Peppa Pig writer reveals next career move after baby piglet Evie's birth branded 'greatest marketing coup of the decade'

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

Peppa Pig writer Matilda Tristram is set to launch a new animated series, following the family welcoming baby piglet Evie in the 'greatest marketing coup of the decade'.
The author and illustrator will be bringing Lucy Cousins' classic pre- school book series My Friend Maisy to life for Sky Kids and will hit screens next year.
Beloved mouse Maisy along with pals Tallulah, Eddie, Charley and Cyril, had their first adventure published in 1990 and they have appeared in 47 books, with a previous animated series airing on CITV in 1999.
Matilda, who has written Peppa Pig since 2021, is also creative producer for The Adventures of Abney and Teal and Teletubbies, Let's Go!.
In the official announcement, Sky teased: 'From flying a rocket to the moon and sliding down rainbows, to fixing cars in her garage and meeting stripey zebras, Maisy shows that with curiosity and kindness, anything is possible.'
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Meanwhile Lucy Murphy, Director of Kids Content at Sky, said in a statement: 'Maisy is such a loved classic book character and we're so excited to be working with BBC Studios, Trustbridge Entertainment and Lucy Cousins to bring her to life in a contemporary way for Sky Kids families.
'With a real sense of joy in every episode, My Friend Maisy is the perfect blend of fun and adventure for young viewers.'
Peppa Pig was created by Neville Astley and Mark Baker - who served as writers from its inception in 2004 until 2023, when they also stepped down as directors.
Broadcast in more than 40 languages and in more than 180 territories, Peppa Pig is now an empire, spanning TV, books, toys, clothes and even theme parks – with a reported worldwide value exceeding £1 billion.
It has also consistently proved to be a masterclass in global marketing, with Mummy Pig's pregnancy news delivered in a carefully curated package by PR agency PrettyGreen under the careful tutelage of its managing director Sarah Henderson, a doyenne of campaigns for global giants including Nintendo, Snapchat and Cadbury.
And if the agency had a remit to turn this simple cartoon into global news then they have surely fulfilled it.
Aping the behaviour of real life celebrities, among them Rihanna, whose decision to reveal her baby bump at the 2025 Met Gala earlier this month 'broke the internet', the announcement of Mummy Pig's pregnancy in March was made in a 'live' TV interview on Good Morning Britain.
It was followed by a 'world exclusive' interview with Mummy Pig in women's magazine Grazia, a publication more accustomed to covering the antics of A-list Hollywood stars.
It worked: the announcement quickly went viral, with 60 million views on GMB's TikTok post alone, and covered by news outlets around the world.
Capitalising on the enthusiasm, last month the agency hosted a gender reveal party at London's Battersea Power Station, where Mummy and Daddy Pig dropped a curtain to unveil that they were expecting a baby girl.
The towers of the iconic London landmark were lit in pink to mark the occasion.
The birth announcement then, is just the latest step in a carefully curated PR stunt which was labelled 'a stroke of marketing genius' by Ben Roberts, content director at marketing bible License Global.
Yet even before this, there will be few parents in the UK who in the past two decades have not placed their toddler in front of an episode of Peppa, purchased some Peppa-themed merchandise, or in my case, removed the batteries from a plastic Peppa Pig car in order to cease transmission of its infuriatingly jaunty jingle.
Naturally, there are endless threads on social media forums where parents feverishly discuss anything from whether Peppa's penchant for teasing Daddy Pig about his rotund stomach is in fact 'fat-shaming' to whether she is – as one Australian politician apparently suggested – 'peddling a warped feminist agenda'.
All this from a series that emerged 21 years ago from an independent animation studio in London founded by a trio of friends who merely hoped, in the first instance, to produce something slightly different to what they saw as the poor quality and limited scope of other animated offerings of the time.
'A lot of it was completely incomprehensible and all the girls were either princesses or ballerinas,' series producer Phil Davies recalled in a 2008 interview. He and animators Neville Astley and Mark Baker came up with the idea of creating a confident, bright and cheeky female lead with a fiery personality reflected by her red dress, who loved jumping in muddy puddles.
It took two 'painstaking' years, and a great deal of financial courage – back then, animation cost £5,000 a second even on a shoestring budget – before the first episode of Peppa Pig was broadcast on May 31 on Channel 5.
It was an immediate hit. Children were drawn to Peppa's colourful simplicity – and the novelty of animal characters wearing clothes and living in houses while still emitting the occasional 'oink'.
Critics, meanwhile, commended its relatable, easy-to-understand storylines. Nominated for a children's Bafta, within a year Peppa had made £1 million in merchandise sales. From there, her trotters went on to scale dizzying heights. By 2009, the Pig family's continually evolving exploits were raking in £100 million in merchandise, and two years later, in April 2011, the parents of excited Peppa fans were able to take their children to the world's first Peppa Pig theme park in Hampshire.
Peppa has even become a pop star, with four studio albums to her name, among them last year's Let's Jump In! (Those muddy puddles are a well-trodden theme.)
Given Peppa's phenomenal success, it's little surprise that her creators became very wealthy, securing £47 million each from a deal in which a 70 per cent stake in their animation company was sold to an international distributor called eOne.