VGI partners with Alibaba to offer advertising space to overseas clients
VGI GLOBAL Media has partnered with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com to offer its out-of-home (OOH) ad-media spaces to overseas advertisers and corporates via the online platform.
Kriangkrai Vanichpaisal, sales and marketing director (multimedia), said yesterday this partnership agreement would help accelerate growth for VGI, as both local and international advertisers would be able to book and purchase advertising space 24 hours a day.
VGI now manages a wide range of OOH advertising media both in Bangkok and the provinces such as transit media on the BTS Skytrain and its stations, 160 office buildings, screens installed in elevators at 200 condominiums, digital screens in universities, and outdoor ads in the key provinces.
Under this partnership, VGI believes it will be able to capture untapped opportunities outside Thailand via this business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce platform, offering service through at least 16 languages across the globe.
Meanwhile, Alibaba.com is the world’s biggest marketplace for B2B, as this site has engaged with more than 8 million business owners, and 4.7 million daily unique Internet Protocol visitors.
The company forecasts that by the end of this year, domestic spending on OOH advertising media will grow by about 15-17 per cent.
Acquisition
This move by VGI came after its announcement of the acquisition of a 40-per-cent stake in Demo Power, a provider of event-management services and marketing-related activities last year.
The company is purchasing 12,000 ordinary shares in Demo Power, with a par value of Bt100 each.
Under the deal, which VGI reported to the Stock Exchange of Thailand, Demo Power will be granted an exclusive right to operate commercial space at 23 BTS Skytrain stations – for which the original rights were granted to VGI by Bangkok Mass Transit System – for the provision of services for marketing activities, sales promotion, products and services, as well as advertising opportunities for Demo Power’s clients.
Demo Power is a major provider of event-management and marketing services, involving product launches and point-of-sale demonstrations at more than 1,000 major retail outlets in the Tesco Lotus, Big C Supercenter, 7-Eleven, Villa Market and FamilyMart chains.
