Sky takes pay-TV upmarket
BSkyB is launching a new campaign aimed at winning new customers to its pay-TV offering. Believed to be the company's biggest ad campaign in six years, the campaign will mark a shift in emphasis for pay-TV.
Instead of its traditional focus on soccer and pricing, BSkyB will try and lure another type of customer with movies, cultural programming and children's programmes.
For the last two quarters, the New Corp-controlled Sky has failed to meet expectations and is facing huge pressure to reach its 8m target by the end of next year and its 10m target by 2010.
Sky has boosted its annual marketing budget by half to around £75m the ending next July. The company will not reveal how much of this is earmarked for the new campaign.
The marketing push will continue through Christmas and will comprise a series of TV ads showing clips from hit films and programmes. These will be accompanied by the campaign's slogan: "What do you want to watch?"
Clips from Finding Nemo and Monty Python and the Holy Grail will be shown along with clips from cult TV series 24.
"We don't want to be seen as a utility. We want to be seen as an entertainment company," said Jon Florsheim, managing director of sales and marketing.
Links open in a new window. The DTG is not responsible for the content of other web sites.