Peppa Pig is everywhere.
Whether or not you have children, you likely know the little girl pig from the kid’s cartoon show. But the Peppa media franchise is just getting started.
The program was acquired by Hasbro in 2019, and it’s become a YouTube and streaming hit that’s spawned toothpastes, toys and all sorts of merchandise, not to mention theme parks.
So how does a show like that keep growing?
Well, it takes data, distribution and a newborn pig.
The rebrand
Shows for prekindergarten-age kids are immensely important parts of consumer culture.
That’s partly about the numbers. Nielsen’s latest 2025 streaming program ratings has “Bluey,” another animated kids show, as the most-watched show of 2025 (2.5 billion minutes ahead of No. 2 “Grey’s Anatomy”). But there’s something even more important that makes a hit kids show a valuable enterprise.
A kid’s favorite character is “the No. 1 entry point for preschoolers into brands,” said Esra Cafer, SVP of global brand strategy and management at Hasbro, who oversees the Peppa Pig franchise, among other Hasbro lines like My Little Pony. The company has tested this with preschoolers.
Kids fall in love with the character, play the character at home and “want to eat the pot of yogurt with their favorite character on the lid.”
To that end, Peppa Pig has orchestrated a major brand expansion. Literally.
AdExchanger Daily
Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.
Daily Roundup
In May, the Peppa franchise added a new character, the baby pig Evie.
Mummy Pig, as the mother is known, did her own pregnancy announcement live on the YouTube podcast “Not Gonna Lie” with host Kylie Kelce. The “gender reveal” happened on Walmart’s site, along with the prerelease of a set of toys exclusive to Walmart. “It’s a comprehensive relationship” with Walmart, Cafer said, rather than a pure media or marketing deal.
Morwenna Banks, the voice actress behind Mummy Pig, “knows Mummy Pig probably better than you know anyone in the world” and can absolutely field questions on the fly in character, Cafer said.
It was new for this campaign to “break the fourth wall” by putting Banks on podcasts and other media as Mummy Pig, she added. But it was part of a strategy to create more direct and life-like connections to families almost as actual celebrities who can have a voice with parents.
“Mummy Pig is real, James,” Cafer joked. “She’s real.”
Pigging out on new media
One way to grow a children’s brand is to sign a hybrid audience and exclusive merchandise deal with the world’s largest retailer.
But Hasbro is also pushing Peppa Pig into new and data-driven media channels, with whole new charts to top.
The program cut its teeth as a YouTube pioneer, Cafer said. But there are plans for FAST channels, like parts of TV packages carried by certain smart TV manufacturers, which would stream ad-supported episodes. In April, Peppa moved its tentpole mobile gaming app to Netflix, and last year it created a podcast on the Amazon-owned Audible streaming audio platform.
The big plans being made now by the Peppa Pig team, Cafer said, are for the big retail and consumer events like Prime Day and the Thanksgiving shopping period in 2026.
“You’ll see this bigger family and these bigger feelings come to life across the Peppaverse,” she said.
