OCP-6: Proposal for TinyTap TV-Style Content Development

Investment
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Summary

I’m seeking $60,000 USD worth of EDU to fund a 12-month project which will explore the development of educational, TV-style content aimed at children aged 0-6 that represents, celebrates, and promotes the values of the TinyTap brand to a potential broadcast, streaming and/or YouTube audience, and contributes to the overall mission of Open Campus.

This project will also analyse the potential for the creation of original IP which TinyTap can use for marketing, merchandising, and the making of new educational resources by teachers.

Potential Rewards

Children’s brands are powerful! In November 2023, the animated children’s series ‘Bluey’ was the most-streamed show across all U.S. streaming platforms with 3.8 billion viewing minutes on Disney+. In 2021, it solely accounted for a 25% rise in merchandise revenue for Moose Toys and last year, contributed to BBC Studios’ record $2.7 billion revenue. Other brands such as ‘CoComelon’, ‘Peppa Pig’, and ‘Paw Patrol’ are major global and financial giants. Community members with young children in their families will know what it’s like to have a child demanding to watch a show or begging for a branded toy!

It’s not just about money though: by working with ‘Sesame Street’ and others, TinyTap understands how powerful children’s IP is, driving loyal children to seek out more content featuring their favourite characters in other spaces. Programmes sold to platforms like Netflix are also watched by parents who become familiar with company and brand logos in episodes and on merchandise. This can develop into a strong trust in them, and a curiosity about what else they produce.

Making TinyTap-branded children’s TV-style content has the potential to achieve all of that, with this initial project being the start of a potentially radical creative, financial, and marketing move that could also enable more families to discover TinyTap, Open Campus, and Web3.

Proposed Concepts

For this early development stage, I propose to explore a minimum of three options, all of which will combine education with entertainment and fun:

  • A live-action, presenter-led, education-focused show such as ‘Sesame Street’.
  • An animated series with a clear educational drive, such as ‘Numberblocks’.
  • A live-action or animated story-focused series with lighter educational themes such as ‘Bluey’ or ‘Blippi’.

I’d also investigate ways of incorporating themes and ideas that connect with TinyTap, Open Campus, and Web3 such as:

  • Education is fun, emphasising games to reflect/promote TinyTap’s concept and platform.
  • A decentralised, worldwide community where we learn from and empower each other.
  • Unique IP i.e. the golden backpack, with possible historical/celebrity guests wearing it like Mona Lisa (from NFT Paris) or Prince Harry (as suggested by RadioTom). It would make great spin-off merchandise too!

About Me

I’ve been at the heart of U.K. children’s media for 20 years, writing, producing, creating, and developing content and characters for Sky, Disney, Nick Jr, CBBC, and Sony. Children are the best audience with the best feedback!

I’m also very passionate about children’s education, having taught English as a Foreign Language to 0-16-year-olds on the Chinese platform DaDa. I think what Open Campus and TinyTap are doing is amazing and will radically change education for the better, empowering children across the planet.

Please do have a look at two of my favourite BBC Education projects I produced: the children’s drama ‘Guin and the Dragon’, and a presenter-led series about children’s literature called ‘Bringing Books to Life’.

Schedule and Scope

The time would be spent researching, creating, and developing ideas, alongside exploring their creative, marketing, and financial value. This would involve consulting with children’s experts and creators from a range of companies, the TinyTap and Open Campus teams, plus teachers, parents, and – most importantly - the community.

I’m sure there are lots of community members from all parts of the world with ideas for characters and settings, plus insights about what children in their families like. I’d love to hear about shows from your childhood too. All of this would be tremendously valuable in creating truly original concepts together.

At the end of the 12 months, I will present three ideas. If the community wish to develop any with me further, I’d pitch for a second development fund, during which we can explore pilots, IP development etc.

I passionately believe that this exciting project has the potential to build the foundations of content and popular IP creation that could expand awareness of the brand and platform to enhance TinyTap’s reputation as the global children’s education destination. I hope the community agree and would love to join me on this exciting journey!

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This is a welcomed development, also you have the right approach to achieving this great feat. In addition would you like to include international languages? From your Asian experience would you also be contacting creators from regions such as Africa, Middle East and Latin America for the short call?
Finally, I think from your experience you should try to accomplish this in less than twelve months because the world can’t wait to have this creation.
Best REGARDS and Good Luck

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Hi Haytch. Wow, this is such a useful contribution already, thank you.

