ITV Box Office selects Venue from Paywizard and Ostmodern to drive loyalty among pay-per-view customers
Paywizard, the subscription, billing and customer relationship management (CRM) expert, and Ostmodern, the broadcast content and video on demand (VoD) specialist, have today announced that ITV Box Office, the live events pay-per-view (PPV) arm of UK commercial broadcaster ITV, has selected Venue to drive long term loyalty from PPV customers, and support the company’s ongoing balanced revenue strategy.
Venue reflects the shared Paywizard and Ostmodern philosophy of managing PPV TV viewers by treating them as long term customers rather than one-off buyers. Too many PPV products have been developed by retrofitting existing over-the top (OTT) video services, without considering the unique circumstances of PPV. Venue enables ITV to execute individual PPV events successfully, while simultaneously building strong and loyal ongoing relationships with their customer base.
The solution is currently live, and deployed to support the launch of the World Boxing Super Series, which ITV Box Office is screening exclusively across a range of platforms in the UK and Ireland. The series features world title bouts between high profile cruiserweight and super-middleweight fighters including Chris Eubank Jr and George Groves. Venue provides the broadcaster with an operationally scalable model, which can comfortably handle the volumes of such peak events, while providing further monetisation capabilities designed to support ITV’s strategy to provide these services across multiple devices and platforms.
“As an established and trusted partner of ITV Box Office, Paywizard’s extensive experience in successfully delivering both PPV and subscription TV means they really understood our need for a robust, scalable solution. When they launched Venue with Ostmodern, we felt their philosophy around treating PPV viewers as long term subscribers aligned with our over-arching strategy in growing our pay-per-view offering. Venue was the perfect fit. We know that we can work with it as a solution, collaborating with both Paywizard and Ostmodern, as we further develop our ITV Box Office service.” said Neale Dennett, director, pay content and packages, ITV.
“We are seeing a huge trend towards free-to-air (FTA) broadcasters increasingly diversifying revenue streams, and for operators like ITV who already have an expansive and loyal UK customer base and a large market share, pay-per-view definitely presents an exciting opportunity for further growth. However, for customers who commit to short-term purchases for specific content, it is important that operators can deliver the same quality and service as if they were long-term paying customers,” said Bhavesh Vaghela, CEO at Paywizard.
Thomas Williams, CEO at Ostmodern, added: “Venue provides ITV with the opportunity not only to set up and run successful PPV events with ease, but also to ensure that viewers feel valued and supported throughout their journey from purchase to consuming content. This is through personalised engagement and data-driven marketing to drive long term loyalty.”
By the combination of deep experience, a proven technology infrastructure and supporting services, rights holders, sports clubs, federations and broadcasters can turn monetisation from single events into an evolved PPV service. Venue ensures operators can drive loyalty and growth through data-driven actions. These can include: targeted marketing campaigns; offers for premium extras, such as VR content and merchandise; or even related deals on video on demand subscriptions for regular customers.
Venue is based on the multi-award winning ‘Decision Moments’ dashboard capability and data-driven features of Paywizard Agile, combined with Ostmodern’s Skylark OTT platform and expertise in digital product design. Venue also leverages the eight critical ‘Decision Moments’ in the PPV customer journey: Find, Join, Consume, Upgrade, Downgrade, Bill, Leave and Win Back.