It has been a very busy summer season here at Sundae and this year we had the pleasure of working with our good friends at the award-winning animation studio, Factory, to announce a whole host of new and exciting plans!
One of the first projects to be developed this year is a lovely fun-filled collaboration with critically acclaimed cartoonist and writer, Rupert Fawcett to launch his first ever animated YouTube channel for his wonderful canine cartoon brand, Off the Leash (OTL).
The development of OTL’s new animations came as Factory announced its new licensing and brand management division, Factory Rights, following the acquisition of Rollo Rights, reported here in Kidscreen. The deal transferred rights to a catalog of brands including Rupert Fawcett’s Off the Leash, David McKee’s Mr Benn, King Rollo, and many others.
Most famous for his creative and humorous comic strips, Rupert Fawcett, is the original creator of OTL cartoons, a selection of drawings, featuring the secret thoughts and conversations of dogs of every size, shape and breed. The series aims to celebrate the nation’s favourite belly scratching, tail-chasing, bed-stealing canine friends for dog lovers everywhere.
As an office full of animal lovers, the campaign for the OTL YouTube channel has been a lot of fun to work on and one of our biggest successes so far was landing a partnership and social campaign with the RSPCA for National Dogs Day on 26th August.
To celebrate National Dog Day, Rupert Fawcett released a special RSPCA cartoon to encourage people to consider taking on a rescue dog and to also help the charity to spread the ‘Adopt Don’t Shop’ message with a special charity edition.
Factory supported the ‘PAWFECT’ partnership by dedicating the first premiering OTL episode ‘Bedtime Barker’ to the RSPCA’s #FindEachOther campaign which has now gained nearly 10k views on YouTube and 17k on the RSPCA Facebook page and Instagram since launching.
The campaign has been extremely well received by doggy lovers across the nation and OTL fans old and new. So far, the OTL YouTube channel has gained 1200 subscribers in just a few weeks and the RSPCA partnership has gained coverage in ATV Today and one of the most popular dog publications in the country, Dogs Monthly.
Looking ahead, Factory has proudly sponsored this year’s Manchester Animation Festival which takes place in November. Factory’s Managing Director, Phil Chalk will be hosting a special ‘in conversation’ event with Rupert Fawcett himself, to chat all about the journey of strip to screen! You can fetch your tickets here.
You can also watch all of the latest Off the Leash episodes here.
One of our biggest successes was landing a partnership and social campaign with the RSPCA for National Dogs Day on 26th August 2017.
