Q: Could you share with us about LiTV’s latest PAX (Pan Asia-Pacific Cross Media Survey) results?
JF: We’ve got the latest results, Q3 2012. In comparison with the previous quarter – in the lifestyle space, we are one of the top growing channels. Singapore and Malaysia are our top markets in terms of growth. At the end of the day, our brand positioning is that we go for quality viewers. The results solidify what we have set out to do.
Now with technology in the forefront, everybody is utilising their smart phones and tablets. Now, it’s the multi-screen platform, which we are also leveraging as our viewers are very savvy. You have to be at the forefront of everything – whatever that is trendy at the moment, which is what we have always set out to do.
We rank high with high-spending consumers, which is very lucrative for the advertisers and sponsors. In terms of home ownership and car ownership, we are also one of the top channels.
AC: Regionally, in Malaysia, we have almost 100% of viewers who own cars – which is very rare. 60% of people own their own properties. 60% of people own the latest home appliances and equipment together with 60% of luxury watches.
Before, many lifestyle brands that we talk to such as BMW or Mercedes spent on news channels. They thought that they were targeting only the people who have money. Now, they are targeting people who actually have the energy to go out, buy, and think.
Q: Beyond PAX, are you tracking the profile of consumers?
AC: Yes, as well as the brands that we work with.
JF: Also, their consumption habits are of interest. Of the five pillars on LiTV (Food, Home, Wellness, Travel and Style), we want to know how these stack in terms of priority. Going on a vacation is one of our key (pillars). Dining is part of travelling as well and that falls nicely into the whole realm of travel. That ties back to the usage of smart gadgets as well as the smart phones.
To be honest, close to 80% of our viewers own a smart phone and are always on the go. They have a laptop, tablet and etc, which we are trying to leverage when it comes to our content as well as our partnerships – regardless of whether it’s on-ground or further.
Q: It seems that you have the profile that you are targeting?
AC: Absolutely. We are one of the top channels on Astro in terms of advertisers. Being a part of (Malaysia’s) Star Media Group, we are accessible to a lot of clients, but they need to know that we are worth it for them to advertise with us. For Maybank, we have done a campaign and they were so happy with it. We go all the way to create a 360 degree experience for our clients. We brought in something very unique to fit the goals of clients. We also create highly customised packages for them.
Q: How has it worked so far with tourism boards?
AC: Fantastic. Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board came to us and said, “We want to promote Malaysia’s lifestyle (pursuits),” because Malaysia has always been seen as very forested and has natural beauty. So we created a campaign called My List.
JF: These were two campaigns. The first one was My List and the second one was My Style.
AC: My List is a 2×8’ TVC campaign. We get celebrities to introduce the latest tourist “hot spots” in Malaysia. Tourism Malaysia came back and wanted to do something else. They wanted to push duty-free shopping because they recently eliminated duty on 300 over types of goods and many people do not know about it. We created this interesting concept of having a Hong Kong supermodel shopaholic (Mandy Lieu) go to Malaysia (to shop), accompanied by host Jason Godfrey. Simultaneously, we are also doing a three-episode branded show revolving around family shopping, male shopping, and female shopping. Currently, we’re coming up with ideas for another campaign.
JF: To be perfectly honest, LiTV is the only channel that fills the general lifestyle proposition at this point in time. Today, we have carved out a niche for ourselves.
AC: In the competitive analysis every week across the lifestyle channels, it’s always been about food, but ours has a good mix every day. We have great shows like Jillian Michaels first thing in the morning. We want the full range as it suits Asians better.
JF: We want to do it in an entertaining manner as well. Infotainment is the key word when it comes to content. It’s entertaining but at the same time, you will learn something from it. The reason why The Doctors – one of our top-rated shows – is so popular is because a lot of the medical topics discussed during the show are very easy to understand, and they have a panel of four doctors who are specialists in their own right. One is an ER surgeon; another is a paediatrician, while the others are an OB/GYN and a plastic surgeon. Asians are sometimes very shy and there are certain medical issues or ailments that they might not want to share with their doctor. This show creates that platform for them to be acknowledged.
