CANAL+ takes major step in developing Asia as its next growth engine with investment in Viu

PCCW Limited (PCCW) and CANAL+ Group (CANAL+) jointly announced today the formation of a strategic partnership to accelerate the growth of Viu, a leading pan-regional OTT video service with presence across Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa.

As a result of the transaction, CANAL+ will become a significant minority shareholder in Viu through a staggered investment of US$300 million* which includes an initial investment of US$200 million resulting in CANAL+ holding a 26.1% stake in Viu. In addition to the $300 million, a further investment, at CANAL+ option, could result in an increase of CANAL+’s stake in Viu to 51%.

Partnering with CANAL+ as an important strategic investor is a recognition of Viu’s leading position in the video streaming markets spanning Asia, the Middle East and South Africa and the significant growth opportunities ahead. With over 66 million monthly active users (MAU) and 12 million paid subscribers**, Viu has been consistently ranked as the top video streaming platform in terms of MAU and second in terms of subscribers and streaming minutes amongst both global and regional players*** in Southeast Asia. Having established a robust dual model of Advertising Video on Demand (AVOD) and Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD), Viu offers premium regional and local content including series and lifestyle programming in different genres from top content providers with language localisation, as well as premium original productions under the brand “Viu Original”. Apart from a strong offering of Korean content, Viu Originals produced in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and other Viu markets have ranked amongst the top in their respective markets. In 2022, Viu recorded over US$250 million in revenue, representing a growth of 36% year over year.

This new strategic partnership will enable the further growth of Viu, leveraging the global strength and expertise of CANAL+ through various initiatives including collaboration on premium productions and content creation, expansion of global market reach for Viu, and continual user experience improvement. The partnership will allow CANAL+ to take a major step in developing Asia as its next growth engine.

Maxime Saada, CANAL+ Group CEO, said, “I am extremely happy to announce this partnership with PCCW. CANAL+ already has leading market positions in Europe and Africa. We are now looking forward to developing Asia as an additional growth engine for the group. Our investment in Viu is a major step towards achieving this goal. Viu is already a business with scale, with its hybrid AVOD and SVOD business model and focus on local content, it has all the ingredients to deliver superior growth and continue to be a leading service in the region and beyond.”

Susanna Hui, PCCW Acting Group Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer, said, “We are very pleased to embark on a partnership with CANAL+ to take Viu to the next level with the prospect of global synergies coming from both CANAL+ and PCCW. With Viu having established its leadership as a pan-regional streaming service, we believe this is the right time to introduce a strategic partner into the business that would see us furthering our global expansion and growth by unleashing the potential of the Viu business at scale and to create further value for our shareholders.”

Jacques du Puy, CANAL+ International CEO, said, “I am impressed with what the Viu team has been able to achieve so far. We are now looking forward to supporting Viu’s rapid growth over the coming years, including through synergies with our existing operations in Vietnam and Myanmar as well as in Africa and the Middle East.”

Janice Lee, Viu CEO and PCCW Media Managing Director, said, “When we launched Viu, we had set our sights on creating and transforming our media business into an international play by tapping into larger addressable markets in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and South Africa. Having created a robust streaming business, we are excited to have the addition of CANAL+ as a strategic investor to further accelerate growth by drawing on CANAL+’s global strength in premium productions, content creation and distribution expertise. We look forward to the next phase of our business with the combined strengths of PCCW and CANAL+ behind Viu.”

PCCW was advised by Jefferies as financial advisors and Slaughter & May as legal advisors. CANAL+ Group was advised by Goldman Sachs and Ernst & Young as financial advisors and Herbert Smith Freehills as legal advisor.

93.5 RED FM, India’s leading private radio and entertainment network is excited to announce the third season of Red Indies Radio Festival 2023 – the biggest celebration of indie music on radio.

Under the theme of Sounds of India, this unique celebration will bring together talented independent artists from India to showcase their incredible music. Listeners can experience the musical extravaganza from the 19th to the 24th of June on-air.

Red FM has curated a lineup of exceptional Indian independent artists, representing various genres and different states of India. From folk to electronic to indie rock and hip-hop, Red Indies Radio Festival will offer a diverse experience for every music enthusiast. Moreover, star celebrities such as Ammy Virk, Jubin Nautiyal, Raghu Dixit, Raftaar, King, Langa Maanganyaar, Taba Chake, and more. will talk about their journeys during the week-long celebration.

Speaking on this announcement, Nisha Narayanan, Director & COO, RED FM, and Magic FM, stated “Red FM has been observing the radio festival for the last three years. The purpose has been multifold, to promote and encourage independent artists and music for its cookie-cutter and experimental appeal and also to give listeners a chance to discover fresh music. This festival is a testament to the incredible talent and diversity found within the independent music scene and our commitment to take the talent a notch higher.”

93.5 RED FM, India’s leading private radio and entertainment network launched its latest campaign “Hunar Qaid” on the occasion of World Music Day.

In collaboration with India Vision Foundation, the campaign marks the celebration of artistic expression and showcases the power of music to transcend boundaries.

