Jul 7, 2020

Meet Eny Malu, a Brazilian influencer hired by Cartoon Network

She is Any Malu and her creators call her "the first 100% animated Youtuber" (she joined the platform in August 2015). She is arguably the most famous Youtuber in her home country of Brazil. Fans love her so much that they travel to her creator's studio to meet her. Cartoon Network also likes her. With her Youtube series, the Latin American channel has her own show, which is a hit with children ages 4 to 11.

This is quite an achievement for a character that was created as a beautified mascot. Combo Estudio, a production company based in Rio de Janeiro, created Enyi Maru as a tool to market its services, and as a result, Enyi Maru has become the company's most famous product. The studio also works with Disney and Google, and has provided animation for the upcoming Netflix feature film "America": The Motion Picture). However, Enimal continues to be their star, a triumph for homegrown IP.

How can you create animation influencers by accident, and once you do, how do you leverage them - we reached out to Marcelo Pereira, founder and partner of Combo, to find out. After a few months [of establishing the studio], we realized that although our colleagues at Combo had been working in the animation and entertainment field for many years, the market still did not know us.

So instead of slowly building a "portfolio," we decided to show the world our animation expertise by creating a "Youtuber" who would "post" our work online. Enny Malle was to be our spokesperson and give us the opportunity to reach a wider audience in the animation business. She was born more as a marketing strategy than a long-term project.

When human digital influencers found out about the project and started talking to us, we realized we had something valuable to offer. When we premiered Any Malu on Youtube, there was already a lot of publicity and her channel grew really fast.

Fans started following her on social media and many of them even called Combo headquarters to talk to her. Fans started coming in almost daily, so much so that we had to remove the address from our website (they always came without booking appointments, and usually when we were at our peak of work).

When we first introduced "Any Mal" to Cartoon Network, we had no idea what we were doing. We had never done anything like that before and, in fact, had no idea what kind of content we could produce for CN. On the other hand, they loved her character and her content on social media. So we came to the conclusion that we needed to mature our IP and show her in a way that would make her "irresistible."

A short time later, we collaborated with the regular show to produce an episode of "Any Maru" in which the characters play a game together. This turned out to be a huge hit and was the moment we realized that such a format would actually suit her. We developed "Any Malu Show" and brought the content back to Cartoon Network.

Any Malu is actually "hired" by Cartoon Network to host the show. She has her own contract with CN. On Enny Malu's Youtube channel, all content is ours.

After animating the character for four years, we thought we could repurpose some of the Youtube content for a TV show. However, this plan began to sink when we ran into certain problems during the pre-production phase. The Youtube channel actually doesn't require much action, she mostly appears from the waist up.

I found it impossible to reuse her rig and bank images, so I started producing original content, though the Youtube channel is still a reference.

Our writing and production team hasn't changed much.

Our next step is to do live production with characters. Producing animation "live" is always a challenge. We already have some experience with Any Mal. We have called in voice actors and animated them later. We have also done presentations with the participation of pre-recorded Any Malu. We are currently exploring new methods, including live-action Any Malu and real-time animation.

The Brazilian animation market is developing really fast. In recent years, the quality has improved to the point where it can be compared to studios in Europe and North America. However, it is quite difficult to find and train animators in our country. The number of universities offering courses in this field is very limited.

As for the creation of original animated IP, internationalization has been a major problem, as many of our IPs were [deemed] "too local." However, that has changed over the years. Still, there has been little investment in this area. Hopefully, with this new wave of VOD streaming services, more Brazilian studios, original productions, and content will be shared around the world.

(Pereira's comments are excerpted from a reply to a question sent via email. They have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity)