Bringing a set of lively characters to life online.
CLIENT: Beat Bugs TV Show | PROJECT: Responsive website design and development, content creation
Beat Bugs is an animated series, revolving around the lives and adventures of five charming and funny child-like bugs who live in an overgrown suburban backyard. FIRST’s brief for the website was to bring the characters to life for children and to validate parents belief that the show was a great watch for the whole family.
Structured for fun
How do you reassure parents the show is suitable for their children to watch, get the children excited about the series and get then to connect with the characters? First conducted competitive research into children’s websites to gain an understanding of the requirements for the site. Two needs were defined, one for the parents of children that watch the show and one for the kids.
The kids wanted to get to know more about the characters. FIRST setup the site so that the characters at the top of the page and the big buttons engaged the children and provided them with fun and exciting content. Children can watch brief snippets of video, listen to the music and get to know the characters. They can also download activity books where they could print out colouring in sheets, complete dot to dots, and other puzzles. Parents can browse program timing, review content and social channels along with links to live shows, music and artist bios.
Bringing The Beatles to a whole new audience
What sets the series apart from others children’s shows is The Beatles! Melodies and lyrics of The Beatles songs are linked to the themes and stories of each series. Each episode explores the narrative in one Beatles song in an innocent and child friendly fashion, the song being connected to and suggesting adventures, mishaps and lessons learned by the five lovable bugs. The site needed to cater to audiences in both Australia and worldwide with a number of licencing restrictions on content needing to be adhered to in specific regions.
The Beatles content was a limited release so this had to be treated carefully when presenting the content on the website. Children love the show and the extra content, including downloadable activity sheets have been a huge hit.
