GMM Grammy hires ex-O&M exec to help group achieve full transition to digital era
GMM GRAMMY has hired a former head of Ogilvy and Mather Advertising’s Thai operations to help lay a new cornerstone for digitalising the 33-year-old music and entertainment powerhouse into the country’s leading digital content and marketing provider.
“To get a full transition to the digital era, we need to have the number one in the industry. Phawit Chitrakorn is the top choice for my company to create business sustainability amid rapid change in the media landscape,” chairman Paiboon Damrongchaitham said yesterday.
Phawit, a former managing director of Ogilvy and Mather Advertising Thailand with more than two decades of experience in communication business with multinational and local brands, has been appointed chief marketing officer for the group to connect and manage demand both from ad agencies and advertisers to utilise GMM Grammy’s media across all platforms, he said.
Phawit is taking care of GMM Grammy’s total media solution unit, which works with clients to co-create branded content and distribution through its various media platforms, ranging from TV channels, radio stations and on-ground activities to digital platforms and its social network, Paiboon added.
“Apart from advertising spending, GMM Grammy is now putting more focus on offering more value creation, such as branded entertainment, influencer marketing and tailor-made campaigns,” Phawit said.
Under this new strategy, the company is launching an influencer hub to provide marketing service for brands and advertisers that are interested in using the company’s famous artists and singers either as brand presenters or endorsers through various communication channels such as show business, TV shows, radio programmes and social networking to engage with target customers.
In the first phase, at least 300 out of a total 500 artists and singers will be involved in the influencer hub, Phawit said.
“We aim to have at least 10 per cent of the Bt1-billion influencer-marketing business by the end of this year, translating to about Bt100 million,” he added.
In line with this new service, the company will also provide marketing solutions related to creating branded entertainment content, which will help its clients to place their products seamlessly into music content, as well as into other formats of entertainment content, he explained.
“From my experience, brands and advertisers are generally only pouring roughly 15 per cent of their total advertising expenditure into branded content production. After this introduction, we hope to see an increase in this segment,” the chief marketing officer said.
Paiboon said this new direction was aimed at improving performance in GMM Grammy’s core businesses of music, two terrestrial-based digital-TV channels and film production.
For this year, music and television business operations are expected to be the key revenue drivers for the group.
An analyst at Capital Nomura Securities forecast that GMM Grammy would achieve 2-per-cent revenue growth this year, generating Bt8.8 billion.
