Mumbai: Viacom18's kids channel Nickelodeon has announced the 2021 edition of Kids' Choice Awards (KCA). Interestingly, the awards show will come to life in a screening at Decentraland, the place of the first ever metaverse concert. The voting for the awards commenced on 7 February.
This innovative idea was conceptualised and crafted by Wavemaker India for Perfetti Van Melle India in partnership with Viacom18.
The awards will be based on fun gaming themed night where Nicktoons will be seen playing a lot of arcade games while also presenting awards to super stars and kids favorites like Badshaah, Deepika Padukone, Siddharth Malhotra, Sara Ali Khan, Kiara Advani, Rashmika Mandana and influencers like Anushka Sen and more. The event will also see olympians, paralympians amongst others being celebrated for their inspiring achievements.
Category first & insight-driven: Viacom18 kids cluster’s approach to marketing explained
Along with the metaverse, the awards will witness the biggest simulcast this year across 14+ multiscreen platforms- on TV with Nick, Sonic, Nick HD+, Tata Play on Viacom18’s OTT platforms Voot, Voot Kids along with Jio TV and Jio TV+ and on digital platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram on 27 March 2022 at 8.30 p.m. The screening will allow users to create virtual avatars and experience the slime fountains, ride on the blimp and play fun games while being virtually immersed at the event, said the statement.
Speaking on this creative theme, Viacom18 Hindi mass entertainment and kids TV network head Nina Elavia Jaipuria said that KCA reiterates the company's commitment towards empowering and encouraging young audiences to voice their choice. "Nickelodeon has created new benchmarks for innovation in the category and KCA 2021 is all set to provide a seamless unified experience to consumers on a platform of their choice including the first ever metaverse screening in the category," she added.
"Associating with a category first metaverse event allows us to augment our engagement with our audience, make it more meaningful and tech forward. In times when every child is engaging with a screen this clutter breaking association allows us to be ahead of the curve in striking a connection with families," stated Perfetti Van Mell marketing director Rohit Kapoor.
Speaking about the emerging trend of metaverse, Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “Content marketing on metaverse platform is the next wave in digital marketing. Our philosophy is to positively provoke our clients and create industry-first innovative work for our brands."
With several cutting-edge additions and pioneering initiatives, the run up to the seventh edition of the awards witnessed many ground-breaking influencer and digital outreach campaigns.
To fan the frenzy, the KCA gang of influencers engaged in conversation live on twitter spaces about their favourite nominees which included kid influencers, young adults, and mom bloggers such as Siddharth Nigam, Cahat Tewani and Saru Mukherjee to name a few.
Pulling out all stops, KCA 2021 also curated a special treasure hunt for its fans on Instagram along with the KCA gang, to win special hampers and vouchers. Specially curated superfan contests and sessions entertained kids across Instagram and YouTube. Platform specific engagements across MX Taka Tak, Instagram and other short format content platforms encouraged young fans to groove to the KCA shake.
Taking the overall marketing initiative, a step forward, Nickelodeon exclusively partnered with 99 Pancakes to curate special limited edition meals. Through partnerships with Red Wolf and Nirula’s, KCA 2021 offered discounts to people who cast their votes.
