Q: Why the rebrand?
A: The aim of the ITV rebrand was to strengthen relationships with our viewers in 42 markets in Asia and the Middle East. The channels have been running for a few years now and since 2010 we’ve been building a pretty strong audience and we are expecting that the rebrand from Granada to Choice will help us build even stronger relationships with our fans and audiences, and ultimately to introduce the channel to new audiences as well. We’re planning quite a few specific marketing campaigns across the markets and working with our partners in each territory. Ultimately, we want to spread the message of ITV Choice.
Q: How will the global rollout of this rebrand be?
A: The rebrand has already occurred in the UK and will be a rolling rebrand within the UK, and then branching out to Asia, Middle East and internationally. We rebranded our international channel on the 25th of March to drive greater brand clarity across the whole business from the UK to the international arms as well.
Q: Describe the on-air look.
A: we want to make sure that the whole company has a unified look. We want it to be clean, bold, and confident. We want to have colour in the logo. We don’t want that new brand to be one dimensional and the intention is that we unify ourselves with the UK as a company in general. The on-air look is clean, bold, and confident with the use of the (overlapping) colours to avoid appearing as onedimensional.
We invoked this colour picking technique that enables us to use the brand flexibly across different content. Along with that we also have a number of great idents that portray everyday life. These were actually developed in house by ITV Creative with help from external specialists as well.
Q: How has content evolved with the rebrand?
A: In the works are a mixture of premium drama titles, shiny-floor entertainment, lifestyle and factual, to name some. As part of the rebrand, we’re ensuring that we’re re-focusing on our key ITV programme brands; key titles like Lewis, Endeavour, Poirot, Dancing on Ice, and I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
Q: How do you work with operators to announce the rebrand? Via on-ground events or soft-launches etc?
A: It’s essentially a combination of some of these. We cover quite a large footprint at 42 key markets. We look into particular territories and markets with combinations of print, online, on-air, web and possible ground events. All this is always done in conjunction with our partners.
Q: What might you be looking for to measure the success of this campaign?
A: With any campaign, we track feedback not only about the campaign but also about the channel, whether it’s directly through ratings data or engaging directly with our audience through social media or on our Facebook account. With this direct engagement, we have a way to converse with the audience and understand their needs.
Q: Are you looking at new territories and new operators to launch ITV Choice?
A: Yes. As the channel producers we always have to expand our footprint and gain new carriage in territories that we’re in already or in new territories. There are deals in the pipeline that we’ll be announcing soon, so watch this space!
The UTV rebrand rebrand is linked to ITV’s Transformation Plan, and has been led by Group Director of Marketing and Research Rufus Radcliffe, Director of Network Marketing Reemah Sakaan, and Creative Director of ITV Creative, Phil Lind. Below is a statement from ITV:
In August 2010 we announced our strategy to transform ITV over five years focusing on our four strategic priorities.
Our vision remains to create world class content which we can make famous on our channels, before exploiting its value across multiple platforms, free and pay, in the UK and internationally. Content creation therefore lies at the heart of our Transformation Plan.
We are operating in an evolving and highly competitive digital marketing in which advances in technology are changing the way in which people consume media. We are transforming our business so that we are able to respond to the challenges of new technologies, changing patterns of user behaviour and new market entrants, while also ensuring that we are in a position to take advantage of the opportunities which the digital environment offers. The combination of our strong brands, access to content and commitment to our producer-broadcaster model gives us significant advantages but we are under no illusion about the need to remain focused on the task ahead.
