The onset of this project began when the CEO of The Land of Nod, Michelle Kohanzo, reached out to cartoonist Paul Frank because she heard that he was reestablishing himself in the mainstream space. Michelle was a huge fan of his and jumped at the opportunity to partner with him as well as other well known entities (such as Care Bears and Sesame Street) during this time.
The Challenge
In order to fully execute this collaboration, it was my job to tackle the digital strategy—defining the look, feel and timing of the launch. In collaboration with Paul, the goals of The Land of Nod were to:
Re-familiarize the public with Paul Frank’s characters
Focus on the product
Personify Paul to The Land of Nod customer base
Ensure that both The Land of Nod and Paul Frank’s branding were highlighted both separately and collaboratively so neither lost their unique qualities.
The Execution
The creation of the digital campaign started by identifying all of the areas that we would market the launch. The following areas were strategized for: email campaigns, social (paid & organic), on-site marketing (homepage, blog, etc), print campaigns (both ads and catalog), custom landing page, a mini bus tour, video and still photography, and third party publicity through a press release in New York.
The landing page
The Video
In partnering up with Paul, we worked directly with him and some already established creative in order to ensure that his branding came through the lens of the Land of Nod look and feel. Here is the video that was embedded on the landing page shown above.
The Publicity & Advertising
The Products
The Outcome
Out of all of the collaborations I was a part of that year, the one with Paul Frank was one of the most successful, seeing Paul Frank super fans coming out of the woodwork at every step of the way. It was humbling to feel the presence of a well known yet seemingly underground icon resurface through the lens of a children’s brand. I was fortunate to be a part of such an exciting and natural partnership with two companies who shared the same tendency towards pure childlike creativity.