AC: The Doctors is actually one of the best-rated shows across the region. We picked it up and Juliana’s team is running major campaigns in Malaysia right now.
JF: There are various touch points that we’re looking at. One is on-air. We have produced ten 30-seconds clips. They are aired on our channel as well as other channels on Astro. They’re snap bites of information. For The Doctors, we have the regional exclusive rights from CBS. We’re airing Season 4 right now. Factoids from the show are complementary to the series. New episodes are aired on Mondays at 9PM, with a repeat telecast on Sundays at 11PM. In between, we also have the 30-seconds factoids. It serves as a tune-in reminder. At the same time, it gives out short tips. These are cut from the show itself.
AC: We give opportunities to our advertisers to tag on (to the factoids) as well.
The Doctors S4
JF: This year, we are pushing Facebook in a big way because that’s a medium that can give us real updates from our viewers. We have actually created and dedicated a Facebook page for The Doctors as well. We want to create a new fitness concept (on-ground) but we’re still working on it. It’s much like a buffet where you get to sample different workout regimes. We want to encourage people to start exercising and be active. What we are trying to do is to encourage people – on the weekends, to come out and start working out for an hour. You get to sample different kinds of exercises! It’s a good social and networking opportunity as well.
Q: How are you rolling it in with social media?
AC: For an example, what we’re going to do is that the schedule of these on-ground classes will be uploaded on Facebook. We want to give the audience a chance to also determine what sort of classes will be provided. We will run a class based on popularity. The activity that has the highest votes will then be featured or made happen. Anything that we provide on-air and online, we would want to make it happen on-ground. It’s an extension. When we talk about one concept, we would want to roll it out regionally to make it relevant to the audience.
Q: So, this is about branding and encouraging “stickiness”?
JF: Yes, it’s also about experiential marketing – experiencing the show that you’re marketing.
AC: They have to experience the spirit of Li, it’s providing inspiration in lifestyle in all aspects.
We’re currently featuring a lot of celebrity trainers on our channel. We are planning to do something interesting regionally – perhaps, bringing in the celebrity trainers. This is our DNA. None of the channels in Asia has a dedicated work-out block but we believe in being inspired and in great health.
JF: We’re using social media to engage the audience. Right now, what we want to do is to take charge of your life. We only live once. Obviously, we would want to prolong it as long as we can. That is the whole objective of this campaign. We wanted to create a 360 degree campaign -which is why all of these components came into place.
Q: Let’s talk about Tourism Australia.
AC: They were our customers last year on a spot buy. They understood that spot buy has limitations in educating viewers. When we spoke with them, we found out that they have experienced a huge increase in Malaysians travelling to Australia. In the region, there are a lot of people going to Australia as well, but the problem is, Australia is a very large space (seven states) and remains very vague to viewers. As Australia is very outdoors-centric, we got a host who is very much into outdoor activities – Filipino-Canadian Jason Godfrey – and also hired a production company that is very well-versed in shooting exotic sceneries. At the same time, we got our internal house producer involved, to produce a 7×30’ series, followed by 7×2’.
Jason Godfrey in Jason Down Under
We’re getting Jason to write a journal and we will have some interesting Polaroid moments. Each week, we will have a one-page editorial on Malaysia’s The Star newspaper because it’s an integrated campaign. Jason will write the journal, and we will have a QR code on the journal entry that allows the viewers to immediately watch the trailer to entice them to the show. The whole campaign is an integrated print and TV campaign. With iSnap, viewers can immediately have the promos. We are actually doing a lot of those deals now. Currently, we’re pitching a couple of travel series and even property developers. We want to make sure it’s quite different. The clients get the benefit of these campaigns.
Q: Let’s talk about the territories you’re carried on, most recently, Thailand. Is the carriage deal with TrueVisions complete?
