Social media help drive film-maker's success

Last year during the flood crisis, all business in affected areas was suspended. Consumers had to tighten their belts and avoid unnecessary expenses, which might have included movie tickets. How was GTH’s business performance last year?

Despite the crisis, luckily last year was a good one. The company enjoyed 20-per-cent year-on-year revenue growth to Bt450 million from three movies and other in-house business. In the first half, we recorded Bt200 million in income. Of that, Bt80 million was from “Suck Seed” and Bt120 million from “Ladda Land”. This result was higher than our expectation. In October, “The Billionaire” earned Bt38 million.

 

What are the reasons behind such success?

I would say the first reason is good story-telling and plots that are related to parts of viewers’ lifestyles and experiences, so the viewers can share their experience along with their favourite songs or singers that were put into the storyline in “Suck Seed”. This also resulted in repeat viewings.

Meanwhile in “Ladda Land”, our team used a new combination of horror and drama to narrate a story. “Top Secret” was based on the true story of the founder of Tao Kae Noi Food and Marketing, the country’s leading manufac-turer of processed seaweed. This can inspire and encourage a new generation striving for success.

 

After creating this engagement with viewers, what is your key marketing strategy to draw participation from audiences in the films?

Foreseeing the importance of social-media networks, we were among the first group of film-makers in the Kingdom to create our own Facebook page. Currently our fanpage [www.facebook.com/gthchannel] is No 1 in the country with more than 758,000 “likes” and very active members, while our Twitter [@gthchannel] has almost 100,000 followers. We hope that our social-media members will hit a million soon.

Interestingly, our fans are very active in our social-media sites. They also create word-of-mouth marketing for our movies, apart from our marketing budget, for which GTH earmarks about Bt15 million to Bt20 million a film.

 

You create good products with a number of loyal customers. This must be very attractive to companies and advertisers that want to produce films jointly as branded content. What about this kind of feedback so far?

Once the stories become a hit, companies have confidence to spend their [advertising] budgets on film sponsorship and product placement in our movies to create their brand image. Though our clients spend small amounts, this is the most effective way to communicate with their target customers, who will experience those brands and products whenever they watch the movie throughout the film’s lifespan.

Of total production costs, which are about Bt30 million to Bt50 million, we witness sponsorship and product placement of 10-50 per cent. We expect to receive more revenue from these sources.

 

What is your forecast for the movie industry and the projection for your business this year?

After “ATM”, which went on cinema screens early this quarter, and which is expected to record more than Bt150 million in revenue, we will have three more movies, including a special one to celebrate the seventh anniversary of our company in the next quarter. With four movies, we hope to gain Bt500 million in revenue this year.

Meanwhile we export our films to regional markets, including Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan. We are also planning to expand to new markets such as the Philippines and Indonesia. The overseas market should contribute about 20 per cent of total revenue within three years, up from 10 per cent now.