How Moonbug Hopes to Engage Advertisers and Debut on the Big Screen With ‘CoComelon’ Movie

CoComelon is an educational children’s content juggernaut, with CoComelon: The Movie set to hit the big screen in February 2027 courtesy of Universal Pictures. And Blippi is also a favorite of kids and parents alike.

But Moonbug Entertainment, the powerhouse kids’ IP company behind those two and other brands that was acquired by Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs’ Candle Media in 2021, is not just talking about the popularity of its programming. It is also ringing the alarm bells on a spending gap affecting family and children’s content.

Dan’l Hewitt, founding partner and global head of business and partnerships at Moonbug, was at Cannes Lions last week to meet current and potential partners. And he made time to talk to The Hollywood Reporter about the popularity of kids’ content, how that isn’t mirrored by its advertising power, and the upcoming CoComelon movie.

Constant innovation is key, he says, and the recent spin-off series Emmie’s Wonder Wardrobe is a case in point. “We’ve just spun a brilliant character out of the world of Little Angel for the new show Emmie’s Wonder Wardrobe, which is really exciting,” Hewitt says. “But the reality is that the kids and family media environment is really challenged in terms of investment in content. That’s the reason I came to Cannes Lions because we’re advocating for the industry to acknowledge this media segment and to help rebalance the disconnect and the imbalance.”

And he points to a gap illustrated by data. “Twenty-five percent of all screen time in North America is focused on kids and family content, but it represents only 4 percent of ad investment,” the executive tells THR. “It’s a conundrum.”

How does Hewitt explain that? “Kids and family cable TV networks were incredibly valuable, with huge amounts of advertising spent across all different categories, because it provided a brilliant brand-safe environment, and it worked,” he explains. “And that family viewing hasn’t changed. The change has come through ad technologies and data in a world of compliance and Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA),” which regulates the collection of personal information from children under 13.

Such protection is “incredibly important, valuable and necessary, but the implication of COPPA is that the largest media segment by net consumption, kids and family, is completely removed from modern advertising practices and technologies,” says Hewitt. “The reason that I’m in Cannes is to advocate and crusade for advertisers to re-engage and think about and understand why they should show up. Because when they do, it works, and it’s efficient, and it’s brilliant.”

Everybody with kids or friends with children knows how key content is for them and their parents. But the Moonbug exec argues that advertisers and others sometimes think of parents as a niche audience. “Parents are not a niche audience at all. Almost 60 percent of all millennials are parents,” Hewitt tells THR. “Almost 30 percent of Gen Z are parents. In the U.S., that’s 40 million households; that’s not a niche audience.”

Moonbug has been conducting and releasing studies to dig deeper into this audience. Among the recent findings: “mom guilt,” a popular cultural shorthand for parenting pressure, is real, but dads are carrying even more. For example, a recent Moonbug study entitled “The Next State of Parenthood,” found that 53 percent of dads compare their parenting to what they see online, compared with 37 percent of mothers. It highlighted: “Yet much of the marketing aimed at fathers still leans heavily toward performance, achievement, or aspiration. Very little says: ‘You are doing enough’.”

Concludes Hewitt: “Hollywood and the advertising industry needs to wake up is because those 40 million households have a completely different media consumption pattern and behavior dominated and dictated by the kids. And parenting is more pressured and stressful than I imagine at any time in history,” so brands have a role to play.

Speaking of playing: CoComelon has a new playground opening up – the big screen. How does the upcoming movie, produced by Universal’s DreamWorks Animation in partnership with Moonbug and Flywheel Media, fit into the traditional digital-first strategy of Moonbug? “There was a huge amount of interest, and the fact that the team at DreamWorks Animation was so excited about it is great. Everything that we’ve seen looks incredible. This is an incredibly validating moment for us, because I think it’s the manifestation of everything that we, as a company, have been doing day in, day out.”

Concludes Hewitt about CoCoMelon: The Movie: “It is going to be a brilliant expression and an evolution of the universe of CoComelon. It’s going to surprise families in lots of different ways, but not at the expense of showing up every single day in the way that families need us.”