The adventures of Bernard, the famously clumsy and somewhat selfish polar bear who travels the world without knowing any of its rules, is being launched for the first time on eBook+ format under the aegis of BRB Internacional. Unlike other digital books on the market, this one based on the Bernard cartoon series is an eBook that allows users a truly enriched interactive experience: It incorporates videos and animation among its content, thanks to the epub3 technology used by the company Magic Gardens to make it. The first book, Bernard: the Gym, is already available in iTunes Stores for Apple devices (Mac and iOs devices).
Bernard: the Gym will form part of a collection of 5 eBooks+ telling the fun-filled tales of misfortunes, in sketch form, of the clumsiest polar bear of all times. They can be downloaded in either Spanish or English and, soon, also in German and Russian. In this eBook+, Bernard will realize that going to the gym is not as easy as it seems, while the narration offers some very useful advice about the whole going-to-the-gym thing.
Interactive Development and World Success
To actually carry out the digital development of these Bernard eBooks+, Magic Gardens is basing itself on the most-viewed episodes of the series and they are adapting them for the epub3 format, which allows users to enjoy cartoon fragments and to interact with them as they read the story.
The series Bernard (156 x 3’), produced by BRB in a co-production with Screen 21, RG, EBS and M6, is known all over the world both for its very successful airing on television — Cartoon Network (USA and Eastern Europe), Radio Canada (Canada), Disney Channel (Latin America), KiKA (Germany), M6 and Teletoon (France), Mediaset and Nickelodeon (Italy), Samanyolu TV (Turkey), Kynet (South Africa), EBS (South Korea), etc. – and also on new digital platforms (viewed over 160 million times on YouTube in the past year and prominent on the principal VOD portals such as iTunes, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon). It has also received many awards, such as the first MIP JR Licensing Challenge (France), the special Korean Animation Prize (South Korean) and the Excellence Prize at the Digital Content Gran Prix (Japan).
Óscar Soria, the CEO of Magic Gardens, said: “For Magic Gardens Animation Studios, to forge this strategic alliance with a production company with the trajectory and importance of BRB means positioning ourselves in a special place on the international market, where we can be seen, something without precedent for our company. Making these eBooks+ for Bernard, with such high quality, predisposes us to face new and even greater challenges”.
For her part, Marijo Arnáiz, the Director of Digital Media at BRB Internacional, pointed out: “We are thrilled to have Magic Gardens, a pioneering company in the development of eBooks+, as a partner at this new stage for BRB, where we are starting a long-term development project for apps and content for mobile devices. And Bernard, a very popular digital brand aimed at a family audience, is the best place to start”.