ABS-CBN opening first experience store

MANILA, Philippines - Media and entertainment firm ABS-CBN Corp. will open an experience store that will allow individuals to be part of their favorite television programs as part of efforts to further grow its consumer business.

“We envision the store to be a place where people can re-enact scenes from their favorite shows, where they can come to regularly interact with our stars, and where they can find new ways to experience everything ABS-CBN has to offer,”  ABS-CBN president and CEO Carlo Katigbak said during the 23rd National Retailers Conference and Expo.

The experience store is meant to allow the company to connect to viewers amid rising digital consumption. 

ABS-CBN’s consumer businesses account for P17 billion in annual revenues, or 45 percent of the company’s total revenues.

The bulk or 55 percent comes from advertising.

ABS-CBN’s consumer business is composed of subscription, ticketed experiences, and durable goods.

The subscription business, which includes cable and broadband provider SKY, The Filipino Channel, and ABS-CBNmobile, is the largest contributor to the company’s consumer sales.

Accounting for the second biggest share in consumer sales is the ticketed experiences category composed of movies, concerts, mall events, studio tours and the recently launched mini-theme park Kidzania.

Durable goods, which cover ABS-CBN TVplus digital boxes, licensed ABS-CBN merchandise, and products sold via the O Shopping Channel, are the company’s youngest but fastest growing business.  

The home shopping project is now nearly a P1 billion business and 70 percent of the purchases made are paid through Cash On Delivery (COD) with a cancellation rate of only five percent.

ABS-CBN was likewise able to sell pay-per-view on ABS-CBN TVplus by allowing consumers to pay using the load on their ABS-CBN mobile phones.

“There’s so much more that we are excited to do with mobile phones. Think about being able to buy our music or our movies over the internet, and paying for it via load instead of via credit card.  Between COD and mobile payment, we really believe we have powerful enablers for doing business on a digital platform,” Katigbak said.

The company is continuously looking for new ways to provide unique and interactive experiences for its customers.

“We need to deliver unique customer experiences.  And if these experiences are good enough, if they deepen the emotional connections with our content, if they create an emotional high, then a happy consequence of that is we are able to sell merchandise too,” Katigbak said.