Peppa Pig is a true global icon and one of the biggest preschool brands for the past twenty years. The Hasbro property originated with the long-running British animated series about a playful pig named Peppa and her everyday adventures with family and friends, and its heartfelt stories, bright visuals and relatable humor have made it a staple with kids and parents alike. Since launching in 2004, the Peppa Pig fandom has continued to grow with a massive franchise and cultural impact worldwide.
On May 30, The Orchard’s children’s music division, Magic Star, released Peppa Meets The Baby: The Album. The album coincided with the cinema release of the same name, in which Peppa’s family expands with the introduction of her new baby sister, Evie. The album offered the opportunity to work alongside the Peppa Pig and Hasbro teams to further elevate this momentous announcement. By collaborating on a number of music marketing initiatives, the joy of welcoming a new baby sister could both be seen and heard for a 360-degree moment of celebration for the brand.
Approach
The reaction to Mummy Pig’s pregnancy announcement was astronomical. With appearances on national TV, popular podcasts, coverage with all major news outlets and a TikTok announcement post with over 120M views and 13M likes, it could not be denied that the arrival of a new baby sister was PIG news. The Magic Star and The Orchard teams in collaboration with Hasbro developed a music strategy to celebrate this amazing moment in Peppa’s life, starting in February and continuing all the way through to Evie’s arrival in May.
Below includes just a snapshot of the campaign, demonstrating the power of music marketing for brands as well as how the children’s genre can reach beyond its intended audience to drive pop culture moments relevant for all.
New Music Strategy
The Magic Star team worked alongside the Hasbro Music Team to develop a music plan to soundtrack the campaign from pregnancy announcement to birth, running from February to May. With Magic Star’s expertise in the children’s genre, the team identified there wasn’t just the name reveal that could be celebrated, but many moments of a parents’ pregnancy journey in which music could be a vital aid.
This started with the pregnancy announcement in February, with Mummy Pig releasing her first ever EP Mummy Pig’s Meditation Mix, a collection of soothing ambient instrumental tracks designed to help expecting parents (and all others!) find time to relax.
This was followed by the first single from the new album, “How Big is the Baby Now?,” a track celebrating Peppa’s curiosity about how quickly a baby grows during the pregnancy. It includes tongue-in-cheek ad libs from Mummy Pig, creating more relatable themes amongst the family demographic.
The biggest opportunity came with the reveal of the baby name. Working with Hasbro’s PR team on the rollout, the track “Evie!” was released in line with the name announcement, which itself was part of a massive publicity push and made worldwide news. The bubbly and catchy ode to her sister was a success, becoming Peppa’s strongest single launch since joining The Orchard.
This all led up to the release of the full album ‘Peppa Meets the Baby’, which coincided with the film’s release in cinemas. The album included the updated theme song for the show and even a ‘hyperpop’ inspired remix, intended to reach audiences who had grown up with Peppa and now were starting families of their own.
This full timeline of releases moved with the narrative driven by the Peppa Pig team. It demonstrated how music can work in harmony with these major brand moments, both to elevate key messaging but also to soundtrack family memories, which then become cherished for years to come.
Digital Service Providers & PR
Working alongside the UK Digital Partnerships & Radio team, the campaign achieved some firsts for the Peppa Pig brand. Some notable exposure was our partnership with the Sony Music UK radio team to secure a first play of the track “Evie!” on one of the UK’s biggest radio shows, Scott Mills Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2, which accumulates six million listeners daily.
On the DSP side, we secured out-of-home support from Amazon Music during the week of release in London. The Amazon Music UK team also then developed an exciting partnership. Peppa Pig is the face of the ‘Amazon Music Family Plan’ promotions in the UK, in a prolonged two phase campaign, running from June through to September.
We also worked with the Spotify UK team on a custom social content piece in which Peppa went into Spotify’s London office to pitch her new song “Evie!” to the Spotify logo itself! This was a first for a children’s genre artist in the UK and introduced Peppa to a new audience of fans via Spotify’s socials. Due to positive reaction to the content, Spotify UK then supported the post with additional ad spend. Watch the super fun clip here.
