnessed with strong educational values. The impetus to launch the Clever Kids games derives from the success of self-development games, such as Brain Training, which have successfully targeted a broad demographic, ranging anywhere between the ages of 12 to 80. The functionality of the leading console of today has made this possible.

We identified a huge gap in the expanding console market for games with an educational bias. We believe we are offering something radically new for the Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2 formats. Additionally the growth of console gaming amongst the younger generation has led to concerns about children’s well-being and the type of messages they are being exposed to.

Universally parents want their children to have fun and see playing games as an integral part of this. However, they also want gaming to be responsible and there can be no doubt that parents will whole-heartedly be in favour of products like Clever Kids and what we are trying to achieve.

What is the future for the Clever Kids brand?

Our primary objective is to establish Clever Kids as a trusted brand in the gaming and educational market.

We are already working on our releases for 2008 and have picked equally enjoyable subjects including Outer Space, Mini-Beast and Insects, Zoo Animals, Pirates and Farmyard Animals. In every case there are great opportunities to make games that will be fun and educate the player.

There will also be a Clever Kids Club, supported by a club website, where children can go to play free online games and download educational activities such as word searches and themed quizzes. Parents can feel safe that the club has the children’s best interests at heart and reinforces the fun and educational components, which remain at the core of the Clever Kids brand. We are also remaining very open minded about other directions we can take the brand outside of the games market. From merchandise, to books to toys the possibilities are endless.

How will you promote the Clever Kids range?

Every release in the Clever Kids range will receive full marketing support. We are running a series of print advertisements in the leading children’s magazines and comics with an audited cumulative circulation of over 1.5m. We are also targeting over 300 pan-European media channels with a comprehensive PR campaign targeted mainly at parents.

Our online promotional campaign will drive traffic directly from leading kids sites to the Clever Kids Club website. From there, the children can join the Clever Kids Club, play games, whiles re-enforcing to parents that the Clever Kids range is the perfect way for children to play and learn.

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