Can you learn a lesson from a children’s entertainment group?
What if that group were one of the highest earning groups in the country, earning around $45m last year. Not bad for a bunch of guys in coloured skivvies.
But while you might think The Wiggles are paid for jumping around and singing songs for little kids (mine are crazy about them) take a second to peel back the layers and work out why they’re so good at it.
Looking at a model starting with a free offering and working up to a high end offering it goes:
Free to air TV shows. And while most would want top $ for being on TV, but I’m sure they’d do it for free because of what comes next…
- DVDs, books and CDs
- Live shows
- Merchandise in shops and from shows
- Wiggles World fun parks
So the kids see them on TV, buy the DVDs, books and CDs…then they buy all the Wiggles clothes and other merchandise…then go to the shows (where they also buy more merchandise).
And it gets even better because they’ve got spin offs from the other characters like the Dorothy the Dinosaur live show featuring the other characters, but not the actual Wiggles themselves. And what they do on TV goes back into the DVDs.
But here’s what gets me excited…
They’ve developed a system for doing this in different countries too, so now their success can go global with Wiggles franchises in different countries, cultures and languages.
Impressed? I sure am.
So what can you learn from this?
First, just about anything can be productised. Most children’s entertainment groups make a living when they get on TV. But the Wiggles have turned his model on it’s head. That’s the ‘freebie’ to get people involved.
And second, the system and model is critical. A bit of imaginative thinking can let any business grow exponentially just by thinking about how they can package themselves into a sellable form. Something that can be replicated, so you you don’t trade hours for $. And this means things like coaching and so on shouldn’t be out of the question.
I really like The Wiggles. They bring a sense of quite to our house. But I admire them more for how they make $45 million a year, even if they want to take a month off to sit on a beach.
All the best,
Hugh
