THE MIDNIGHT SOCIETY NEEDS YOU

Kids have a buffet of entertainment options, but TV got left off the menu.

Hmmm… That’s odd.

To make it make sense, here’s what I did:

Observed how my ten year-old brother spent his free time to see what drove him and his friends away from the big screen.
Hang around Roblox and took note of how kids spent their time on the platform and what the conversations among them looked like.
Analyzed the modern playbook of entertainment IPs beloved among kids, including BTS, Marvel, Pokémon, and LEGO.

The Objective.

Introduce a completely new generation of audience to a cult classic: Nickelodeon’s Are You Afraid of the Dark.

Although Are You Afraid of the Dark is a household name among many, it’s a stranger to this new generation of kids. Unlike me, kids these days didn’t grow up with this group of friends who get together in the woods, telling each other scary stories around a campfire.

The Issue.

Kid’s entertainment world today exists outside of the big screen.

If you ever spend time with a kid, you’ll notice how their entire world fits into an iPad. I experienced this first hand with my 10-year-old brother, who’s on Roblox 23 hours a day.

It shows how entertainment for them, now, exists outside of the big screen. Which isn’t great news for a cable channel.

The Insight

Fandom is no longer on the outside looking in.

Modern entertainment appeals to kids because it gives them an active role in the story.

Roblox becomes the new school yard for kids because it allows them to build, play, create.

Marvel invites kids to step into the iconic Marvel universe with their own superhero.

BTS has a dedicated platform, Weverse, allowing fans to dictate what they want to see from the band in the future. The list goes on.

Show hook

The Midnight Society Needs You.

Unlike past seasons where The Midnight Society spent each episode meeting in the woods and swapping scary stories, this season, this group of friends get tangled in a scary story themselves.

Connor, the leader of the group, has suddenly gone missing, prompting the rest of the group to search for clues and find out what happens to him.

Let’s enlist kids’ help in solving the mystery.

What would happen if we turned kids’ passion communities into satellite chapters of The Midnight Society dedicated to finding Connor?

The Activation.

Welcome to the Midnight Society

By working with influencers across kids’ passion points including horror (The Skorys), gaming (Lizzy Capri), and vlogging (Mia Finney), Nickelodeon recruited kids to investigate the mystery.

We sent influencers a mystery box that contained letters from The Midnight Society, as well as cryptic clues that would only make sense as the season progressed.

And just like that, On February 1st, 2021, the world witnessed the birth of four new chapters of The Midnight Society as four new chapter leaders unboxed their mystery box.