Ypulse Interview: Juliette Brindak of Miss O & Friends
Posted by anastasia on 01-05-2007
If you believe their own internal data, the tween website Miss O & Friends, which launched in 2005, has become a modest success. According to the company:
- The average visitor spends 11 minutes on the site, with 16 pages viewed and over 10,000,000 page views per month (August, 06)
- According to Alexa data, they are beating Barbie, Hello Kitty, Girl Scouts.
- They have sold over 110,000 books since this summer
- The Miss O site on over 6,400 classroom websites across the country
- Their website "Dear Abby" column ("KidsCounsel") is syndicated worldwide via McClatchy-Tribune
- They claim to have 11 licensees, including Knight Ridder/Tribune (McClatchy), and VNU
I recently did an email interview about Miss O with Juliette Brindak, who is their teen co-founder and chairperson.
Ypulse: Of all the products you sell, what has been the most successful?
Juliette Brindak:The books have definitely been the most successful. We have sold over 120,000 books in stores such as Borders, Barnes and Nobel and online at Amazon.com. One of the books, “Write On,” features 15 original stories and poems from regular girls, selected from over 10,000 submission to our site by our website audience (70% are tween girls 8-12). … now that’s “by girls, for girls”
YP: How is Miss O being used in classrooms?
JB: The Miss O website is on over 7,000 teachers home page websites. Miss O is hyperlinked alongside the WhiteHouse, National Geographic and NASA. When students check out their teachers site for homework, extra credit, etc., they are referred to our website. It’s pretty cool how we have the support of teachers.
Newsletter readers: Visit the site for the rest of the interview.
YP: What role does your audience/website users play in shaping your strategy and influencing your products - what does it mean to be "by girls"?
JB: We don’t do anything without asking the Miss O community first … on our website and with our licensed products. There are always polls, reviews and comment sections that allow for the girls to express their opinions about what they like, don’t like, or would want on the site. Once girls tell us what they want we will ask our website audience to have them actually design stuff. Yup, we ask the girls what exactly they want and we do what we can to meet their demands.
YP: If tweens are the new teens, how does Miss O deal with that in both your content and products? Do tweens expect their media to feel older and sexier? Is there a danger of feeling to childish?
JB: The major goal with Miss O is to be age-appropriate hip. The whole craze of the media skewing younger and leaning more towards the risky side is something that we try and stay away from. Girls are growing up way too fast these days and it seems like they don’t just get a chance to actually be just girls. The media, pop culture, fashion and entertainment are all apart of our site, but we put up things that are more of a positive influence.
YP: What have you learned from launching Miss O?
JB: First off, you’ve got to listen to them [girls]. They are so specific and so detailed about what they want and even the smallest changes they notice immediately. They know what they like and what they don’t like and it is obvious when there is something on the website or about our company that they don’t like. Writing for the Kids’ Counsel column (McClatchy/Tribune syndicated) has also taught me a lot more about what goes through tween girls minds. Their questions, concerns, fears, and thoughts are very developed and relevant to today’s society. It’s just another reminder how hard those years can be for girls and how they need as much help, support and guidance they can get.
YP: How do you differentiate yourself from the Beacon Street Girls, which also has YA books, characters, and lots of stuff?
JB: Miss O is really by girls, for girls — Beacon Street is run by adult women. The Miss O girls are not characters, but real living girls. Our company gets the many thousands of our website audience involved … our website is very interactive, yet 100% safe. According to our Alexa data, Beacon Street’s website audience is very small compared to Miss O ..we believe that is because we are AUTHENTIC
YP: What's next for Miss O?
JB: A lot. We are in the process of creating Miss O Music, which you will be hearing lots about soon. We are talking with some large retailers about expanding into their stores and maybe even doing a Miss O TV show.
