Novel Entertainment’s Horrid Henry Scores Online

Novel Entertainment’s dedicated website for the hit children’s property Horrid Henry is going from strength to strength, having just completed a hugely successful eight week campaign to coincide with the football World Cup.

Press release from Novel Entertainment

Oxford, 27 July 2010. Novel Entertainment’s dedicated website for the hit children’s property Horrid Henry is going from strength to strength, having just completed a hugely successful eight week campaign to coincide with the football World Cup. With 40,000 participating teams, membership of the online fan club the Purple Hand Gang has more than tripled from 19,000 to 70,000.

The Really Horrid World Cup saw players turn international soccer coach and create their own branded team. Points were gained by building up strength, stamina and power in a selection of fun, flash games and following their chosen country’s progress.

Players scored points in six online games: Keepie Uppies, Fan Finder, Dribble & Dodge, Splat the Paps, Cone & Goal and Grubs Up. As manager of the Really Horrid World Cup, Henry offered daily news along with personalised coaching tips and weekly prizes were awarded to the Tip Top and Top Flop coaches of the week. Horrid Henry puzzles, t-shirts, games and DVDs were awarded as prizes to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place overall winners, along with four runners up.

With five million page views to date since launch in October 2009 www.horridhenry.me offers a playful interactive extension of the Horrid Henry property using words, images, animation and video through flash games, competitions, news, downloads and user responsive features.

Novel’s Brand Manager Kelly Henwood says: “The website creates a safe and fun online environment where children can interact with Horrid Henry and his world, sharing their views through message boards and polls. We’ve attracted 375,000 visitors and 600,000 visits since launch, meaning kids are returning to the site once they’ve found it. The average time on the site is 10 minutes per visit, which is impressive given how kids tend to multi-task between online platforms these days. The future for this engaging site is limitless, with many exciting opportunities to build on the current success.”

Novel’s Bafta nominated, animated TV show, Horrid Henry (104 x 11 mins), produced by co-founders Lucinda Whiteley and Mike Watts, is the most successful series ever for CITV and it has so far been adapted for stage, radio, and online as well as being at the heart of a successful licensing and merchandising programme. Novel has also just announced the co-production of a live-action 3D movie of Horrid Henry with Vertigo Films, slated for release in 2011.

Horrid Henry stars a headstrong boy constantly raging against the tyranny of adults, his irritating brother Perfect Peter and Moody Margaret, the infuriating girl next door. Based on the books written by Francesca Simon and illustrated by Tony Ross (published by Orion Children's Books), Horrid Henry is now a worldwide publishing phenomenon, with sales exceeding 15 million books in the UK alone, and is available in 27 countries worldwide including the US. It has been translated into 22 languages, where Henry has assumed many different national identities including the gloriously named Pablo Diablo in Spain and Rico Le Peste in Italy.

Novel Entertainment was created by highly respected international children's television producers Lucinda Whiteley and Mike Watts in 2001 to produce children's and family programming, both live action and animation. Novel has a strong track record of working with highly acclaimed authors and illustrators, with a combination of totally original and book based projects. To date Novel has produced 230 Fimbles shows and 130 Roly Mo shows for the BBC, and the recent new commission from CITV will bring the total number of Horrid Henry episodes produced to 104.