Global character creation and animation production company has announced a publishing deal with HarperCollins India for CricketPang, an initiative that will further its brand awareness apart from broadcasting and OTT platforms.
Pointing out that the publishing deal was for 26 storybooks of CricketPang animation, YouNeedCharacter CEO Minsu Song said in a statement, “Along with the broadcasting of CricketPang, we found publishing very important as well, so we put our best effort into selecting a publishing partner. We are very happy to have signed with HarperCollins and we are excited to complete and start distributing throughout India. For the remainder of the year, we will continue preparation for the storybooks and create books that will be loved by local and global children all around the world.”
In addition to publishing, other projects in India have shown results as well, a company statement said. The CricketPang TV channel started broadcasting on JIO OTT platform and recently the CricketPang brand signed up Indian cricketer Ajinkya Rahane as brand ambassador.
Also, the ‘Cricket-Pang Kindergarten APP’ has over 100,000 downloads, and ‘CricketPang TV’ the official YouTube channel for Cricket-Pang has over 20,000 subscribers, with views exceeding five million.
According to Song, “We plan to establish the value as a brand in a short period of time by entering various businesses and using marketing tactics such as airing on different OTT channels, celebrity marketing, educational apps, YouTube services, publishing, and licensing.”
YouNeedCharacter’s publishing contracts for the Cricket-Pang storybooks with HarperCollins are meaningful because it is an animation brand that is publishing through a major publisher in India. The books will be published in India with plans of exporting them to markets like Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Middle East. The future of YouNeedCharacter and Cricket-Pang is something to look forward to.
YouNeedCharacter is an animation and character production company found in 2017 by CEO Minsu Song, who has previously worked in Iconix, famous for their project ‘Pororo’, and Samsung Everland as the head of the content business. Actively developing characters and concepts for original character brand IPs and animations to advance into the global markets, especially with their flagship animation, ‘CricketPang’.