Jetix Europe has announced the redesign of its 19 Web sites across Europe.
In 2007 Jetix Europe's Web sites generated on average 100 million page views per month. The company believes that its re-designed and enhanced sites, which will roll out across Europe from September 2008, will offer kids ages 6 to 14 an even more engaging and fun online experience and as a result increase the traffic and time spent on the sites even further.
Jetix-owned sites in the following countries will be re-launched with a new design and additional functionality: Germany, U.K., Spain, Italy, France, Netherlands, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Romania, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Greece.
Based on in-depth qualitative research and focus groups conducted by Jetix Europe, the sites will be enhanced through new navigation, fresh design and additional functionality.
The navigation of the site has been optimized, offering kids a number of ways to access content. The use of colors, strong iconic imagery and simple descriptive language across each section of the site provides kids with a more user-friendly environment. The intuitive navigation has been designed especially to cater for kids' varying behavior online and the different ways they look for content, allowing them to access their favorite characters or programs in a number of ways.
The design of the new sites reflects the on-air look of Jetix channels across Europe as well as being more fresh and fun. Jetix has been working with BAFTA award nominee, Bloc media, to develop the new site design and achieve a more effective site navigation. In addition, more standard advertising formats have been included and are clearly labeled for the benefit of both clients and kids. New initiatives for potential advertisers are also being introduced including a "Homepage Takeover," which allows clients to bring their brands to life through bespoke packages on the homepage. The re-designed sites have been built with a mixture of both html and Flash to ensure adaptability for search engine optimization.
A substantial investment has been made in the overall functionality of the Web site, with the addition of an online community, new interactive video player and enhanced games sections. The incentive-based online community will enable kids to access exclusive content, interact with their friends and build their own profile featuring a personal 3D avatar, provided by Yomego, a leading provider of interactive entertainment and communications solutions. The video player uses a Maven Networks flash-based solution, customized to make the experience interactive so that kids will be able to play along and interact with the video content they are watching. In addition, Jetix has invested in the development of bespoke creative applications that will allow young users to post User Generated Content and share these with their friends in a safe online environment.
More than half a million game plays were recorded in January 2008 on Jetix' U.K. site alone and playing online games is still the number one activity for Jetix kids. Jetix Europe is capitalizing on this by continuing the investment in its in-house games development and design team and increasing the volume and depth of Flash online games for its European Web sites.
