ITV seeks marketers to “exploit” hit shows
ITV is creating programme brand manager roles to “exploit” and “liberate” the value of its hit shows. Dawn Airey, managing director of global content, outlined the strategy at industry conference Promax this week.
She adds she is working with commercial and brand managing director Rupert Howell and group marketing director David Pemsel to establish individual programme brand managers around ITV shows, saying that marketing the individual channels is no longer enough.
Airey told the conference: “ITV has a wide variety of channel brands that our teams manage brilliantly on many platforms, and our channel brand positioning is critically important to their success. But increasingly we need to consider programme brands as well.
“We need to leverage the hell out of them [our programmes] to deliver the value which is, more often than not, going to waste – maximum opportunity plus maximum leverage equals maximum value.”
Airey pointed to Lost as a “powerful brand, with a recognisable logo, positioning and communications strategy that exists outside the transmission window”. She added: “While not every show is a Lost we can employ that strategic approach more widely to prevent value leaking out of the lifecycle of our own shows.”
She also outlined the emerging importance of marketing at the broadcaster claiming it used to be an “ad hoc sleeping beauty department” rather than a key strategic competence.
