Market signal
Is there a real cultural friction underneath this, or a preference someone assumed? Latent demand, and how long the window stays open.
IQVA
The tool we use to stress-test a property before anyone commits budget. Six dimensions, a documented verdict, and the weak points named out loud.
It doesn't generate ideas. It examines them.
Children's IP gets decided on incomplete information more often than anyone would like. A property looks good in the room, everyone nods, and the questions that actually decide whether it survives contact with a market — is the category saturated, does the premise hold at that age, does it travel — only get asked after the money is committed.
IQVA asks them first. It works on evidence rather than preference, and it produces something you can disagree with in writing: a structured verdict, with the reasoning attached, that you can hand to the people who have to sign.
A property that has never been examined isn't a strong property. It's an unexamined one.
Six dimensions
Each block asks a different kind of question, and a property can pass one and fail another. That is the point: the shape of the failure tells you what to fix.
Cognitive and educational
Cognitive load for the target age, narrative engine, sustained attention, voluntary repetition, and whether a child can follow it without an adult.
Competitive position
What category this really belongs to — not the flattering one. Verified comparables, structural differentiation, and how saturated that shelf already is.
Transmedia robustness
Whether the character survives the move between formats, how iconic it can become, and what expansion into a new vertical would actually cost.
Territorial scalability
Cultural universality and where it breaks. Narrative and aesthetic elasticity, and which markets to enter first.
Legal and commercial viability
Clarity of the proposition, chain of title, brand safety, and how far the property really is from a prototype.
Three outcomes, and none of them is a maybe
Go
The property holds across the dimensions that matter for what it's meant to do. Proceed, with the weak points documented so they get watched.
Hold
Something specific doesn't hold yet — a saturated category, an age band that fights the premise, a vertical that won't carry. Fixable, and the report says where.
No
The problem is structural rather than fixable by iteration. Better to know before the budget than after.
Because it fails our own work
Nano came back with its saturation problem written on the page, in a category we already knew was crowded. We kept building it, with that weakness in view and the strategy adjusted around it. An instrument that never contradicts its owner isn't an instrument — it's a stamp.
That's also why the reports on our own properties are open. If you want to see what one looks like before we ever talk about yours, that's the fastest way.
Two ways in
As part of a commission
Every property we develop passes through it before anything gets drawn. It's included, and you see the result whether it's flattering or not.
On your own pipeline
If you have a backlist to re-examine or acquisitions to filter, the engine can be licensed and run on your own material. Write to us and we'll talk through whether it fits what you need.