Mobile advertising gets more fun with TV5

Just recently, the Kapatid Network hosted a gathering of more than 200 business leaders from the country’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to introduce local businesses to the power of new information and communication technologies and approaches that can help them grow their respective companies. The event was jointly sponsored by TV5’s PLDT partners, along with Smart Communications and Sun Cellular. In a highly-competitive environment such as the scheduled ASEAN economic integration come 2015, SMEs need new tools and strategies in order to survive and thrive. One such innovation is the TV5-PLDT mobile advertising bundling which was presented during the SME assembly.

According to government data, SMEs in the Philippines currently corner around 99.6 percent of the entire Philippine economy. As a driving force in the economic growth of the nation, SMEs provide employment to millions of Filipinos, and boosting SME business is what the advertising bundling aims to achieve. 

TV5 president and CEO Noel C. Lorenzana (ECL) expressed, “The growth of the economy is hinged on the growth of the SME sector. And I think giving the SMEs the chance to utilize the various media assets of the company to actually be able to reach their target consumers better, in a more efficient way, is something that our group can actually deliver best in the entire country.” TV5 and its partners, PLDT, SMART and SUN Cellular, boast of over 70M eye balls that actually include various screens — free TV, broadband, pay TV, mobile phone and all the other assets of the group — which the SMEs can actually take advantage of to reach their target consumers. ECL further stressed that “we can do this in the most efficient and effective way.”

So how does this set-up work? ECL explained, “Let’s say you want to reach your target audience via mobile advertising; you can actually utilize onscreen TV, mobile and broadband. If your target for example is a 25-year-old woman and you’re selling skin care to her, we can actually give you geo-location services and if she’s, let’s say, within the 50 meter radius of your store, we could (ping her cell phone to encourage her to) buy product X and get 20 percent discount. “ 

What is good about it is that the system can track it to know if the person actually converted (into) a purchase. There are a lot of ways or platforms that they can actually utilize and synergize through mobile, broadband and TV. “It’s not separate efforts; it’s one holistic synergized effort in media,” ECL added.

Underscoring the integration of traditional media represented by TV5 and the new broadband and mobile communication platforms, Jane Basas, head of Media5, reiterated, “I am sure most of us understand TV5 to be a free to air channel, but some of you didn’t know that TV5 is actually part of a bigger organization, a bigger group that has been part of the lives of millions of Filipinos over the past many, many years. Kapatid po kami ng PLDT, SMART, kapatid kami ng Maynilad, Meralco, kapatid kami ng maraming start-ups like Chikka, Voyager, Cignal...so marami po kaming kapatid. The two biggest and obvious here are Smart and PLDT. Bind the combined subscriber base of Smart and PLDT and, would you believe, we have 70 million subscribers! And why this is exciting for TV5? Apart from being able to deliver to the viewers of TV5 as a channel, we actually now have the potential to deliver to advertisers 70 million eyeballs.”

It is this critical mass of potential viewers that the TV5-PLDT-SMART bundling is presented to SMEs as an attractive and less costly alternative to traditional television or newspaper advertisements. This alternative is what Leah Jimenez of TV5’s New Media calls as Smart Ads.  

“The product for normal advertising, digital advertising for the group is called Smart Ads. It leverages on the 70 million subscribers that we have. We have a huge opt-in base. You cannot broadcast simultaneously to all of the 70 million, you have to have an opt-in (system),” Leah explained. It is a huge base that is also highly profiled. That means TV5 and PLDT-SMART know exactly what type of subscriber you are — whether you’re single, AB, C, C1, male, female, and even your age and preferences as a consumer.

Finally, what this bundled advertising and targeting of specific audiences means, according to ECL, is  that “it allows you to actually create not only communications but a deep relationship with your target market. That, I think, is something we could deliver in a 360-degree manner — anytime, anywhere. What’s best about this is we can customize our advertising focus to be more product specific, target-market specific and mindset specific,” ECL concluded.