Yes, part of the development process would involve looking at popular children’s content from all over the world to see what we can learn, and how the characters, presenters and stories etc can appeal to a global audience, which may involve different languages, for sure. A lot of animated content is made in Asia and the exploration of production there would be a very useful exercise. A friend from Hong Kong has been telling me about a very popular pig character called McDull, and I’m fascinated by other characters from around the world.

Thank you for your enthusiasm and kindness, it’s truly appreciated. I hope the project will go ahead and look forward to speaking with you more.

Guy

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Hey @guylambo!

Thanks for your proposal!

Would be great to understand your thoughts on how this content series would add value to the Open Campus ecosystem and $EDU token directly.

And what would be delivered in the first 12 months if the grant was approved?

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Hi Jake, thanks so much for reading the proposal and responding.

For me, the primary goal of the pitch is three-fold. Firstly, to boost the profile of TinyTap as a respected, reputable, and quality educational brand that parents can trust; secondly, as Mohamed so eloquently put it on X, to provide “an opportunity to bridge web2 and web3”; and thirdly, to ultimately develop IP which Open Campus could use in educational materials, but also to appeal to children and parents across marketing as well as merchandise and other revenue streams.

So, the added value to Open Campus’ ecosystem would come via all three of those. Just having the name and the brand on content, platforms, and merchandise would put Open Campus into homes which may never have heard of it, TinyTap, nor web3. We know there’s a lot of scepticism about crypto and AI in mainstream spaces, so this is a way to enable domestic-level PR built around trust. I think parents respect educational children’s content a great deal, and therefore the brands/companies that produce it. This was certainly the case when I worked for Nick Jr and BBC Education whose content had a reputation for honesty, authenticity, and true educational value, with everything connected to those brands conveying those things.

I also think this direct connection with children through platforms they and their parents are already familiar with (YouTube, Netflix etc) not only provides an extra level of respect and trust but will also reach to them directly to fulfil what Project Lead Jay has described as “empowering the next generation of lifelong learners”. We will be actively doing that and introducing them to the gamification of education, creating a desire to do more.

Open Campus’ aim to bring 100 education companies could potentially expand even further once a quality piece of TV-style content is out there for the world to enjoy. “We make The TinyTap Show!” would be a great introduction to any company in the space who would undoubtedly be familiar with educational content that’s made a splash in spaces they’re more familiar with. Once again, onboarding is enabled via content that is respected and easy to access on a platform they trust.

This is why I think it’s important to make the content feel as if it could only have been made by TinyTap and Open Campus, with the voice of the brands and the community out loud. It must be unique and captivate an audience with a strong message only this community could create.

To come back to Mohammed’s “bridge” analogy, I think this will be true of $EDU as well. This proposal doesn’t make any promises to boost that directly, but I think a larger number of parents and children brought to the TinyTap platform via this mainstream content will inevitably lead to encouragement of exploration, familiarity, and adoption, particularly with the benefits of parents who use $EDU to purchase. There could be a Shop on TinyTap where parents can buy virtual and physical merchandise associated with the show, with discounts for those using $EDU. “Your child could get a personalised Happy Birthday greeting from their favourite character, but only by purchasing with $EDU!” There are lots of options that could be explored.

Finally, regarding what would be delivered. I set out my plan to deliver three potential content ideas that can be discussed and accepted or rejected for future development. These would be in the form of pitch decks or documents, exploring the proposed ideas in detail. For example, if the show were to be an animation, I would provide things like character descriptions, the world they are in, and elaboration on how these connect to the TinyTap, Open Campus, and web3 spaces (especially the themes, as discussed in the proposal), along with scripted material that would demonstrate how the idea might work. Most importantly, the document/deck would explore educational aspects of the ideas, with research and data to support the validity of these aspects. There would also be explanations of why known platforms such as Netflix might be a good home because it suits their objectives, or if producing for YouTube is a better option because it allows more freedom (with associated risk). The length of the decks/documents depends on the project and the scope, as it might include some character designs too. There might be some personal filming done to explore aspects or give examples of presentation style, but it is not guaranteed because it may not add any value.

To be very open about why I’ve asked for $60,000, in UK £ that converts to approx. £47,500. Divide by 48 weeks (a standard year of work), it’s £1000 per week. In the UK, the salary of a TV producer in 2022 was a minimum of £1300 per week (Unscripted TV Rate guidance 2022 - Bectu) and as a highly experienced development producer in this space, I usually get paid more. This is a project I really want to do so would not ask for that much! There will be expenses involved in this too especially if I need to hire equipment or get some character designs, so by no means is all a salary and I’ve taken that into consideration to make it what I think is reasonable.

It can often take months even years to develop TV programming, so I feel that 12 months for 3 projects is a good amount of time given that it’s from scratch.

