Into every generation, a universally hated children’s television character is born.
First it was Barney, then Caillou, and now it appears to be Blippi.
As proof, I offer the fact that most of AdExchanger’s editors are childless, yet we all know, instinctively, to despise him on sight. (In the words of Managing Editor Allison Schiff, “Blippi is a monster.”)
This, of course, poses a unique problem in a world of smart TV operating systems and content recommendation engines. Blippi, sinister as he may seem to adults, is at least nominally safe for children – compared, to, say, the enduring horror of Elsagate. Blippi has multiple well-monetized accounts and distribution that’s practically unavoidable for parents or people who live with young kids.
Helpfully, some family-friendly content providers feature built-in controls that give parents an opportunity to limit access to certain shows.
Kidoodle.TV, a streaming service owned by A Parent Media Co. Inc. (AMPC), is one prime example. Although the app has a FAST channel component that doesn’t require a login, signing up allows parents to create separate accounts for each of their children based on their age range (0-2, 2-4, 5-8 and 9-12), and then easily blacklist individual titles from those accounts.
(By contrast, YouTube Kids has downright counterintuitive settings that also forced me to do basic math problems to prove my own adulthood. As if I wouldn’t have been better at remembering what eight times six is back when I was in elementary school and didn’t have a head full of ad tech jargon.)
The ability to do a blip on Blippi isn’t actually AMPC’s claim to fame, however. The Calgary-based company prides itself on kid-focused safety measures, particularly its proprietary ad tech products.
Can we fix it?
Like many streamers, Kidoodle.TV started as a subscription-based service when it launched in 2012. Kidoodle pivoted to a hybrid SVOD and AVOD model in 2018, partially in response to how viewership habits were evolving on YouTube Kids, President and CEO Neil Gruninger told AdExchanger.
The reasoning behind that decision, said Gruninger, is that kid-safe programming should be available to families of all income brackets. (It doesn’t hurt that AMPC has more than doubled its revenue every year since switching models, per the National Research Council of Canada.)
So APMC had two challenges to contend with: It had to figure out how to incorporate ad monetization platforms into its existing streaming tech and to ensure that those ad campaigns complied with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), meaning they cannot collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
It was easier said than done. Just because an ad is COPPA-compliant from a technical standpoint doesn’t mean that it’s suitable from a content perspective.
“There were a lot of ads that were being misclassified,” said Kidoodle.TV Chief Brand Officer Jeremy Mason. “We would open up to demos or targets that we felt would be appropriate for the audience, and suddenly we get creatives that just didn’t match what we were expecting there.”
“An entertainment ad could be an ad for the new ‘Bluey’ movie, but also could be an ad for the next slasher flick,” he added.
Yes, we can!
Kids production companies face much tougher regulation and scrutiny than the rest of the entertainment industry. They can’t afford to allow offensive (or offending) content to slip by just because ad classifications end up being uselessly vague.
To fix this discrepancy, APMC built Safe Exchange, which uses machine learning technology to graft additional metadata onto incoming ad creatives. With more thorough descriptions of the content of the ad, ones that should be blocked are easier to sort out. Once that’s done, a human moderator looks over the flagged ads in real time and can choose to accept or block the brand’s spots.
APMC also uses this tool to support its other streaming platforms, including the Dude Perfect app and the sports-focused Victory+. There’s even a version that the company offers to other businesses, known as AdCurate by Safe Exchange.
Because, as it turns out, APMC’s current tech stack is useful not just for brand safety, but also for contextual ad relevancy and even geo-targeting, which is still permissible under COPPA regulations so long as it’s not enough to identify the street name and town where a child might live.
Don’t worry, though. If you have a parent account with Kidoodle.TV, there’s a pretty straightforward toggle that allows you to turn personalized ads off.
After all, nobody wants Blippi knowing where they live.
Questions? Thoughts? Complaints about other children’s television icons? Let me know what you think at victoria@adexchanger.com.
