The wireless industry is stooping to conquer.
Nickelodeon is partnering with content developer Jamdat to produce mobile games based on two of the network’s most popular shows, “Dora the Explorer” and “Blue’s Clues.” The games will be targeted at perhaps the most unlikely of wireless users: preschoolers.
“Games on the phone can be a great resource for parents to play with their preschoolers,” said Kyra Reppen, general manager of NickJr.com. “It’s about do-together time.”
While no one is expecting preschoolers to walk around with handsets clipped to their belts-at least, not yet-the games are two of the latest examples of the way the industry is targeting what some say is the last untapped wireless market in the United States. With cell-phone penetration rates reaching the saturation point among adults, carriers and content providers are looking down to knee-level and seeing opportunity.
“We recently did some research on the untapped adult market,” said Adam Guy, director of wireless practice at the research firm Compete, “and it looks pretty ugly in terms of their interest in wireless. There’s an unwillingness to spend anything more than about $25 a month. So it makes sense to target younger and younger users; it’s the only way the market’s going to grow.”
Of course, it’s not just kids that the industry is going after, it’s also their parents.
Once simply a way to transmit voice, the cell phone is becoming a mobile entertainment center and administrative tool. As such, content providers are scrambling to give parents a way to keep Junior occupied in the car or at the grocery store. If that means letting him pound on mom’s handset, that’s OK.
Nickelodeon has also teamed with Reaxion, a mobile entertainment developer with offices in Seattle and Moscow, to produce a game based on the character “Bleeposaurus.” While the game will be designed with slightly older kids in mind- roughly from 6-year-olds to preteens-the concept is the same.
“This is mostly targeted for adults to buy a game for the kids to play when a parent is preoccupied with driving, and not able to devote needed attention to a child,” said Misha Lyalin, Reaxion’s chief executive officer. “We all have seen this happen everywhere. A parent would do anything to stop their children from disturbing them when they are driving, for example.”
While the placative nature of a phone in the hands of a 4-year-old may be debatable, there’s no question that wireless use among older kids is exploding. Four years ago, only 5 percent of 13- to 17-year-olds had a cell phone, according to Linda Barrabee, wireless market analyst for The Yankee Group. Today, 56 percent do, and that number is growing.
As cell-phone use becomes ubiquitous at the elementary and junior-high levels, more kids are beginning to see phones as an extension of themselves. Like the way they dress or how they talk, they actively try to express themselves through their phones.
“They have extra time, they’re always searching for that neat, new appearance, and they like to impress their friends,” said Randy Cavaiani, vice president of marketing and sales for First International Digital Inc., a multimedia company that provides musical content. “It’s all a part of the whole personalization trend. The younger generation thinks of phones as much as a fashion play as a communications tool.”
And that trend isn’t likely to end any time soon.
“It is very likely that the next frontier in wireless is the 10- to 14-year-old segment,” said Tom Erskine, vice president of product development and marketing for bcgi, a Massachusetts-based wireless services firm.
Carriers are beginning to explore that market by luring parents with family plans, enticing them to equip their children with phones.
“Phones have become so affordable now,” Cavaiani said. “With a family plan, a service add-on for a teen or pre-teen is about $10 a month.”
The strong uptake among teens and preteens is proving troublesome, though. Parents, who generally pay 85 percent or more of teens’ wireless bills, have had trouble keeping tabs on usage levels, incurring inflated bills due to overage charges.
Many teens are migrating to prepaid plans, where a phone’s service is killed when the prepaid minutes expire, eliminating overage charges. According to Barrabee, 18 percent are on prepaid plans, 5 percentage points higher than the overall population.
Bcgi is developing “Mobile Guardian,” a product that will allow parents to set filters and install usage limitations on their children’s phones. Mobile Guardian can block calls to and from specified numbers or disable the handset at certain times of the day-during school hours, for instance-while allowing calls to or from “always on” numbers, like a parent’s cell phone.
Mobile Guardian will also let parents set time allotments, limiting usage by the day, week or month. Unlike a prepaid phone, though, it will allow calls to or from “always on” numbers even when minute caps have been surpassed.
Health factors continue to worry some parents, as well. While studies have been inconclusive, some children’s advocates maintain cell-phone use can interfere with the body’s natural electrical fields, and perhaps even cause cancer.
One study from the University of Utah suggests that youngsters absorb up to 50 percent more radio-frequency emissions than adults. With scant evidence to go on, though, some researchers warn parents to simply limit their children’s use of cell phones.
As happened in the early days of the Internet, parents can be unaware of the ways kids can use a phone. Recently, high-school students have been caught using text messaging to cheat on tests, and “upskirting” (using picture phones to take inappropriate photos of girls). And current mobile offerings include everything from text-message “flirt clubs” to adult-themed games to downloadable games.
“In our focus groups, it was pretty clear that parents are not as aware (of such content) as you might expect,” said Erskine. “They were pretty unaware of some of the things the device can do. They’re definitely a little bit in the dark.”
Which is one reason Nickelodeon-branded content is such a good vehicle, said Reaxion’s Lyalin. Parents trust the network, and their kids already recognize the name.
“Nickelodeon is a stamp of quality and safe content for parents, and of course the game is fun,” Lyalin said.
Creating that trust is key: If content providers can establish a relationship with both a child and his parents, they have the opportunity to create long-term customers.
“(Kids represent) a small but fast-growing market (in wireless),” Lyalin said. “One very important point for us is to build our own brand as a publisher of quality games and create this association with children early on. We are in this for the long haul.”