I am very passionate about children’s education and when I was introduced to TinyTap by a friend, I felt like it was something unique and very special, so this project is something I truly believe in and want to make work for Tinytap, Open Campus, and the community.

I am sure that some people will ask “why is this man going on about TV, nobody watches TV!” but many TV-style platforms and content still carry great weight for the TinyTap age group across a multitude of services, and parents still watch and rely on this content loyally.

Moreover, once IP is developed, it can be expanded into gaming and other child-friendly arenas, even a movie! If Paw Patrol and LEGO can use these spaces to find their way into children’s hearts around the world, I’m sure TinyTap can do so too, and benefit from it. That’s a huge advantage in this age where IP is so vital to recognition.

Any further questions, please do let me know. I very much want to be open and transparent about this and welcome the discussion.

Thanks, Jake.

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Hi Guy,

Thank you for sharing your detailed proposal and for the enthusiasm and passion you clearly bring to the table. It’s evident you have a profound commitment to enhancing children’s education through innovative content, and your experience and insight are invaluable.

I’m all for the idea of boosting TinyTap’s profile and creating a bridge between web2 and web3, while developing IP that resonates with both children and parents. The ambition to leverage familiar platforms like Netflix and YouTube to deliver quality educational content is incredibly exciting and aligns with the vision of Open Campus.

However, I do have a concern regarding the proposed budget of £60k for the initial phase of ideation and proposal development. While I recognize the value of thorough research and development, as well as your expertise and the potential costs involved, I would be cautious about allocating $EDU from the ecosystem fund without a more defined pathway to execution.

Proposals that come with a clear explanation on how and what is being built/developed would significantly de-risk the investment and align better with our goal of swift and impactful execution.

Your suggestion of an Open Campus/TinyTap sponsored educational TV series is a compelling example of the kind of specific, actionable project that could justify the investment. Getting initial approval or interest from content platforms would provide a clearer route for the proposal to be executed, ensuring that resources are used effectively to produce tangible outcomes.

I’m absolutely supportive of exploring ways to integrate the TinyTap and Open Campus brands into mainstream content, expanding our reach, and introducing innovative educational opportunities to a broader audience. The idea of leveraging TV-style content to empower the next generation of lifelong learners and to onboard new education companies is particularly promising.

Would it be possible for you to refine the proposal to include one or more specific project ideas, complete with potential partnerships or preliminary approvals from platforms? This approach would give a clearer understanding of the project’s feasibility and potential impact, allowing for a more focused discussion about unlocking the necessary funds.

Thanks in advance for considering my feedback. Let’s keep the conversation going and find the best path forward.

Would love to hear from others on this too!

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Hi Jake,

Thanks so much for your response and the kind words. As per your suggestion, I’ve included some thoughts in this reply about the sort of ideas we may pursue.

To address your point about milestones first, here’s a simplified version of the TV development process:

  1. Development: Gather thoughts and then create ideas with a focus on the objectives and landscape of platforms.

  2. Creating Pitch Deck: Although a drama pitch, the ‘Stranger Things’ deck is a good example: https://storyfactory.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Stranger_Things_-_Bible.pdf

  3. Sharing the Deck: With parties such as production companies and streamers where they express interest, discuss changes, and other negotiations including finance, co-production, and/or building a YouTube channel.

  4. Further Development: Often involves producing scripts, a pilot, casting, and hiring a production team. This leads to more discussions etc and hopefully production.

In effect, this proposal is essentially a research project with a focused endpoint: it concludes at stage 2 with the creation of three fully developed pitch decks and the community would decide which one to action. I’d then outline a plan for the next stage. Do you think that’s clear enough for the community?

I have faith that a pitch for any project would be looked at by a platform because they’re always looking for children’s content, especially the next big hit like ‘Bluey’ and ‘Peppa Pig’ because of the richness of IP. In the proposal, it’s one of my suggestions that we focus on ‘light’ educational animation for one idea. For example, the golden backpack could be an animated character who goes on adventures where he dispenses educational support to children around the world and gives them rewards! That’s a good thought that could become an idea.

I’m intrigued by your suggestion that I could develop something and then pitch it to a streamer first. If that were the case, at what point do you imagine Open Campus and the community would get involved?