AC: It has already aired, (but) currently on trial. It is a done deal. We are working with them to localise it gradually. There has been a very exciting landscape change in Thailand. Digital is happening! A lot of big groups are coming up with potential lifestyle channels. We have actually been talking to TrueVisions and hopefully, this channel will also open the door to collaborations between TrueVisions and LiTV in terms of content productions. We love to produce in Thailand because it’s a hot bed for lifestyle. It’s an important milestone for us. We intend to collaborate and we’re very excited so that we can air what we produced in Thailand and then, regionally.
Q: What about languaging?
AC: Initially, we’re subtitling, but we are looking at dubbing as well. It’s still in discussion. We would love to have full dubbing – which I think is important.
Q: Any other carriage deals we should know about?
AC: At this point of time, we’re really not looking at penetrating as many platforms as possible but rather, penetrating the right kind of partners that can support us and build the brand and properties together. We really need to look at the kind of resources we allocate. We really are just dealing with the major ones. We want to be very focused.
Q: You have mentioned that you want to have more carriage in Indonesia?
AC: We should have ten by the end of the year. We are also working on Korea and China.
Q: Do you feel that Korea is saturated?
AC: That’s why we want to do something different in Korea. We won’t do foreign transmission channel anymore. A foreign channel in Korea means nothing because the viewership is very low. We will have to work with a local partner to come up with something different.
Q: What kind of conversations are you having now and with whom?
AC: We’re not at the liability to disclose. At this point of time, it’s still early. Korea and China are both major markets but the kind of lifestyle they’re after is very different. It’s about understanding the partner and churning out the right kind of lifestyle channel that is relevant (to them). A Southeast Asia feed will not work in Korea and China.
We are working very closely with our partner to see how we can we make it work for Thailand. Whenever we produce or create something different, it takes a lot of effort. We have to re-study and understand what works and what doesn’t. Koreans are very, very different. They are very cultural. They appreciate origin and they like to learn. They are very excited about the concept of LiTV. We are working with the Korean government in terms of production and they have one of the highest qualities of production. Currently, close to 30% of our content is Korean.
Q: Do you have a bulk deal with distributors in Korea?
AC: No, or otherwise, it would be boring. We still get stuff from CJ E&M but we also get stuff from independent (companies). Korea has hundreds of channels. We have been sourcing for them for five years so we know who we want to talk to. Even now when we produce, Edward Kwon’s food series EdVentures In Asia is actually a CJ-Arirang co-production with us. We want to do something more like that – a three party co-production. It carves out all of our rights and minimises the production cost so that we can produce more.
Edward Kwon (left) in EdVentures in Asia
Q: Is your collaboration with CJ E&M continuous?
AC: Whatever we produce, we need to look at longevity. For example, even though they (Edward Kwon and Alvin Leung) are chefs, they are not normal chefs. They have a story behind them. They have an inspiring story. Edward Kwon learned English and worked at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco and earned his mark to be the head chef for the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. He dropped everything at the height of his career, went back to Korea and became the number one chef. Alvin Leung for example, is a two-star Michelin chef who is very much self-taught. He is the pride of Hong Kong. These kinds of people are what we want. Yes, they are chefs but there must be an inspiring story behind them. That’s the kind of philosophy that we have. We don’t just pick them because of food.
Q: Are you building your own pool of talents?
AC: Yes. We’re currently planning something with the both of them with more new talents coming on board. Hopefully, we’ll find someone in Thailand. As we launch in more countries, we want to adopt more local talents.
Q: What kind of qualities are you looking for? Pan Asian? American accent?
AC: We feel that a lot of the international channels only adopt English-speaking or Canadian-speaking (talents) and that kind of cuts out the local flavour. If you listen to Edward Kwon, he is a typical English-speaking Korean. Even Alvin – he doesn’t have a British accent either. We found charm in these people.
JF: At the end of the day, they must be able to represent the Li Brand. Before that, they need to know what they are talking about. They need to have substance as well. We want to inspire people to actually take Li to another level, take it up a notch.
