Crayola Launches New Season of Digital-First Content in Partnership with WildBrain Spark

Brandora Editorial Staff - September 2021

Crayola, the 118-year-old brand known for inspiring creative play in kids, has launched a new season of its original, digital-first Scribble Scrubbie Pets series, produced by WildBrain Spark, the premium kids’ and family AVOD network and digital studio. The Crayola Kingdom channel is managed globally by WildBrain Spark across YouTube and YouTube Kids and ihome to the Scribble Scrubbie Pets series and all Crayola kid-targeted content.

The new season of 20 three-minute animations and 20 one-minute draw-along episodes launched on the Crayola Kingdom YouTube channel this month with new episodes released weekly. Designed to appeal to children 5-8-years-old, the new content is part of Crayola’s digital engagement strategy to bring physical play and entertainment together, reaching Generation Alpha on their preferred platforms.

The digital series, based on the popular Crayola Scribble Scrubbie Pets creative toy range, was developed to engage kids through the unique elements of animation, real play and drawing. The content is focused on what kids love most about the toy line – bringing their imaginations to life through endless color and design transformations of washable toy pets.

Using WildBrain Spark’s digital-first best practices, data and insights from the first season of the series, the new content brings the most popular characters further into the spotlight, including Makena (the bird), Tuma (the elephant) and Scooter (the dog). The new season hones in on the live action arts and crafts elements, an increasingly popular theme on the platform.

“Through the Crayola Kingdom channel, children can build an even stronger emotional connection to the Crayola Scribble Scrubbie Pets characters as they watch them come to life on the screen and learn to draw their favorites,” said Rich Wuerthele, President and CEO of Crayola. “This ownable storytelling platform represents a new era of connecting with kids that allows Crayola to learn, engage and delight our #1 consumer target through content that is informed by WildBrain Spark’s insights, YouTube analytics and our own research.”

Rachel Taylor, Commercial Director at WildBrain Spark, added: “Partnering with Crayola to design and launch its YouTube kids’ strategy has been an exciting journey, creating a channel and programming that bridges the gap between digital entertainment and physical play. Through our own insight tools and YouTube expertise, we are able to take the guesswork out of producing content. The data provides clear indications about what the audience is most likely to watch, which is key to informing our strategy. This latest season of original Crayola content focuses on what kids love most about the first season as it continues to bring the world of Scribble Scrubbie Pets to life for fans.”

Since the launch of Crayola Kingdom at the end of 2020, the channel has surpassed 13.2 million views with over 370,000 hours of time spent watching to date.

Kim Rompilla, EVP Global Product Marketing, Development & Activation at Crayola, said: “Our goal was to enter the children’s entertainment space in a way that is modern and fresh. Being Crayola, we already have the brand recognition, and products children love and parents trust. The next step is to continue to meet kids of this generation where they are, on YouTube, and enrich their experience of colorful and digital playtime.” The Scribble Scrubbie Pets series and more Crayola content can be accessed anytime on the Crayola Kingdom YouTube channel.