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REGIONAL
advertising agencies and clients gained access to
www.thepowerofpaytv.com, a web site created due to the
changing shape of the broadcasting market.
The site
gives clients and agency planners more options on where
to invest advertising budgets compared to a few years
ago.
The site
was launched by the Cable and Satellite Broadcasting
Association of Asia (CASBAA) and features industry
research along with TV network data, client case studies
and the latest industry news. With increasing pressure
on media planners as they consider the host of options
beyond “traditional” media, CASBAA has taken the
initiative to design an online tool aimed at
streamlining decision-making. According to CASBAA,
pay-TV continues to take audience share from the
free-to-air channels while regional research shows that
pay-TV truly outperforms regional print in terms of
audience reach.
In light
of this development, Business Mirror conducted an e-mail
interview with Paul Corrigan, advertising consultant to
CASBAA, regarding the site.
Business
Mirror: When was the site launched?
Paul
Corrigan: It went live last week but we’re still in the
process of rolling it out to agencies and clients. The
first major announcement was via an e-mail blast on
October 4 to 2,600 clients and agency people across the
Asia-Pacific region. This should be the first of a
series of communications by which we stay in touch with
the media planning and buying community and, hopefully,
keep them informed and up-to-date with any latest news
on new channels, research and so forth.
BM: How
long was the conception/development stage for the site?
PC: The
site itself has been discussed for about 10 months but
is part of a larger initiative to try and help clients
and agency planners have easier access to information
about the pay-TV industry and how it might help build
their brands’ business. Feedback we got from media
buyers was that they understood pay-TV was growing in
terms of importance in both the number of households
that were choosing it as an option and the viewership
share across their customer base but it wasn’t always
easy to find all the relevant information relating to
this. The initial feedback about the site suggests that
it helps address this.
BM: In
simplest terms, could you describe the measurement tool
to measure pay-TV demographics per market/country?
PC: It
varies from market to market and from supplier to
supplier. Generally, the measurement is exactly the same
as for free-to-air TV with electronic “peoplemeters” in
all markets with a few exceptions. In Vietnam both
pay-TV and free-to-air TV are still measured via the
written diary method, although this is due to change to
“peoplemeters” in 2008. With Indonesia, legal
penetration of pay-TV is still quite low so its
measurement is restricted to Jakarta. In Thailand,
pay-TV is measured by the TAM supplier but the data is
only released to the pay-TV company that pays for it,
True Visions. The traditional “black hole” for pay-TV
measurement has been Japan but this is changing with the
introduction of “peoplemeters,” which we hope will
give advertisers the necessary information and
confidence to start investing on pay-TV with more
confidence. For all other markets from New Zealand to
China to India and including the Philippines, the same
audience data is available for pay-TV as it is for
free-to-air TV.
BM: How
many have used the site since its launch?
PC:
Being realistic about it, we don’t expect users to
extend beyond a few thousand people a month as it’s a
small community that we are trying to serve in terms of
clients and agencies with either regional advertising
budgets or specific local TV budgets. It’s a small
audience base but a very valuable one when considered in
the context of the $30 billion annual TV advertising
spending across the region.
BM: Can
anyone aside from media planners access the site?
PC:
Absolutely. We’d like as many people as possible to know
about the success of the pay-TV industry across
Asia-Pacific and the growth in terms of both households
that now stands at over a quarter of a billion and
channel choice which increases constantly.
BM: What
is your opinion of “online” advertising? Do you think
the majority of people being online nowadays rather than
watching TV would eat a big chunk of the pay-TV market
share?
PC:
Online is a growing medium in terms of both how long
people spend online and the amount of advertising
dollars that are being spent online. If you look at some
developed markets like the UK, online advertising
spending has overtaken print spending, although it
still lags well behind TV revenue. In many ways, online
and pay-TV offer viewers the same thing that other
traditional media such as free-to-air TV and print
struggle to, i.e., choice, which is why both media are
going from strength to strength.
Put
simply, today’s reality is that advertisers—just like
viewers or consumers—have far more choice on where to
spend both their advertising dollars and their “viewing
time.” This doesn’t just mean online but also includes
on-ground events, direct marketing campaigns or wireless
telephony where the Philippines has been a world leader
for years. The media companies that will benefit from
this increase in choice are those that embrace it.
Television networks are especially well-placed to do
this as it is their content that consumers are still
interested in seeing, whether that is via the television
screen, mobile phone or their PC. Indeed, in most
markets across the world, home sites for TV networks and
platform operators are amongst the most popular in the
online community. Some of the case studies that can be
seen at www.thepowerofpaytv.com bear this out with great
examples of how “on-screen” campaigns were extended via
the network’s online properties and worked even better
as a consequence. |
