The biggest-selling children’s print magazine in the UK is an extension of a growing online brand. Moshi Monsters started life as an online game before parent company Mind Candy joined a new media sector trend of going down the road long used by traditional offline business sectors in an attempt to raise brand awareness and open up new business opportunities.

Moshi Monsters magazine has taken just six months to become the biggest selling children’s magazine in the UK, according to August 2011 figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), and Mind Candy chief commercial officer Ed Relf says the title’s circulation is already nearly 40% above the ABC numbers that were published most recently. “The most recent issue sold about 155,000 copies, and the ABC figure was about 114,000,” he claims.

But why does a brand focused on new media move into print? Relf says that Mind Candy wanted to establish a new means of communicating with its audience outside the digital game world. “We still see the value of traditional media, certainly in the children’s market. Magazines are important to children. They engage with children in a slightly different way,” he argues.

The example of Moshi Monsters magazine highlights the first in a series of strategies that online brands are using to plot a route into traditional offline areas. It is an adaptation of a model often used by children’s films and TV programmes, building on the popularity of their characters and stories either to create a separate revenue stream, to increase awareness of the core product or both.

1. Moving into merchandising

Despite its sales figures, Moshi Monsters magazine is seen as a communications channel, not a commercial venture. Its objectives are to create engagement with children and encourage greater use of the website. The articles preview upcoming online content, while unique codes distributed with the magazine provide access to in-game rewards. Relf calls Moshi Monsters “one of the first true transmedia properties”, with its offline extensions always feeding users back to the website (see Q&A, below).

And Moshi Monsters is not the only online gaming property to extend its brand. Rovio’s Angry Birds and Disney’s Club Penguin have also introduced physical product lines such as toys, books and clothing.

The demand for Club Penguin merchandise is natural, says Disney EMEA vice-president of digital games Jeff Jones, since children do not see the same distinctions between communications channels as marketers might.

He says: “They want to influence the journeys these characters take and with this kind of connection it is no wonder that they also want to prop them up on their pillow too. Our players are digital naturals who are used to being entertained in a multiplicity of ways and for them there are no boundaries or compartmentalisation of platforms.”

In a more opportunistic example, comparison website Compare the Market could not have predicted the popularity of its meerkat characters that have been used in its TV ads since January 2009, but it has been quick to capitalise on them. Last Christmas, Compare the Market released a fictional autobiography of lead meerkat Aleksandr Orlov and in July started a promotion offering customers who buy car, home or pet insurance via the website a plush toy from a range of six meerkat characters.

2. Directing consumers between platforms

Along with Mind Candy and Disney, another online game publisher, Zynga, has taken a different approach in its expansion into offline products. It makes pre-paid physical game cards, sold in high street shops, which allow purchasers to claim virtual currency when playing its social media games, such as CityVille and FarmVille. The cards address one of the limitations of online-only businesses – that it is not always easy or attractive for players to carry out transactions over the internet.

According to Zynga senior director of business development Ryan Linton, the cards help to bring new users to the games, while also providing an alternative way for existing players to pay. Buyers often give them as gifts, which can help bring in new users, and this offline presence gives players a direct incentive to go to the online game, Linton says.

“We want to be visible in their daily lives. Having our game cards in major retail outlets or cyber cafés gives us a chance to extend our brand into the physical world and tie it directly back to our games.”

The cards also serve a fundamental strategic marketing purpose for Zynga, which is distributing them across Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia to assist its international expansion.

Linton says: “Zynga game cards provide players with more payment options for purchasing goods, especially in emerging markets where people often do not have or use credit cards. This option is a convenient way for cash-only players to make online purchases.”

3. Finding a physical form

While online and social gaming brands are enthusiastic exponents of retro extensions, websites covering other sectors are also realising that making themselves more visible to consumers increases brand awareness and engagement. Without a physical presence in the “real world”, the scope for online brands to generate these is otherwise restricted.

Online-only groceries retailer Ocado, for example, has sought offline visibility in response to greater competition from Waitrose. A contractual agreement for the latter not to offer delivery services within London has now expired, meaning that Ocado must set itself apart from the supermarket that supplies most of its produce.

One solution came in the form of a window display that was put up in London’s One New Change shopping centre for five days at the end of August this year. Passers-by were directed to download Ocado’s iPhone app, through which they could scan barcodes under product images on the window display and this would add the product to a virtual shopping basket on the app. It also allows users to scan barcodes on physical products. Online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter has since had similar pop-up displays in London and New York.

Ocado marketing director Matt Knight told Marketing Week last month: “It is a way of making Ocado physical in an unusual, eye-catching way. We want to be led by our customers and how they feel about it and will look into other ways of using it.”

4. Moving towards community interaction

While the examples of Compare the Market and Ocado are principally intended to maintain their awareness offline, rather than opening up a new range of business channels, other online businesses are following Mind Candy, Rovio and Zynga by making physical products part of their fundamental corporate strategy.

Internet Movie Database moved into providing marketing services to film makers and film festivals at a grassroots level with its acquisition of Withoutabox three years ago, while Yelp – a website where members post comments and ratings for businesses in their local area – organises monthly events for its most active reviewers. In both cases, the initiatives generate additional content for the websites as well as exploiting their brands’ recognition offline (see Case Studies, below).

Bringing online users together for real-world social events, rather than for commercial gain, is not confined to Yelp. Etsy, an online marketplace for handmade arts and crafts, organises ’labs’ in New York and Berlin where those taking part are taught a different skill at each session.

Spokesman Adam Brown explains: “It was conceived as a community gathering where we can interact with our community in person and since we are a community of makers, teach people and learn ourselves how to make different things. It is very much a social event. There is no commercial component to the labs, it is generally free. They used to charge for materials but now the budget is a little bigger. They are open to the public.”

Not only does Etsy not charge people to join in, it does not even keep track of attendance or measure how those who come use the website. Neither is there any direct link between the labs and products sold through the marketplace. Instead, Brown says, they are purely designed for purposes of gaining knowledge and socialising. If there is a brand focus to the labs, it is simply in emulating the nature of the website.

“Our culture at Etsy is very much do-it-yourself. We build almost all of our software in-house, we do not use a lot of outside tools, we do not use a lot of outside agencies and we do it ourselves from the ground up.”

Etsy’s model is unlike most examples of online brands extending into physical products or events in that the website does not use its labs to capture data or generate revenue.

However, Etsy does share a number of reasons for online brands branching back into more traditional marketing channels. Brand awareness is a big driver, along with the ability to be present in the physical environments where customers spend their days. For many, the offline businesses that act as vehicles for this awareness become commercial enterprises in themselves, allowing online brands to future-proof themselves.