Behind the Brands.

Behind the Brands.

In March, Mummy Pig broke the internet by announcing that her family of four would soon gain a new member. The news was covered on Good Morning Britain, the Not Gonna Lie podcast with Kylie Kelce, and just about every social media feed. But how does an announcement that big come together?

Meet Esra Cafer: Senior Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Management - and one of the driving forces behind Hasbro's beloved PEPPA PIG brand. In her own words, Esra shares some of the key learnings she's acquired from her years guiding one of the world's biggest preschool franchises.

The role.

As franchise lead for preschool and fashion brands, I set long-term brand and content strategies for PEPPA PIG and MY LITTLE PONY, and a pipeline of future brands. My team and I define brand positioning, set yearly themes, integrate themes into content, and partner with the business to deliver a cohesive and impactful fan experience.

New family member, new stories.

In the 20+ years since Peppa first appeared on screens, we've never changed the core family unit-the opening credits have remained the same, with Peppa first introducing herself, then her little brother George, then Mummy and Daddy Pig. As soon as Baby Piglet arrives, that will change forever, with a whole new opening sequence. In addition to showcasing an experience many preschool families go through-- welcoming a new sibling to the family-- the arrival of a fifth family member will see our original four develop and evolve as individual characters.

Working with our brilliant writing and animation teams to lovingly evolve these iconic characters has been a highlight of my career-I can't wait for Peppa's fans to see these new stories. They're even more relatable and aspirational, and even funnier and more heart-warming than ever.

The brilliance behind Peppa. ✨

Peppa is equal parts relatable and aspirational to her fans-that's her true brilliance. In Peppa, preschoolers see a first best friend experiencing all the same things as they are (the universally relatable experiences of daily preschool life), whose aspirational confidence and curiosity inspires them to jump into new situations, just like Peppa. They feel equal parts, "Peppa is just like me," and "if Peppa can do it, so can I!" It's just brilliant. I think we all want a best friend like Peppa in our lives-I know I do!

Evolving for today's Peppa fans.

In some ways, a preschooler's experience is universal and timeless-they're all doing things like going to the doctor and making friends for the first time. In other ways, this generation of preschoolers and this millennial generation of parents is different. Today's parents are playmakers, looking for shared experiences to enjoy with their kids. And there's so much more competition than when Peppa first launched. Even in this landscape, Peppa was the #1 kids' show on Netflix globally in 2024 -- a testament to the wonderful characters and storytelling in the show, and to the myriad of other ways kids and families can engage with Peppa today.

We're an established brand that parents trust. Fans love Peppa, and they want to see her evolve. It's critical for our future success that we do that across all touchpoints to reflect the changing needs and lives of preschoolers and their families. That's what we're doing-and I'm taking the viral impact of our "Pig Announcement" as confirmation that people are loving our evolution!

Our team aligned to introduce a baby to the family in September 2023. The idea of a baby captivated all of us-we all saw the positive impact it could have, and every team member was all-in from the beginning. Since then, hundreds of Hasbro employees and our partners -across franchise, entertainment, marketing, PR, product, and retail- have spent the last 18 months fiercely collaborating to plan and execute this evolution with excellence.

From the writing and animation of the show to refreshing our assets to feature a new family member, to designing delightful new toys so kids can re-enact the new family, to figuring out how to bring the story to life across our live shows... our marketing, PR and social teams did a phenomenal job. We engaged the biggest media platforms like Good Morning Britain, leading influencers like expectant mum , and perfect partners like Clearblue, to help us tell the whole world that Mummy Pig is pregnant. And the announcement is just the beginning-there's so much more to come!

A few iconic PEPPA PIG moments.

Personally, I love the episode "International Day," where Peppa and her friends all dress up as a country and find it hard to agree with each other in the playground-some lovely tongue in cheek comedy in that one. I also LOVE the Piggle Wiggle song, and the fact that Peppa now has a permanent statue in her honour at the National Film & Television School where producer Mark Baker , her co-creator, studied.

And, of course, because she can whistle is one of the greatest memes of all time.