Latin Marketing, VOD Were Hot Courses
By Multi Channel News Staff -- Multichannel News, 7/15/2002 10:34:00 AM
Boston -- Cable operators and programmers got tutored on hot-button industry issues ranging from marketing to the Latin community and the pro and cons of video-on-demand Sunday during the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing's master courses.
Addressing the issue of how to target Hispanics, the demographic du jour, CTAM attendees learned how Cox Communications Inc. adjusted the original Spanish-language package it created in Phoenix, where 25 percent of the market is Latin.
During the course, 'Grow Your Cash Flow Through Proven Multicultural Marketing,' Tony Maldonado, Cox's vice president of marketing in Phoenix, described how his system's original package to Latins was $48 -- pricey for an ethnic group that largely didn't have cable in the first place. That package included 14 Spanish-language networks, digital and expanded basic.
Cox stripped down the package to include only a digital set-top, the Spanish networks and broadcast basic, bypassing expanded basic and, thereby, cutting the offering's price to $28.40. That effort boosted Cox's success selling the package to Hispanics.
Cox's strategy is to get Latin homes, which are multigenerational, to upgrade over time and buy more cable services, including expanded basic, according to Maldonado.
Early CTAM Summiteers jammed the session on 'Launching On-Demand Services,' where Charter Communications Inc. executives Kathie O'Connor, director of pay-per-view marketing and VOD, and Mitchell Miller, senior director of VOD, described their MSO's experience with that offering.
O'Connor pointed out that VOD carries hefty costs for content, capital and operations. 'Pay-per-view operates on a very slim margin,' she said. 'The margin gets even slimmer with VOD.'
But, she noted, an investment-bank study has projected that the return on investment on VOD is 58 percent within five to six years, matching the ROI for high-speed data and telephony.
VOD is crucial to operators as 'a gateway to interactive services,' O'Connor said. She suggested that MSOs place VOD on their program lineups as a channel, making it easy for subscribers to access.
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