An online brand thrills Hungarian young adults

Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian teenagers enthuse over the High School (Középsuli) online series and its stars, several videos have been viewed over a million times. We talked with Robertina Kovács, the managing director of Középsuli.hu and High School series.

How many people watch the High School series?

R.K.: There aren’t too many youngsters who don’t watch or haven’t heard about High School. Generally, one episode gets around half million views, but some episodes have been viewed over a million times.

What’s interesting is that foreigners also watch us, even in the USA.

But High School is not only a series, kozepsuli.hu is also a website, we have a daily High School TV, Instagram page, ask.fm page and a Facebook page, where all of the posts are liked by at least a thousand people.

What is the key of your success?

R.K.: Creativity, honesty and that we openly talk about different matters from homosexuality to money, from education to love, while using the language of young adults, because we realised that this generation is way different than what older people think about them. Many people think that teenagers read compulsory books, do their homework, play cool in parties, and do everything just like former generations did.

But this has changed as I understand.

R.K.: Less and less people read books as they can find the essentials online. Virtual reality is what defines their everyday lives. That is where they communicate as well. High School series stars and YouTubers are the stars, there are separate castes. We realised that society has split into two parts according to age. By forming a bridge between them, High School connects different generations.

Some people said that you achieved a revolution among teenagers. Do you agree with this statement?

R.K.: We brought about a great change with the website, the series and our community powers. Most of the stars are talented actor pupils. We have funny figures like Krisztosz, the P.E. teacher who talks shoutingly, teen stars such as Olivér, the rascal, Bende, the macho, Barbi, the girl from Tata or Rozi, the clumsy beauty. This is a very consciously built up brand. We received the silver Play button from YouTube’s American headquarters and we are kept count of as one of the most valuable brands on Instagram. We started bringing the same into effect in Slovakia and Romania, we are launching in Russia in September and the Roman Noi liceenii has already reached a hundred thousand views.

Photos: www.facebook.com/Középsuli.hu

Copy editor: bm

Source: Daily News Hungary