Dora’s growing pains.

Yesterday in the Financial Times: Viacom, that through Nickelodeon owns the Dora character, would consider changing the character a little to make her somewhat older and more feminine, in order to appeal to an older target group.

“Dora The Explorer, the wide-eyed cartoon character adored by young children around the world, is facing a makeover amid competition from older, racier rivals. Nickelodeon (…) has been discussing a redesign (…) that would make the character appear more feminine. (…) It is also considering a group of Explorer Girls that would appeal to older children”

As the father of two big Dora-fans, I wonder if this would not turn out to be a big mistake.

Looking upon it from my first-hand-experience, I know that we as parents serve as gatekeepers for what our children will and will not see. The main reason we let Dora enter those gates was exactly because she is innocent, optimistic, to quote the Financial Times, “a symbol of curiosity and empowerment for pre-school children ? particularly girls”. Also, she is in a certain sense not too commercial. I realize this sounds strange, knowing that there are Dora-drinks, Dora-crocs, Dora-bedlinnen and the like, but somehow in our view this little character has managed to remain somewhat of a virgin, commercially speaking. Should this change in any way, the gates would close - rather immediately. Apparently too, I’m not the only one …

So the big risk for Nickelodeon of course is to lose its existing customer franchise while aiming for a new one. It’s a risk Disney never had to take since it has many different characters that can appeal to different age groups - as an old research (kidscharacters.pdf) shows. (“Disney cartoons create strong, stable bonds because the strong, stable characterisation of the characters and the universal appeal of the stories allow identification with and imaginative development on typically human themes and feelings. This family of characters, more than any of the others, ‘covers’ the needs of the various age groups, both providing entertainment and promoting children’s psychological growth“).

Closer to home, Studio 100 also allows kids to grow older within their portfolio - from Bumba over K3 to Spring. And even Nickelodeon themselves have understood how different characters can play to different audiences, and how to build on the success of one show to migrate kids to another. After all, is Diego not a spin-off from Dora, more aimed at boys?

Of course, one could argue for the wisdom of the Nickelodeon thoughts, by saying that this could be a case of so-called “Harry Potter marketing” (we’ve written about this before), whereby the character grows older together with its fans. In this case, Dora would grow with her fans and experience the growing pains they’re going through in puberty. It’s a big gamble, of course, because at a certain moment in time kids may not be interested in characters anymore, regardless of how mature they are. And anyway, even that “Harry Potter”-scenario would involve making a difficult choice, i.e. to neglect the “newcomers” and stick with the existing fans, as they grow older.

I can’t help of thinking that this is a typical grow-at-all-costs-situations, where one risks to slay the goose with the golden eggs.”Dora and the Golden Eggs”, now, that sounds like an interesting story …