To explore that: I recently developed a project for Sony, and they needed a comprehensively researched and developed pitch deck so that any platform knew the full details of what it was being asked to commit to or express interest in. I’m sure Ryan Gosling can walk into Netflix’s office with a one-sentence thought like the golden backpack one and get preliminary approval, but we would need a pitch deck like the one I created for Sony. Moreover, platforms need to know that what they’re being sold is what they’re going to get so that production can be executed quickly, and only a pitch deck can guide them on that. I don’t know where you work, but I’m sure you can imagine how frustrating it would be if someone came in with an idea for multi-coloured chairs and then returned a month later accompanied by someone else who wanted to give everyone orange sofas!

Also, without Open Campus’ involvement and direct cooperation/presence, any pitch from me as an individual that is built around the TinyTap brand would lack credibility. I think it’s important that someone from Animoca is involved in any pitch too. Plus, there’s a personal angle: spending months developing a pitch that is specifically based around a brand that hasn’t supported that development would be a massive risk for me (or any creator). As I’m sure you can understand, while I’m very passionate about this, we all need to pay the bills!

Chatting with you has helped me focus on the truly exciting web3 aspect of this: rather than one person developing ideas, this proposal is about developing ideas with an entire community! Mohamed put it very well when he talked about initiatives that “allow different skill sets to showcase their talent in growing the OC ecosystem.” This is a collaboration with artists, writers, TinyTap teachers, parents, viewers… anyone who inhabits the OC space. Some might create music or design characters. During the 12-months, we could have regular Lounges, I could post content here in the forum, and we could have a channel in Discord. I’m particularly keen to explore with the community how we ‘gamify’ the content. There’s undoubtedly a wealth of talent with a wealth of ideas that can be shaped into spectacular pitches, and such a collaborative creation would be a unique proposition for a streamer to engage with.

What if a puppet RadioTom was transmitting songs with educational themes across the world, and children sang them with puppet friends based on community members? I think Amazon would find that intriguing if it had a bit of ‘Peppa Pig’ sass! Again, this is just a thought, and I’d be wary of putting it in the proposal in case it’s interpreted as “this is definitely an idea we’re doing”.

I totally get your concerns because, like any proposal, this is a risk, but I think it’s in the spirit of web3 to take risks and aim for something bold. We all agree about the wider benefits, the potential boost to $EDU and the Open Campus ecosystem are clear, and also there’s the potential to form a relationship with a streamer and/or create a popular YouTube channel. I also think there’s great PR potential in this proposal: maybe we can get into Variety with ‘Open Campus developing collaborative TinyTap children’s series!’ Also, even if all the steamers rejected the ideas, there’s nothing stopping Open Campus building a YouTube channel and creating content itself with total creative control too, so there’s a guaranteed outcome there.

I hope that the community will recognise all that as the key part of the proposal and vote to pass it. Either way, I hope to engage with it again as there are some great, enthusiastic people involved in this world like yourself, Mohamed and RadioTom. I just finished development on an AI-focused series for an international consultancy firm that’s intended to be sent out to businesses around the world, so if that project is greenlit (hopefully next week), I may be contacting TinyTap for a chat at some point.

Thanks again, Jake, your questions have challenged me, and I welcome that. You’re clearly a smart member of this community. Should the proposal be approved, I hope you’ll be around to chat further. As you say, let’s see what others think too.

(BTW did you see this? A very cool way to use IP for merchandise and revenue How $30 Plushy Penguins Helped An NFT Company Survive Crypto Winter)

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Thanks for the proposal guylambo, very cool!

Few questions from my side:

  1. How would you define success in terms of ROI to Open Campus? Be it eyeballs, revenue-share, users onboarding?
  2. Can you share more on your Web3 experience or exposure? A big part of the OC strategy is to bridge Web2 to Web3 - how are you thinking about tactically making that bridge
  3. Why build in-house IP versus leveraging existing e.g. TinyTap’s Baby Shark collab
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Hi Will,

Thanks for your kind words about the proposal, I’m glad you liked it, I think it’s cool too. Here come the answers. Please forgive any Easter egg-eating typos!

First up, the ROI. I keep quoting Mohamed’s reply to the Open Campus X post because I think he nailed it so much, especially his view that proposals like this could “raise awareness” and “allow different skill sets to showcase their talent in growing the OC.” I think that’s spot-on for several reasons that relate to what I consider to be this development stage’s main ROI.

  • PR: The Open Campus marketing team could use this to promote TinyTap. As I said to Jake above, even at this stage we might be able to appear in Variety with ‘Open Campus developing collaborative TinyTap children’s series!’ Who knows where that story might go, with the Open Campus/TinyTap brand being discussed in a traditional space which, to come back to Mohamed’s X post, would act as a “bridge” between web2 and web3 spaces even this early. Very big and positive news for TinyTap and Open Campus, demonstrating ambition and active community involvement.

