Smart Content Marketing: Engaging kids with games + activities, not plastic toys

copywriting and content for kids

The summer blockbuster movie season is coming to an end, and it's time to switch out content marketing themes and characters for SubwayKids.com. I had a fun time copywriting and developing online content, games and activities for this project, and have even spotted kids using their eco-friendly reusable meal bags—the best part of this entire SUBWAY FRESH FIT FOR KIDS™ meal marketing campaign, in my opinion. Sure beats those plastic Happy Meals toys.

Copywriting Samples

copywriting for children

Here's a link to samples of downloadable activities I developed: Monsters University: Content + copywriting for SUBWAY Kids™ + Disney/Pixar

Blog posts: Web content + copywriting for kids, parents + teachers

For more on copywriting and content development programs I've worked on for SubwayKids.com (via the digital brand agency Jack Morton Worldwide), see these blog posts:

Cartoons and Content Marketing: All work and all play
SUBWAY® Restaurants + The Disney Channel's Phineas and Ferb

Content Marketing + Cause Marketing: Public relations with a purpose
Random Acts of Fitness for Kids™:  SUBWAY® Restaurants + American Heart Association, Little League® Baseball and Softball, We Can!™ (a National Institutes of Health [NIH] program) and other national partners

Earth Day Interactives: Copywriting with a conscience for corporate clients
SUBWAY® Restaurants + The Nature Conservancy

Cartoons and Content Marketing: All work and all play

This was one of my favorite projects in recent memory. Fun because it required sitting around in my pajamas watching several episodes of Phineas and Ferb, one of my longtime favorite cartoons (right up there with Adventure Time and SpongeBob), and fun because it involved brainstorming silly ideas for games and activities and writing catchy copy involving the evil Dr. Doof and his nemesis, Perry the Platypus (a.k.a. Agent P).

Over the past two years, I've worked on several copywriting and content development projects for SUBWAY® Restaurants and SUBWAY KIDS™. I do this on a freelance basis for the advertising agency Jack Morton Worldwide, through their Boston office. This year's SUBWAY FRESH FIT FOR KIDS™ meal campaigns with Disney have been especially fun, and I love that they're giving away free eco-friendly reusable lunch bags with each meal. Each bag comes with a free game or gizmo inside, plus a special code to unlock other downloadable activities from the SubwayKids.com website. The Phineas and Ferb kids meals came with a make-your-own wallet kit inside the reusable bag, plus a code to unlock these printable games and activities I developed:

Agent P's Cipher Code Wheel

online games for kids

Dr. Doof's Cootie Catcher

content writing for children

and more...

games and activities for kids

I also wrote copy for the Frankenweenie micro-site for SUBWAY KIDS™ and developed content and online games and activities for the new Monsters University FRESH FIT FOR KIDS™ meal, in SUBWAY® Restaurants this month.

Other copywriting and content projects for SUBWAY KIDS™:

Content Writing Samples: Monsters University for SubwayKids.com

Content Marketing and Cause Marketing: Public relations with a purpose
Writing all online content and collateral material for the Random Acts of Fitness for Kids™ national program for  K–6 schools, 2011–12 and 2012–13 campaigns.

Earth Day Interactives: Copywriting with a conscience for corporate clients
Writing copy and features for online interactive "Eco-Quest" game as part of marketing promotion with The Nature Conservancy.  

Creative Inspiration: Finding your bliss (on a bleak February day)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1UGZa3M7gM&feature=youtu.be

He Was Me: The power of storytelling

A sweet (yet powerful) little ditty on doing what you love. If not for a living, then at least for a while each day. This FableSnack, a short animated film from the prolific folks at FableVision, is about "the inner child in all of us, and the eternal struggle to retain our sense of self in a busy world." It reminds us to not "trade joy for a job," as FableVision's Paul Reynolds puts it. Not always easy, but always worth remembering. It was written and drawn by the talented Peter H. Reynolds, author and illustrator of The Dot, Ish and dozens of other delightful children's books and multimedia products. I knew Peter, founder of FableVision, and his twin brother Paul, now CEO, back in our college days and had a hunch they'd go on to do great things. Doing such inspired and meaningful work on such a grand scale is a great thing indeed. Being rockstar media producers and such nice, grounded people at the same time is even greater.

Read their story here:

About FableVision In 1996, FableVision's founder, Peter H. Reynolds, had a vision: to create a "social change agency" to help move the world to a better place. FableVision is dedicated to helping ALL learners reach their full potential and to telling "stories that matter, stories that move."

...and get inspired yourself!

The Dot FableVision

The Stellar Cafe Insights gathered along the journey about creativity, art, teaching, learning, life - Peter H. Reynolds

Peter's Tips on Creativity Creative thinking is the fuel for getting things going. Dreaming about the project is a huge part of the process. The actual 'doing' requires following through on the dream, but the dream is the rough sketch.

A Film by FableVision Studios: He Was Me Written and drawn by Peter H. Reynolds, He Was Me is a quiet story about the inner child in all of us, and the eternal struggle to retain our sense of self in a busy world. In the film, as a man waits at a bus stop in the rain, his inner child is brought poignantly to life as he reflects on his past and ponders his future.