Rupesh, a talented artist with an extraordinary story, has overcome immense challenges, having once been confined behind prison walls. His journey from imprisonment to musical brilliance serves as a testament to the transformative power of talent and the indomitable human spirit. Led by RJ Raunac on Morning No 1 show, the campaign highlighted Rupesh’s journey. A special song “Abhi aasman baqi hai '' with Dr. Palash Sen from Euphoria & Rupesh was launched.

Red FM and India Vision Foundation invite music lovers and enthusiasts from all walks of life to join in celebrating World Music Day. Stay tuned in to listen to the heartfelt song and witness the incredible journey of Rupesh and the impact of music on his life.

Analysis of 2,000+ campaigns by WARC, LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, and strategy expert Roger Martin (author of Playing to Win) validates a new mental model to help companies gain brand and commercial advantage

The B2B Institute, LinkedIn’s marketing think tank, in partnership with WARC, have today published “Making a Promise to the Customer: How to give campaigns a competitive edge,” a white paper to help brands create more effective marketing by placing a clear Promise to the Customer at the heart of their strategy.

A Promise to the Customer (PTTC), is a proxy mental model that allows marketers to deploy familiar marketing frameworks in a way that is much more easily understood by the C-suite, other functions within their organisation, and customers.

PTTC works both as an upstream organizing principle, helping the business interpret what the marketing department is trying to achieve, as well as a downstream impetus to creative communications. Data suggests that PTTC appears to have an edge when it comes to delivering positive impact on brand metrics and sustained commercial impact.

PTTC puts accountability to the customer at its core and delivers against the basic pillars of marketing: Product, Price, Place and Promotion.

Drawing on WARC’s extensive database of B2B and B2C effectiveness case studies, over 2,000 award entrants and winning advertising campaigns from the last five years (2018-2022) were analysed, of which 40% (808) were identified as having made a credible Promise to the Customer.

The study found that PTTC campaigns deliver a significant brand and commercial advantage compared to those that don’t:

When campaigns are grounded in an explicit Promise to the Customer - a memorable, valuable and deliverable promise - they are as much as 48% more likely to report brand health improvements than those that don’t.

The impact was consistent regardless of budget, duration, or number of channels used (the three drivers for measuring a campaign’s Creative Commitment). PTTC can therefore offer a competitive advantage to smaller or scale-up brands, or be a useful approach for marketing departments under budget pressure.

PTTC campaigns deliver a commercial advantage - they are 60% more likely to report increased market share, and 17% more likely to report increased market penetration than non-PTTC campaigns.

To assess the depth of commercial impact, PTTC campaigns were analysed against the Creative Effectiveness Ladder. At all but the lowest rung, PTTC campaigns over-indexed against their non-PTTC counterparts. Additionally, PTTC campaigns are more prevalent at the higher levels of the Ladder, with 67% of PTTC campaigns reaching Enduring Icon level, versus 33% of non-PTTC campaigns.

Roger Martin, CEO advisor, strategist, former Dean of the Rotman School of Management and author of “Playing to Win,” “The Design of Business,” and “A New Way To Think”, said: “In the four decades I have been working on strategy and branding, this PTTC finding is the single most exciting discovery with which I have been involved. It reinforces my long-held belief that B2B and B2C branding are more similar than different. In both domains, the power of a brand is strong, but only takes shape when the entire organization coordinates its efforts to design, make, project, and fulfil a PTTC. PTTC establishes both a compelling imperative and a helpful roadmap for overcoming the often siloed worlds of product, marketing, go-to-market, and customer loyalty. It is now crystal clear that if a company isn’t making a clear PTTC, it is wasting its advertising spending for no reason other than engrained bad habits.”

Jann Martin Schwarz, Founder and Head of The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, said: “It’s exciting to see the PTTC mental model validated against such a significant body of research, and to see that ad creative which focuses on understanding “what is the promise this product makes to the customer?” translates into much better campaigns, as well as being easier to understand and operationalize by many parts of a business.”

“The problem with ‘brand’ is that it has become a complicated concept that means many things to many people. The idea of a Promise to the Customer is a big simplification, and means that ‘brand’ can be understood by everyone. The concept of understanding and projecting the right promise captures many of The B2B Institute’s foundational findings that we worked on with the Ehrenberg Bass Institute, such as our work on Category Entry Points and the importance of building mental availability in buying situations.”

Mimi Turner, Head of EMEA at the B2B Institute at LinkedIn said: “For me, the most interesting finding in this research was what happens with lower-budget campaigns. In marketing, big is usually better. Big brands with big budgets usually have the advantage. But only a few marketers have the luxury of that kind of scale.

“When we applied a Promise to the Customer lens to campaigns with lower budgets, lower duration and fewer distribution channels, we found that making a Promise to the Customer made campaigns much more successful across brand health, market share and long-term sales outcomes than campaigns of the same scale that did not have a Promise to the Customer. That’s something that marketers who are struggling to compete for budget can really use to drive better results.”

