Teletubbies are known for being a bit strange. For nearly 30 years, the alien-like TV characters have existed in a place where the sun is a baby and the only food is smiley-face toast and custard.
At a time when many brands seem determined to appear “unhinged” online, translating the otherworldliness of the children’s show onto social media has turned out to be a winning strategy for its parent company WildBrain, particularly among Gen Z and millennials.
“The characters have always been remarkably silly and colorful and they mirror childlike sort of behaviors,” Kara Šegedin, digital marketing director at WildBrain, told us. “Taking that silliness out of the kids’ space and putting it in front of an adult audience and layering some trends on top of that, it’s a surprise and people like to be entertained.”
Since 2022, the Teletubbies have amassed more than 1.6 million followers on TikTok and drawn millions of views on picnic videos, dance videos, and more. In the last year, they’ve received more than 15 million engagements and 147 million views on TikTok, per WildBrain. And they’re growing on Instagram, too. Since last fall, they’ve gained more than 630,000 new followers and received more than 217 million impressions on the platform, according to WildBrain.
According to Šegedin, the Teletubbies’ “unhinged” social strategy has not only driven engagement, but also unlocked new revenue streams for WildBrain through partnerships with brands including American Eagle, citizenM hotels, and Marc Jacobs. (The company would not disclose partnership revenue numbers.)
Tour of HQ
For content like Tinky Winky being compared to Carrie Bradshaw or Dipsy celebrating brat summer, you have Šegedin’s team to thank. Of the five team members, spread across Canada, the US, and the UK, two are primarily dedicated to Teletubbies content.
“One of the nice things about having a really global team is we are able to see trends in quite a lot of different markets,” Šegedin said.
Being hyper-familiar with the show’s archive allows Šegedin’s team to think up ideas quickly when a trend emerges. For example, when an audio clip from “Bugatti” by Ace Hood started gaining traction on TikTok last year, she said her team immediately knew which clip of the Teletubbies driving they would use—and got more than 1 million likes as a result.
Sometimes the content isn’t trend-related. Earlier this year, a simple clip of a dancing bear from the show resulted in more than 3 million views and 242,000 likes on TikTok, with many comments discussing the nostalgia it evoked.
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As the team has leaned into Instagram, Šegedin said her team has noticed some differences in what kind of content performs best on each platform.
“There will be occasions where some things we might say are slightly too unhinged from the Teletubbies’ context of being on Instagram,” she said. “Instagram is a platform where we communicate with a parent audience a bit more and it’s perhaps a little bit more global, whereas the TikTok account is heavily skewed towards the US and UK and its slightly younger audience.”
’Tubby crossover
According to Šegedin, a lot of the Teletubbies’ online content is turned around within a day or two, but partnership and event content tends to be planned weeks or months in advance. From NFTs to Dipsy knee-high boots to Las Vegas raves, many of the Teletubbies’ partnerships have been attention-grabbing, which Šegedin said is an intentional strategy aimed at generating customer and brand interest alike.
When Primark released Teletubbies onesies for adults last year, Šegedin said it generated enough UGC that her team barely promoted the partnership before it sold out. A collaboration with Marc Jacobs in May, she said, was a “catalyst to get people reaching out” to inquire about potential partnership opportunities and “opened the door” to partnerships with Segway, American Eagle, and citizenM.
“When you come from a background in TV,” Šegedin said, there’s “often a little bit of a gap between what you do and the [commercial] impact,” so seeing increased brand interest has been gratifying because it shows that “someone has seen the work of your team and are impressed by it.”
The success of the Teletubbies social strategy has inspired Šegedin’s team to get creative with characters from other WildBrain shows, like Strawberry Shortcake, who has appeared on the Teletubbies account and is generating some internal competition. When the “girl dinner” trend was circulating last summer, Strawberry Shortcake’s account posted about it. Close to a year and a half later, that post has received almost double the amount of likes as a Teletubbies post about the same topic.
“I love the way nostalgia comes in waves,” Šegedin said. “It surprises people when they’re scrolling through one of their feeds…and they see this character that maybe they haven’t thought about in 20 years, and they’re like, ‘Oh, my God. I remember this.’”