Hey Noggin - nice cross media promotion

Saturday, my children wanted to use the"puter" (computer) and visit their favorite site besides Sesame Street: Noggin.

We booted up the machine, got them all situated on our bedroom floor (we have wireless in my house) and 30 seconds after they were online - they asked us to turn on the show Little Bear on Noggin.

Now, I'm like any other child's parent, I know my children are intelligent, but when did our four year old memorize the programming schedule?

Well, I looked down at the computer and right there in the upper corner of the screen was a "what's on Noggin" now space and Little Bear was looking right at me.

Here's why this is such a marketing genius move: Noggin is driving my kids back and forth between media. I think their hope is that when they are finished with the Web site, they go to the channel. And, in case you haven't guessed, there are promos all over the TV channel Noggin to drive them up to the Web.

The saving grace in all of this is that I as a parent believe in 90% of the content that Noggin puts out there for my kids to consume. It is a pretty safe place, that I don't have to be aware of every commercial message, every second, of every show.

So, my purpose in bringing this up is not one of "hey, stop manipulating my kids!"

The purpose is to recognize that they get how media is used and they are driving audience from one to the other. By doing that they keep my kids off of PBS sometimes and add value for their franchise and their advertising supporters.