David Tiltman, SVP Content, WARC, said: “Over time we’ve realized how important language is to securing buy-in for marketing investment. Terms like ‘brand’ and ‘purpose’ are not always viewed favorably outside the marketing team. That’s why we’re interested in new frameworks that can circumvent these preconceptions.

“PTTC is an exciting idea because it can work both at a corporate level and as a starting point for creative communications. And as we are starting to see in the analysis, this approach can deliver real benefits in terms of brand health and long-term sales impact.”

A four-part series of WARC podcasts, in partnership with The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, will follow taking a deep-dive into the findings of this new research.

Key findings of this study were first presented today to a packed audience at Cannes Lions by Jann Martin Schwarz of LinkedIn’s B2B Institute, and strategy expert Roger Martin. A follow up session will take place on Wednesday 21st June in the Palais des Festivals, Cannes.

Health & Wellness, Outdoor, Pharma, Print & Publishing and Radio & Audio Lions awarded

New Zealand takes home two Grands Prix on day one

Entrants from Armenia and Nigeria make history by being the first to take home a Lion for their country

Cannes Lions kicks-off the 70th edition of the Festival with the first Awards Show of the week. The winners of the Pharma, Health & Wellness, Outdoor, Print & Publishing and Radio & Audio Lions were announced, as well as the Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good.

This year, entrants from Armenia and Nigeria made history by being the first to take home a Lion for their country; Bronze Lions in Radio & Audio and Health & Wellness Lions respectively.

Simon Cook, CEO, LIONS, said, “We’re delighted to honour our first Lion winners who are raising the creative bar on the global stage. Thank you to all of our exceptional Jurors who have given their time, dedication and expertise to define the creative benchmark for the Festival’s 70th edition.”

The Outdoor Lions, celebrating creativity experienced out of home, received 1938 entries and 59 Lions were awarded: 9 Gold, 19 Silver and 30 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘A British Original’ by Uncommon Creative Studio, London for British Airways. The work explores the multitude of reasons people travel by responding to the box-ticking question ‘What is the purpose of your visit?’ With witty responses across 500 print, digital and outdoor executions, the work was delivered with impressive scale. Commenting on the win, Outdoor Lions Jury President: Javier Campopiano, Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at Grey and Global Chief Creative Officer of OpenX From WPP, Grey/OpenX, said: “Under the surface of a classical OOH campaign, lays a platform that can hold an infinite amount of human truths, stories, desires, emotions, that can be crafted to connect with people wherever they are in their lives, geographically or emotionally.”

In the Print & Publishing Lions, which honour creativity in circulation, 814 entries were received and 26 Lions awarded: 4 Gold, 7 Silver, and 14 Bronze Lions, and the Grand Prix went to ‘Newspapers Inside The Newspaper Edition’ by Impact BBDO, Dubai, for AnNahar Newspaper. The work honours freedom of speech in Lebanon and the crisis that affected the publishing industry, using the newspaper’s daily edition to revive publications that had been shut down due to political failure and pressure. The Print & Publishing Jury said,“The Grand Prix was awarded to a brave piece of work that put into action a publication-based idea to defend the sanctity of a free press, and did it in a way that we hope sends a signal to the industry on how eternally innovative the future of publication can be.”

Radio & Audio Lions, celebrating creativity that is wired for sound, received 715 entries and 22 Lions were awarded: 3 Gold, 7 Silver, and 11 Bronze Lions. The Grand Prix went to the ‘Phone It In’ campaign by Colenso BBDO, Auckland for telecommunications company Skinny, New Zealand.

In the Health & Wellness Lions, honouring creativity for personal well-being, 1297 entries were received and 37 Lions awarded: 6 Gold, 13 Silver and 17 Bronze. The Grand Prix went to ‘The Last Performance’ By Special, Auckland, for Partners Life. This disruptive piece of work challenged Kiwis to rethink preconceptions around life insurance, encouraging New Zealanders to take action.

In the Pharma Lions, which celebrate life-changing creativity, from 354 entries, 13 Lions were awarded: 2 Gold, 4 Silver, and 6 Bronze Lions. The Jury awarded the Pharma Grand Prix to ‘Scrolling Therapy’ for Eurofarma by Dentsu Creative Buenos Aires / Dentsu Creative New York / Dentsu Creative Chicago.

The Lions Health and United Nations Foundation Grand Prix for Good was also announced and the Grand Prix went to ‘Working with Cancer’ for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), by La Foundation Publicis Chicago / Publicis Conseil Paris / Le Truc New York / Digitas New York / Saatchi & Saatchi Health, New York / Publicis Groupe UK, London.

Special awards also awarded:

The Healthcare Network of the Year

Rank:

1. FCB Health
2. Klick Health
3. PUBLICIS

Healthcare Agency of the Year

Rank:

1. AREA 23, an IPG Health Network Company, New York, USA
2. KLICK HEALTH, Toronto, Canada
3. 21GRAMS, Part Of Real Chemistry, New York, USA