Unicorn Academy vs. CoComelon: Insights from Netflix’s Latest Data Dump
Netflix dropped their six-monthly data dump today, the third half-year of figures brimming with the potential for insights. Can we please take a moment to appreciate that what Netflix are doing here is completely disruptive and totally unprecedented?
Previously, performance details of a given series or movie had been the preserve of broadcasters, heftily paywalled by providers like BARB and Nielsen. When they deigned to share snippets with partners, producers, licensees, distributors, creators, actors, directors, writers (you get the idea), these were generally sporadic and typically contextless. Netflix used to take that standard approach too. Then they remembered they like to blow standard approaches up, and now we are 18 months deep in a huge potential for understanding.
Right, now that I’ve given credit, let me take debit. This unwieldy depth of data is fully loaded to be a true bamboozlement to anyone who’s not IN IT on the detail. All genres are bundled together, hampering extraction of actionable insights. Add to that performance granularity at a season level, plus a flip flop in ranking metrics after Dump 1, and you’ve got yourself a hot mess of, let me check, nearly 50,000 lines of numbers. And look at you sitting there without a broom. Or are you?
The advent of this drop meant I needed to down tools on a bigger project I’m working on which takes this bounteous data shipment and delivers a concise, digestible output focused on kids animation with insights and comparables across sub-genres like preschool, comedy, action and fantasy. The process hasn’t been easy, but I’ve pulled together a (proudly all female) team of researchers/data storytellers and the results we’re seeing are super interesting. The section that has me most excited is performance tracking for new shows. We have an opportunity as an industry to collectively spectate (read: watch and learn) as the next big kids IP is being born. Let me start with some trajectorizing examples.
New Series Launches
In November 2023 both Unicorn Academy and CoComelon Lane had global series launches on Netflix. Both were big shows from big companies. Both likely to have big expectations attached. In case either of them has passed you by, let me give you the skinny.
Unicorn Academy comes from Spin Master, the toy company behind PAW Patrol. It is a lavishly rainbowed, girltastic world where unicorns meet high school meet magical dark forces. The show launched on Netflix November 2nd, 2023 with nine episodes, the first of which being feature length. A strong, observable marketing push from Spin Master was behind it, including a dedicated YouTube brand channel. This was in addition to placement on the Netflix After School YouTube. Full episodes were available for sampling across these, as well as in the popular Roblox Experience Twilight Daycare. We spoke about the latter with Ricardo Briceno from Gamefam in an episode of the Kids Media Club Podcast.
CoComelon Lane is a different kettle of fish. This was the first narrative spin-off series of the exceedingly successful and well-known YouTube nursery rhyme IP. If the idea of YouTube nursery fodder offends your creative sensibilities, just hold your whisht for a second.
I’m happily on record saying that Moonbug Entertainment, the owners of CoComelon, did a great job with this series. The pressure was on. As a company, Moonbug needed to prove the thesis that they could extend the YouTube IP into something more. In my opinion they creatively delivered on that. CoComelon Lane is sweet, charming, and, rightly, skews very young. Pulling from its origins, nursery-rhyme-style music, new and old, is neatly woven in throughout. JJ invites viewers in with him, reminiscent of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. All shots come from the ground up, a truly toddler POV. The diverse range of characters and caregivers round out what is a spot-on content offering for the youngest of viewers. So to the nursery rhyme nay-sayers, please actually watch the show before you trash it. Look, it’s even available for free on YouTube.
Obviously, unlike Unicorn Academy, CoComelon Lane was not coming from a standing start when it hit Netflix on November 17th, 2023. The parent series CoComelon’s track record on Netflix rewrote the rulebook of what’s possible in kids viewership on streaming. Awareness of the IP overall has to be outrageously high, with 360-degree touchpoints at retail, music, gaming, the works, and of course on its own YouTube channel, which (do I really need to say this?) is huge. One of four kids IPs that bring in over a billion views on YouTube a month. A MONTH!!
Got It, Now Show Me the Data
Both shows hit Netflix’s Global Weekly Top 10 rankings at launch. CoComelon Lane for six weeks, Unicorn Academy for three. Looking on a like for like basis, we can see both shows were neck and neck in terms of views, although Unicorn Academy clearly pips it on the “hours viewed” metric. I’ll save regular readers the pain of my regular whinging about Netflix metrics and direct anyone who wants to know more to here, here and here.
I will say this though, there is devil in the detail of this metric thing. Taken on views alone, content performance for these two series is nearly fully on par, whereas on hours viewed the 16% difference is definitely something to note. And yes, I appreciate that the views metric levels the playing field of content with differing durations (CoComelon Lane comes in at nearly 4 hours, Unicorn Academy is over 4 ½ ). And I’m also fully aware that these shows are targeted at audiences of different ages with very different viewing behavior. Unicorn Academyhas a moreish overall story arc that would obviously be lost in a preschool show. What I’m saying is that it’s important to pay attention to all the data to form the picture, hence there are times when it would be remiss if this hours viewed lens was forgotten.
“What about performance from the Netflix Engagement Reports?”, I hear you ask. We’re getting there. It’s important to note that Unicorn Academy and CoComelon Lane both had Season 2 (technically “Chapter 2” in Unicorn Academy’s case) land on Netflix during the period of the latest engagement report, that is the first half of 2024. Here’s another place where dissecting the data gets knotty. Season 2 of CoComelon Lane dropped in April, so this new data dump covers 2+ months of performance. Chapter 2 of Unicorn Academy dropped on June 27th, so the performance we can see is just those first three days.
All that being said, there are a number of interesting and actionable takeaways. Firstly, we can see from the data that CoComelon Lane comes in higher than Unicorn Academy in this latest half. Even allowing for the Season 2 drop timing, what we’re also probably seeing here is that the repeat rate and lifetime streaming value of successful preschool content is ultimately higher than a fantasy show like Unicorn Academy. Older kids will watch Unicorn Academy once and might not go back again many times over, like preschoolers do with CoComelon. That’s not a surprise, but it’s always helpful to have old known trends validated with data.
Secondly, and more seismically, there’s a well-defined trend that global engagement with CoComelon overall on Netflix is softening. As you can see more clearly below, the new spin-off show isn’t making up the difference for the decline in the original. That’s despite new series of both still coming consistently. It’s worth mentioning that this trend is also hinted at in US Nielsen Streaming Content rankings, which I’m planning to unpack more on in a future newsletter.
The lucky thing for CoComelon is that even with a softening, overall global engagement on Netflix is still monstrously high. Unicorn Academy would kill to get to even half that, I’d bet. But a franchise in launch is not the same beast as a franchise in a sustain or evergreen phase.
As I outlined for Bluey, the art of sustain is tricky. It’s thankless, rarely glamorous, and takes a team that can think across all levers of the touchpoint arsenal. Take Peppa Pig, for example. This old favorite hit Netflix US for the first time in January of this year. Unsurprisingly, this brought a significant uplift in Netflix global viewership. A move like that is super smart for Peppa at this stage in her life; she’s just hit the biggest premium streaming service available in the US. First opportunities can still come, even when you’re 20 years old like Peppa is; it just takes a team that sees the light through.
Final Thought
One last thing on CoComelon, the softening opens a question on another key trend my Netflix data project has unearthed: the dominance in preschool of YouTube IP. We’ll need to crunch more before I can elaborate further, but the pilot insights coming to light are fascinating, even more so given this CoComelon direction.