Four Named Media Brand Of The Year

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Friday 25 May, 2012

Four Named Media Brand Of The Year

MediaWorks’ television channel FOUR was last night named Media Brand of the Year at the CAANZ Media Awards.

The award caps a stellar first sixteen months for the young channel, which grabbed New Zealand’s attention by floating a 40 foot yellow duck in Auckland Harbour in February 2011, and has grown rapidly to become the fourth most significant television channel in the New Zealand market.

Since launch, FOUR has won the hearts and eyeballs of audience and advertisers. The channel’s primetime audience has grown by a remarkable 51%,* and sales revenue is up by 30% year-on-year, with FOUR now an integral part of advertisers’ television schedules.

FOUR was launched by MediaWorks as a pure entertainment channel aimed at 18-49 year-olds. Featuring the latest series of hit shows like The Simpsons, New Girl, Family Guy, America’s Next Top Model , How I Met Your Mother, The Glee Project and Survivor, FOUR quickly delivered on its mission to delight, surprise and entertain.

The channel’s bold and irreverent marketing campaigns, developed with Special Group and SparkPHD, include the high profile rebranding of FOUR as 'The home of NOT rugby' during Rugby World Cup 2011, and the current tagline of ‘NZ’s most liked TV channel’ which celebrates FOUR’s dominance in the social media space, with over 110,000 facebook fans (more than twice the number of any other free-to-air television channel).

Earlier this month, FOUR broke audience records when a quarter of a million viewers tuned into the 500th episode of The Simpsons, and MediaWorks is promising a big winter on FOUR, including premieres of A-list American shows Grimm, American Horror Story, and Don’t Trust the B---- in Apartment 23, and new seasons of American’s Next Top Model, The Glee Project and Skins.

MediaWorks Group Managing Director Sussan Turner says the win caps sixteen months of incredible success for FOUR.

“Launching a new mainstream television channel is a rare and exciting opportunity, and an enormous undertaking,” she says. “Introducing FOUR was a bold move for us, and the pay off has been truly exceptional – increased free-to-air programming choice for viewers, new and exciting opportunities for advertisers, and great business results for MediaWorks.

“This win is testament to the hard work and vision of everyone involved in bringing FOUR to life from right across the company, as well as the efforts of our colleagues in the agencies.”

FOUR MediaWorks, SparkPHD and Special Group took home two other awards for their work on FOUR, winning Gold in the Best Use of Event/Activation category and Silver in the Media/Entertainment/Travel and Leisure category.

MediaWorks TV also won Silver in the Best Sales Proposal of the Year category for their innovative, multi-platform The X Factor USA proposal for the NZ Lotteries Commission.

The CAANZ Media Awards recognise the strategy and thinking behind the best advertising campaigns in the New Zealand market.

For a taste of FOUR visit http://www.four.co.nz/TV/Entertainment/MediaReleases.aspx

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