Faced with the challenge of completely rebranding its Saturday morning block on CBS, L.A.’s DIC Entertainment rolled out a marketing campaign on September 15 that should be equal to the task. By the time the initial push winds down in late November, efforts made to launch the new three-hour Kewlopolis block are pegged to generate in excess of 500 million impressions.

The bulk of the campaign is to be split between TV and online advertising, with DIC running spots on the likes of Nickelodeon for three months. Kewl magazine, which falls under the fledgling brand’s umbrella and boasts a circulation of approximately 400,000, will run ads to attract its tween reader base.

But Kewlopolis is also aiming to even out the girl skew of its Slumber Party Girl predecessor. So along with offering American Greetings’ boy-targeted Sushi Pack and DIC’s own action-comedy Dino Squad as part of the program lineup (they join Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake and Horseland), promoting the block on established boys platforms such as Cartoon Network (on-air and online) is a big part of the strategy. DIC’s head of marketing, Jeff Carl, says viral online activity will be especially important to this prong of the plan, and he’s counting on expandable online ads (in which targeted show info and engaging elements like music appear when a cursor rolls over a banner) to pique boys’ interest.

As for tentpole promotional events, DIC decided to appeal to kids looking for some spending money. The Kewl Cash Giveaway started in September and runs right through to December 7. Kids are directed to www.kewlsweeps.com each week to answer questions based on the block’s shows. Twenty US$100 winners are selected each week, but the big prize of US$1,000 gets doled out to two lucky winners every two weeks. The promo is tagged on the block, in print and online ads, on www.kewlopolis.com and on DIC’s and AG’s websites. At press time, details were also being hashed out for separate on-air Dino Squad and Sushi Pack promos.