Cameo Kids Launches With Personalized Videos From CoComelon Characters, Blippi, Santa Claus an

Candle Media, owner of Moonbug Entertainment, collaborated on the development of new children's shout-out service Cameo is expanding beyond its celebrity roots with a new slate of kids characters that will deliver tykes personalized birthday wishes, holiday greetings and other messages.

Candle Media, owner of Moonbug Entertainment, collaborated on the development of new children's shout-out service

Cameo is expanding beyond its celebrity roots — with a new slate of kids’ characters that will deliver tykes personalized birthday wishes, holiday greetings and other messages.

The company’s new Cameo Kids service (cameo.com/kids) will let parents and loved ones purchase videos for kids at $25 or $30 a pop. At launch, the lineup includes animated Moonbug Entertainment stars including JJ, Cody, Cece and Nina from “CoComelon,” one of the world’s top preschool entertainment franchises, and Blippi from “Blippi Wonders.” Also available will be Mattel’s Thomas the Tank Engine; True from Netflix’s animated “True and the Rainbow Kingdom”; and an animated Santa Claus. The videos with the Moonbug characters will cost $30, and the others are $25.

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Cameo Kids was developed in partnership with Candle Media, the media company founded by former Disney execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, which last year acquired Moonbug in a $3 billion deal.

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Unlike Cameo’s videos from celebs and athletes, which can include virtually any kind of message, the Cameo Kids videos will be available in preconfigured templates based on moments like birthdays, holidays, daily routines like bedtime, and general messages of love and encouragement. Customers can customize the videos by adding a child’s name (generated using text-to-speech technology and spliced into the clip) and selecting from among several preset choices for what the message says. Veritone’s AI voice technology is powering select voices and animated assets for Cameo Kids.

Cameo launched its personalized fan-video business in 2017, but Cameo Kids marks its first foray into family entertainment. As you might expect, the videos generated by Cameo Kids will include quality control checks (including a blacklist of profanities, so a beloved children’s character isn’t made to drop an f-bomb). Moonbug and the other IP owners worked with their talent to record the messages and train the text-to-speech engine so it could replicate their voices when saying a kid’s name.

“We’re building a platform where families can get their kid’s favorite star to not just know their name, but share support for every important moment in their child’s life — big and small,” Cameo co-founder and CEO Steven Galanis said in a statement. “Candle Media and Moonbug helped bring this to life by partnering with us to launch some of the biggest names in children’s entertainment and create endless possibilities for new characters and creative product use cases.”

Mayer and Staggs, Candle Media’s co-CEOs, added, “The creator economy is driven by opportunities for fans to engage directly with their favorite personalities, and we are thrilled to partner with Cameo to allow parents and loved ones to create personalized Cameo videos featuring many of our most popular animated characters from Moonbug, and over time, additional Candle brands and franchises.”

Cameo’s standard revenue split with partners is 75% of the purchase price of a video, but that may not be exactly the case for Cameo Kids. According to a company rep, “The economics of each Cameo are variable based on factors like the animation and tech solutions leveraged for production.”

Cameo plans to work with existing and new partners to add new characters and franchises to Cameo Kids in the future, as well as expand the templated video options.

In May, Cameo laid off 25% of its workforce, blaming the job cuts on a slowdown in transactions after a COVID-driven surge in personalized video shout-outs. The team at Candle Media began working with the company on Cameo Kids this summer.

Pictured above: JJ from “CoComelon”

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