China prepares for Year Of The (Peppa) Pig

The popularity of Peppa Pig is booming in China, with the British cartoon character declared a “super brand” as the world’s second-largest economy gets ready to celebrate the Year of the Pig.

Since the show was first broadcast in China in 2015, children there have fallen in love with the tales of the young pig and her animal friends.

And Peppa Pig, which is owned by eOne, has become the top brand in China for both girls aged 0-2 and 3-6 and number two for boys in the same age brackets.

The success has led to Tmall, one of the world’s biggest e-commerce platforms, declaring it a “super brand”, and the sky-rocketing popularity is likely to continue next year when China celebrates the Year of the Pig.

It will be marked with Peppa’s debut cinema venture in the country entitled Peppa Celebrates Chinese New Year, due to be released in February.

The booming demand is not limited to the screens and shops of China, as she has been brought to life with the country’s first Peppa Pig-themed indoor attraction opened in Shanghai in September, with a second planned in Beijing for 2019.

Peppa, created by Neville Astley and Mark Baker, will also be hitting the theatres following a new deal signed with Happy Kids Cultural Development for a stage show that will tour the country during the next three years with a number of branded pop-up and mall events also in the pipeline.

Peppa’s route to success in China has not all been plain-sailing. In May 2018, Peppa Pig-related content was temporarily removed from China’s Douyin online platform after a mass of unofficial memes were created by counterculture groups known as society groups - a slang term for lowlifes and gangsters.

Peppa Pig was first broadcast in the UK in 2004 and has gone on to be shown in 180 territories around the world and by 2010 had reportedly grossed more than PS200 million ($360 million) in merchandise sales in the UK.

A spokeswoman for Peppa Pig World said currently only 0.01% of its visitors come from China, but they expect this number to increase as the character’s popularity surges in the Far East.