Helping kids to form good habits

Kiki and Miumiu, the animated panda characters which pillared Babybus animations and audio stories, have grown into iconic intellectual properties. The first play based on these two panda comic characters was staged during the third quarter of last year.

Thanks to a partnership with South Korean national TV station CBS, the play debuted in Seoul. To both sides' great surprise, the play was so well received by the local audiences that the theater was jam packed for all performances, and tickets were sold out for all four days of the show.

Given the unexpectedly successful first attempt, the play will continue to be staged in South Korea this year, said Lu.

The positive feedback that Babybus has received in the overseas markets can be largely attributed to its focus on the research and development of products. Among the 900-strong employees of Babybus, more than 90 percent of them specialize in the R&D of content, excelling in their positions like scriptwriters, concept designers, modelers, and visual effect artists.

When it comes to the localization of products, stress is on paying more attention to detail than the localization of language and dubbing.

For example, when the company launches its products and services in Arabian markets such as Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia, it made adjustments according to the local festivals, conventions and sensibilities. Pork is not portrayed or mentioned in its content exported to this area, said Lu.

But the road to overseas markets can be bumpy sometimes. Around Christmas of 2014, Babybus was given a warning by Division of Privacy and Identity Protection of the US Federal Trade Commission. The third-party data provider that Babybus worked with in the US had been collecting precise geographic location of the kids, which is illegal in the US.

Lu said: "We took off the navigation function of the apps in a week. Of course, it was a potential risk for us in the overseas market. But it is with this experience that we came to realize the importance of understanding the different regulatory environments and user habits when we are looking for opportunities in other markets.

"More importantly, such setbacks have helped us to perfect our products and make our management comply with international practices."