  • Community Engagement: The inclusion of the community in developing a creative project could drive participation in the Discord space, encouraging other members to be aware of and enthusiastic about the community’s activities. For the thousands of Open Campus NFT holders, this is added value and a chance to be part of something. For anyone who has been a passive participant, it may inspire them to develop their own proposal because they’ve seen the adoption of this one. For creatives, here’s a chance to submit and co-create ideas. Not just engagement, but empowerment.

  • User Collaboration: As I mentioned to Jack in my reply above, there could be all sorts of initiatives beyond the community into the TinyTap space too, asking teachers and possibly parents to contribute through surveys, ideas submissions and more. Let’s say that one idea utilises children’s artwork and we ask parents to submit their own child’s artwork for the pitch deck! What a wonderful chance for TinyTap users to interact and feel like the platform values their contributions.

  • Financials: If this proposal results in pitches that the community want to take further, the financials of producing content are complex because they depend on many things including the final product’s budget, how cooperation with a platform impacts that, and if merchandise etc is produced. If this development process creates a concept as powerful as ‘Peppa Pig’, the long-term result is obvious. If it creates a concept for a YouTube channel that is relatively inexpensive, then it might become self-funding over time. For me, this aspect of ROI is really about the successful production of community-driven concepts that have long-term potential should Open Campus want to take them further. We’ve built the house, now Open Campus can sell it. I also think the PR, community engagement and user collaboration alone have the power to produce financial results in ways that might not immediately appear directly linked.

Secondly, web3:

  • My experience: I’ve been in the crypto space since 2017 when I first risked a whole £20 on Bitcoin and ETH! I’ve bought the meme coins, watched ‘Saturday Night Live’ as Elon’s appearance caused Doge to peak then crash, and enjoyed the recent crypto rises. I’ve invested in Decentraland governance, visiting it for the casinos and a deadmau5 concert. I’ve dabbled in the NFT space, buying Ben Mezrich’s tokens, some now worthless Exotic Gentleman’s Society NFTs, but also experienced the increasing highs as an owner of a My Pet Hooligan. I’ve participated in Spaces and Discord chats for projects I was interested in as well as some recent creativity-focused Open Campus Student Lounges. I also worked on an NFT project which aimed to become a super-cheap option for newcomers, so I produced a press release aimed at people who knew about NFTs but had never bought one. I’ve also been battered by people on Twitter who think Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme/scam/environment destroyer – you know the drill!

  • The Bridge: With children’s content, you must be very careful about content being interpreted as pushing financial products. As such, my dream of animated animals with $EDU coins will have to be shelved! In the proposal, I talked about how much parents seeing the Open Campus/TinyTap logos on the programme has power, either as part of the title (i.e. ‘Disney’s Duck Tales’) or just at the end as the producer. Associated merchandise could carry the website information, and that would encourage parents to check out TinyTap. If we develop a YouTube concept, that is more under OC’s control, because a ‘TinyTap Show’ Channel would possibly be more explicit about all of this.

Finally, IP.

  • Limits: I don’t know the full details of TinyTap’s arrangements with Babyshark, but while TinyTap can use the characters, it doesn’t own any of them. Hooray that children are being attracted to TinyTap via that brand, but their loyalty is to an IP that TinyTap cannot exploit.

  • In-House IP: This is the opposite. There are no limits. TinyTap can do whatever it wants with these characters forever. It can produce physical merchandise (which itself promotes the brand and can help with finance: How $30 Plushy Penguins Helped An NFT Company Survive Crypto Winter), it can produce animated movies or books, and it can go on to create digital products such as NFTs as just happened with the Teletubbies (MetaPals partners WildBrain to launch Teletubbies AI digital companions - TNGlobal) Imagine a parent being able to give their child a digital avatar of their favourite TinyTap character to go into spaces like Minecraft, Roblox and one day ecen Decentraland and the Sandbox. Imagine special needs TinyTap teacher Ellen Weber using them to produce a connected-world series of classes, which may benefit these students with its consistency. Tinytap’s owned characters could go anywhere, and the link is right back to the platform. This is essentially Disney’s core philosophy right now: own the IP, own the loyalty.

Thanks again, Will, great questions! Do let me know if you have anything further.

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I meant to post this from a few days back: the launch of Teletubbies as AI powered interactive desktop NFTs!

Details: MetaPals partners WildBrain to launch Teletubbies AI digital companions - TNGlobal

Watch the launch video : https://youtu.be/Ktf_uKPtWgE?si=FBn6DxewBD4USPWe

Direct link to project: MetaPals Sanctuary