One of the most interesting and inspiring stories at this year’s NEM 2017 is the one concerning Izzet Pinto, Founder and President of Global Agency, which is distributing agency for famous Turkish drama series, as well as reality TV formats.
Famous formats that were bought from Global Agency include „1001 Night“ and „Magnificent Century“ and were shown in the Balkans region; the Turkish drama „Mother“ will soon start to air on Croatian RTL.
The secrets of Izzet Pinto’s success can definitely be explained in terms of marketing strategies and the quality of content, as well as persistency. 10 years ago, Pinto was just a regular shoe seller in a family business, when his cousin talked him into the selling of formats, after several failed business opportunities. After he managed to sell the first format, which turned out to be a success in some countries, he turned to Turkish dramas and collected tapes from Turkish producers.
„At first, I thought that Turkish dramas were too local for them to be a selling point, but I tried. Among the first ones were „1001 Night“, which soon became number one in many countries. I had diamonds in my hands and didn’t realise it!“, explained Pinto.
When Pinto acquired rights for selling „Magnificent Century“, he almost went bankrupt since he put all of his money into promotion stunts all over Turkey. The risk paid off, since the series became an instant hit in more than 80 countries of the world.
„Today, we are proud that we are the first company to sell the remake right for the series „Game of Silence“, which was shown in the CEE region in Serbia on B92. We have also started with format creating and we had decent success with it – our first two formats were sold in 30 countries“, said Pinto at the end of the presentation dealing with his success.
The panel „Customers First“ raised a question – who are the customers that formats are bought for and how stereotypical is the audience in general. Guy Bisson, Research Director at Ampere Analysis, pointed out that television is just no longer about millennials. The population is aging and media companies are starting to realise that and are waking up. Bisson’s research showed that today’s homes with young kids are watching a lot less linear TV and much more online content; the age group from 18 – 24 are watching even less linear, so the main question is: what do custumers want? Carmen Alzner, Co-owner and Director at murphy+alzner, said that the industry needs to focus on creating something that makes people want to pause whatever they are watching:
„We reach at mobile phone 150 times a day, we look for shareable moments, we are out there, looking for entertainment. A brand has to be aware of this and read people the right way – Pepsi made a big mistake in terms of knowing its audience.“
Boris Trupčević, General Manager for Croatia at Styria Media Group, pointed out that everything is in constant change and that „FANG“ (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) want to kill traditional broadcast TV. Styria’s response to this was foundation of „Joomboos“, a YouTube channel that represents YouTube stars from Croatia:
„Teenagers want to become like their idols – YouTubers. They are being treated like celebrities! This is the proof that you must go to the audience and meet your customers, because you cannot see everything from research“.
„From Affiliate Sales to Content Distribution Management“ dealt with the way of distributing content and making marketing strategies for it. Gabor Harsanyi, Vice President of Content Distribution Management for Viacom, explained how Viacom is functioning on different platforms with different business models. From linear and nonlinear television, affiliate marketing and consumer products, to program sales, OTG events and sponsorships, Viacom showed their wide range of promotional strengths.
One of the most interesting persons who managed to pack the room for his closed workshop was Goran Vlašić, Council Chair at the Innovation Institute. The Q&A session with Vlašić saw a wide range of subjects, but it was mostly focused on the CEE mentality:
„We have a lot of Nikola Teslas, but a lot less people who know what to do with their creativity! There is a strong aversion to risk in our regional culture. Companies shouldn’t have nationalities or locations!“
Stanislav Kimchev, moderator of the Q&A session, asked Vlašić why everybody is trying to make a copy of Silicon Valley in their country. Vlašić noted that it is much easier for the human brain to copy things than to make up something new. The topic of piracy was also on the menu, where Vlašić pointed out that finding a new business model to incorporate it is better than fighting piracy per se – YouTube has found a good business model based on the ‘everybody makes money’ philosophy – including content and advertising.
„Let me choose for you“ was based mostly on big data analysis and usage in TV industry. Although it seems that big data is just a lot of numbers and texts, it includes much more – in media, they can track behaviour. Richard John Brešković, Director of Marketing for Hrvatski telekom, noted that the term big data is old fashioned and that he would insist on the term „customers insights“, since it is softer and describes better what this analytic model does. Nick Zhao, Director of Video Business in the CEE/Nordic region at Huawei Technologies, pointed out that big data should be used for improving user experience and smarter business intelligence. But, who owns big data? Meelis Lukka, Head of Technology at Viaplay Baltic, thought that everybody owns a bit of data and that this shouldn’t be something that should be hidden.
The day was closed with an absolutely stunning presentation from Julius film, a young production company which has made a homage to Blade Runner in their own garage with no budget at all. With a lot of creativity, they managed to make whole city out of miniatures, different light compositions and textures. Dino and Luka revealed to the audience all the little secrets and announced a Kickstarted campaign to finance production cost for their short movie „Slice of life“.
After panels, NEM guests had the opportunity to relax themselves on networking party sponsored by FOX NETWORKING GROUP, held at Lazareti.
