AS pay-TV provider Astro Malaysia Holdings Bhd works harder to defend subscription revenue on the back of rapidly changing consumer viewing behavior with the advent of on-demand video streaming; it is only natural to invest in better technology to harness its first-party data and strengthen its value proposition. This is not just to capture subscribers' attention but also for marketers looking to tap their subscriber base.
Last November, Astroโs decision to pioneer addressable advertising in Southeast Asia harnesses investments to target advertising better to win more advertising dollars, making up just over 10% of its revenue now.
That 10.7% for FY1/2022 may be small relative to the 73.3%, or some RM3 billion, coming annually from its subscription revenue alone. It is worth noting, though, that Astro would have seen a quarter-on-quarter decline in revenue in the fourth quarter ended Jan 31, 2022 (4QFY1/2022) if not for a significant jump in advertising revenue. Still, a lot more work needs to be done โ the year-on-year growth in advertising revenue of about RM21 million for FY1/2022 to RM448 million was not enough to compensate for the RM186 million or 5.7% y-o-y decline in subscription revenue in FY1/2022.
When officially launching Astroโs addressable advertising solutions on June 14, its group CEO Henry Tan told media buyers and planners that Astroโs overall viewership is โfar stronger today than in the pastโ and that it can now allow ads to be better targeted at its 5.6 million TV customers covering 72% of Malaysian households.
โUsing Astroโs first-party data, marketers can target their ads to segments based on income, location, dwelling types, and purchasing behavior, thus creating a highly relevant context for advertisers and personalized ads for viewers,โ Tan says. He describes addressable advertising as โthe next level of TV advertising that merges the best of TVโs emotional persuasion power with intelligent data,…