Reality and talent shows to be used by businesses to promote brands
Advertiser-funded programmes including reality and talent shows will be widely used next year by businesses to publicise their brands, according to leading media agencies and TV broadcasters.
“People will be able to interact with these programmes by voting for their favourite contestants, while advertisers can create direct engagement between their products and customers through the shows,” executive vice president for marketing and sales at Bangkok Entertainment Co Surin Krittayaphongphun said.
Reality and talent shows would be key to attracting revenue and audience ratings, he said. Thus BEC’s ThaiTV 3 will next year devote its family prime time on weekends – 5.45pm to 8pm – to a number of shows including “The Voice Kid”, “Thailand’s Got Talent” Season 3, “Dance Your Fat Off”, “Junior Master Chef” and “The Voice Thailand” Season 2.
Meanwhile, BBTV Channel 7 will also introduce two new imported talent shows, including “Dancing with the Stars” from America. Onyx Hospitality Group is a main sponsor of this show created by BBC Worldwide, which Kantana Group collaborated on for production. Onyx Hospitality Group is the Bangkok-based hotel operator of Amari, Saffron, Shama, Ozo and Breeze.
Currently, Channel 7 shows “Iron Chef Thailand”, which |originated in Japan, and “Hole |in the Walls Thailand”, from the US.
Prasert Eamrungroj, founding partner at leading independent agency Brand Connections, said some media agencies or advertisers opted to acquire the copyright of famous international TV formats and then hire local production houses to develop the show because of limit airtime slots on free-TV channels.
Though advertising expenditure via free-TV channels accounts for 60 per cent of the total industry, by law local stations are only allowed to sell 12 minutes of airtime per hour for commercials. Thus an advertiser-funded programme is important for local advertisers and media agencies that want to display their brands or products beyond the 12-minute-per-hour limit.
For example, Unilever Thai Trading invested several hundred million baht to bring the “Got Talent” format originated in Britain to this country. This TV format was franchised, developed and introduced by FremantleMedia Enterprises as “Britain’s Got Talent”. For production of the Thai edition, Unilever collaborated with Workpoint Entertainment.
The first two seasons of the show were aired on weekends in prime time on ThaiTV3.
