The 2012 Kids Choice Awards proves that Nickelodeon rivals ( if not beats) Disney for having its finger on the pulse of what kids want to see today. From the genius of picking Will Smith to host the show, to having every Twitter – activating star involved in presenting (like Justin Bieber), to even the simple, and colorful design of its website, the Kids Choice Awards drove the online pop culture conversation to an offline end.
While its the 25th Annual Kids Choice awards, it’s the first time this blogger can remember it hitting all of the Twitter Trends and Google Trends top points. It’s not so much that Will Smith, Halle Berry, Taylor Lautner, and other stars were “slimed” but that millions more saw them get slimed than ever before.
One look at the Google Insight For Search chart proves my point. In 2008, the Kids Choice Awards scored 52 on the scale of search intensity from 0 to 100, but starting in 2009, it hit megastar levels of 83, 100, and this year 78.
It’s harder to get good historic Twitter Trends from a third party source, but the closest I’ve come to a good one is something called http://twend.it.
Twend.it is a website created by University of California, Riverside students Tim Kelleher and Nick DiFilippo specifically to track and compare Twitter Trends. According to my use of their site, the term “Kids Choice Awards” first trended last year April 4, 2011, and for a duration of 45 seconds. This year it hit the trend on March 31st and for 15 minutes.
That means there was more and longer engagement using the term on Twitter. Part of that – a large part I think – has to do with the increasing ranks of people using Twitter, both for tweeting and watching tweets. The other part is due to the show’s contents and online and offline marketing.
I can’t wait to see what 2013 brings for this new addition to American Pop Culture.