Performance With a Purpose – KidZania’s Win, Win, Win Plan

Xavier López Ancona, founder and CEO of KidZania believes he has a “win, win, win” business model.  KidZania aims to teach kids about the world of work through play, at the same time providing a publicity medium for their corporate partners AND enhancing their local communities. This is an interview with Xavier López Ancona about his "win, win ,win "business model of KidZania.

Secrets of Success
What do you think are the key factors that contribute to KidZania’s success?
López: I think it’s a solid business model: a win-win situation and I really mean win, win, win, win… everybody wins.  
I think children love it because there is lots of role play.  One of our key concepts is independence and empowering kids so they can make their own decisions with no parents telling them what to do.  There is nowhere else where kids can play like this as they are always supervised and controlled by their parents or teachers so for kids, KidZania is really their place.

For parents, KidZania is a safe educational place where kids can interact with other children rather than playing on their computers. So parents are happy because their kids are socialising.  The schools are very happy: things that are difficult to teach in school children get to learn and this practical play reinforces what they do at school.  The shopping centre is also very happy.  And finally the sponsors happy because they get a showcase.

Consulting with Kids

Xavier López Ancona is "working"with kids

You say that it is “our guiding principal to have kids involved consulting them on their ideas, preferences and wishes”.  How do you incorporate kids’ feedback in KidZania?

López: We do a lot of market research.  Quite often we go into schools with say a drawing or essay contest.  For example we did a drawing contest and asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Number 1 for girls was a veterinarian so went to talk to a sponsor and showed them the research.

Staff

Staff excellence must be essential to delivering a high quality, educational, safe and fun experience for KidZania’s “citizens”.  How do you achieve this?

López: Staff are very important to what we do.  The children are going to be with the supervisor telling them what to do in their roles and getting them into the experience.  We try to put together the best teams in our communities - we pay a lot of attention to selecting the right people.  Then also training is very important, not just about the product and what they have to do, but also how to handle kids.  Some very shy and some very outspoken so we have to give our staff skills around education, safety and the activities. 

Corporate Partnerships

KidZania’s missions is to “provide the best family edutainment through fun, realistic role-playing and constitute and effective interactive publicity medium for our partners, firmly committed in the enhancement of our community.”  How do you ensure that you are delivering edutainment whilst at the same time allowing your partners access to “interactive publicity”; is there any tension between the two elements of your mission?  

López:  That’s a very good question.  We have a very strong principal that what we do is to copy real life so when you’re walking down the street you don’t have say “supermarket” or “gas station”, you have Walmart or HSBC.  We just copy everything that’s real we don’t put any more things in than there are in real life, just what children would experience every day driving to school or walking in their neighbourhood.

Our sponsors get much more than just the marketing aspect though.  We do a lot of CSR with them, for example programmes with underprivileged kids or in schools, and I think that’s what they really value.  If you went to most of the companies they are financing their contribution from within their CSR budget.  It’s more about giving back to kids and creating an environment to teach them about real life.

Corporate partnerships are fundamental to your business model.  How do you select and work with your partners to deliver your mission?

López: Well we first make sure that they are good for kids so we don’t have say coffee or cigarettes or alcohol!  Second once we know what establishments we want then we go and ask the top players to get involved.  We don’t know how to operate a bank or a newspaper so we are looking to get sponsors to help us get things right and this gives us a lot of content.

We have to customise between different cultures and backgrounds, for example in Japan or Dubai.  First we select our local franchise partner who knows how to do business locally, and about the kids and local culture and business arena.  Then we customise the establishments: in Japan they value education very much so not only do we have a school but also a university and a kindergarten - we have to target it. 

                                                 Resource from: BLOOLOOP.com