Liberty Global outlines marketing plan for Horizon

Liberty Global will emphasise the different capabilities of its new Horizon box in different markets, according to Peter Dorr, managing director, strategic marketing, sales and customer care, Europe, Liberty Global.

The operator has created 10 categories of features, allowing marketers in each country in which the box is launched to pick a selection for their particular market, Dorr told attendees at the CTAM Europe EuroSummit yesterday. Liberty Global will use a set of phrases beginning with the word “Imagine” to convey the capabilities of the service to consumers. Phrases like “Imagine…you never have to miss a goal again” will form the basis of the campaign, which will also include the tagline “Everything you love is on TV”. Liberty Global has developed point-of-sale material for use in its stores in the Netherlands and will also run print and internet campaigns. The company will launch its full marketing campaign in the Netherlands in about a week.

Dorr said that as the box includes over 100 new features, Liberty Global has categorised these under three headings: all your favourite content; anywhere in the home; and any time you like. The operator is also using the tagline “horizon: endless TV from UPC” together with its established ‘blue bloom’ logo.

Liberty Global initially sought to target high-end customers as the first recipients of the Horizon box, followed by other existing customers and then non-customers, said Dorr. However, the high demand for the box meant that it made little sense to segment the market in this way, he said.  UPC has already sold five times the initial expected run, said Dorr. He said the main limitation the company faced was its ability to install devices quickly.

Dorr said that customer research had shown customers wanted “more freedom” to see content when and where they wanted, and that they wanted mobility, ease of use, personal relevance and interconnectedness of devices, eliminating clutter from multiple cables in the home.

The business rationale for the product was to grow the base of customers that paid for a product, Dorr told EuroSummit attendees. The operator is seeking to attract consumers from rival services and to attract customers that had not yet entered the digital TV market, he said. Second, Liberty Global is seeking to keep the customers it already has. Finally, the operator is also looking to upsell subscribers to full triple-play packages and upsell basic customers to premium tiers and increase video-on-demand use.

Liberty Global is using Jungo’s Panorama customer care interface, which gives customer care representatives a more comprehensive view of the customer’s experience in the home. There is also a Horizon Assistant service on the box itself and online tutorials to enable consumers to use all the features of the device more easily, said Dorr.