Often, when we create sites for our clients, the sites do not directly interact with the product they are promoting. The site we created for YTV’s Next Star is unique: it not only helped promote the product, it became an integral part of the show it promoted.
If you aren’t under the age of 16 (or don’t have kids of your own), you may not know what Next Star is. For Canada’s younger viewers, it is one of the biggest shows on television. Next Star is a show where kids compete to be a singing star. It’s like Canadian Idol, but for tweens. Yeah, that’s kind of big.
The really innovative thing about Next Star is that the kids get to directly interact with the show through the website. They create posters of the favourite finalist and vote for them online. They can also upload videos of themselves auditioning to become the “Virtual Next Star”. If their video gets enough votes, they can even win a trip to the Next Star finale. In 2011 pixelpusher also created an iPhone music app and introduced live chats to the website.
The results speak for themselves: with our site supporting it, Next Star remains one of YTV’s most successful shows. The site served up almost a million videos to several hundred thousand visitors. Over 36,000 posters were created by the show’s young fans. Thousands of entries were submitted to the Vitrual Next Star contest and 2011’s winner received over 200,000 votes (or “props”) to win the grand prize. Our efforts were recognized when The Next Star website was nominated by the Kidscreen Awards for 2012 Best Companion Website.
This site presented many challenges. We had to create a dynamic, well-designed and functional site that was simple enough that any kid could use it. But most importantly, Next Star had to be fun. We may be knowledgeable, professional and innovative, but we pride ourselves on being specialists in fun.