Peppa and Evie also became the face of Spotify’s flagship global kids playlist New Kids Music for the whole month of June.
On Apple Music, Peppa Pig was chosen to become the new face of the Kids Genre in both the UK and USA.
Paid Advertising in Two Phases
Hasbro collaborated with The Orchard’s Paid Advertising team on a two-phased campaign in both the UK and USA.
Phase one of the advertising campaign began before the album release, with the goal to raise awareness of Peppa Pig’s music catalog in key markets by driving ad impressions on Meta and YouTube. The Orchard’s Creative Services team also collaborated with Hasbro to create bespoke assets for the advertising. These included fun catalog awareness assets promoting Peppa Pig’s biggest and best hits.
The second advertising phase took place during the album release. The goal of phase two was to drive consumption of the new album towards Peppa’s top stores in the US and the UK. The campaign was highly successful and drove hundreds of thousands of clicks directly to the new album.
TikTok Search Campaign
This album introduced the focus track “Evie!,” Peppa’s anthem for her new baby sister, who took the internet by storm! We launched a TikTok Search campaign to capitalize on the buzz, and targeted keywords informed by Google Trends and Brandwatch. TikTok Search campaigns is a relatively new format within TikTok Ads Manager that enables sophisticated keyword-based ads which specifically target TikTok’s search results page. According to TikTok, over half of people prefer to research products on video and social platforms over traditional browsers. With this change of landscape, the TikTok Search campaign proved to be an effective tool.
Using the TikTok Search ads, we received hundreds of thousands of clicks on the orcd.co multi-retailer link, becoming The Orchard’s Paid Media & Growth Strategy team’s best-performing Search campaign. Due to strong results, we extended the campaign flight.
Influencer Strategy
With Peppa Pig being a beloved internet icon, we launched two influencer campaigns to drive awareness of the new music. We worked with parent-focused accounts, such as: evangelineolualu, edenharvzofficial, therealemilyj, and sassisimmonds1. Reach has exceeded over three million views so far, showcasing both high engagement and positive comments about Peppa Pig’s new music.
Results
Overall, the Peppa Pig album and awareness campaign proved to be an incredible success!
The new album saw an increase of over 80% in streams in its first month, compared to Peppa’s previous best performing album in the same duration. Peppa Pig’s entire catalog saw an 8% increase when comparing month prior and after the campaign. This lift has then sustained the months following, showing a renewed interest in Peppa’s entire music library! This is even more impressive during a time when preschool streaming sees a seasonal decline in English language countries.
This growth, along with Peppa Pig achieving one billion all time streams in Q1 of this year, demonstrates how successful music campaigns can be when brands lean into them wholeheartedly. It also proves the importance of music strategy and that a core understanding for the parent demographic and behaviours of the children’s genre is as serious as any other genre in music. As the experts in this space, the Magic Star team is proud to have applied these insights-driven best practices with Peppa Pig for the past two years and is excited to continue delivering strategic leadership and excellence on many more Peppa Pig releases to come.
“For more than 20 years, Peppa Pig has inspired confidence, curiosity and joy for preschoolers and their families by reflecting the everyday moments and milestones they experience together. With a history of chart-topping singles and over a billion lifetime streams, music has always been a powerful way to share her stories. Together with Magic Star and The Orchard, we turned the arrival of Peppa’s baby sister Evie into a global, music-led celebration that honored her legacy, embraced her bold future and gave today’s modern families around the world even more ways to connect with her world.” – Matt Proulx, Senior Vice President, Global Experiences, Partnerships & Music, Hasbro.
“The new music and consequent fan engagement really helped to bring this campaign to life across the globe. Magic Star is so grateful to be able to work with the Peppa Pig team on such a momentous moment in this much loved brand’s history.” – Will Speer, M.D of Magic Star.
The deluxe version of the album ‘Peppa Meets the Baby’ is out now, including two brand new songs ‘Cutest Pig in Town (Evie! Evie!) and ‘When Evie Grows Up’. Listen Now: https://orcd.co/peppamtbdeluxe
