Simon's Cat - How The Brand Went From Zero to Hero.

Simon's Cat is a cartoon comic created by Simon Tofield. Originally it started out by broadcasting short films on Youtube, with his first film being 'Cat-man-do'. This single film episode has reached nearly 46 million views so far; this number of viewers has almost doubled since June 2011.

As a YouTube sensation, the brand of Simon’s Cat has managed to propel from an Animator drawing his initial ideas on a piece of paper, to a well-formed and well-known phenomenon.

Tofield has done this by getting in contact with a Brand Manager, to copyright 'Simon's Cat'. From here, he has built upon his success by producing even more YouTube videos, as well as merchandise: Calendars, mugs, t-shirts, games, books, ceramics, jewellery, cat products etc. Although, the most original, being part of an ordinary newspaper.

The cartoon is all about the adventures of a cat. With Simon Tofield owning four cats himself, the ideas of what to create a story about are endless. From the idea, Simon creates the cartoon by hand, drawing it frame-by-frame. It can take between 12 ad 25 drawings just to make 1 second of a film. This is then transferred to Adobe Flash software to complete the product.

Once the visual aspect of the cartoon is complete, the sound elements are added in. Simon Tofield, making all the cat sounds himself, with Shrooty, a Sound Designer, helping with the rest.

After this has all been compiled, exported and uploaded, we are presented with the original amazing product: Simon's Cat on YouTube.

References:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/08/the-cat-that-roared-how-simons-cat-went-from-youtube-to-everywhere-tctv/
http://www.simonscat.com

CATEGORY: ADVERTISING & BRAND MANAGEMENT and TECHNOLOGY and MEDIA and FILM