Loading ...Freesat has won the ‘Best New Brand or Business’ category at the Marketing Society Awards for Excellence, beating off competition which included the BBC’s iPlayer service.
The award reflects the great strides Freesat has made in only its first year, exceeding 400,000 sales and offering viewers over 140 digital television and radio channels, including the BBC and ITV HD services.
Will Abbott, Freesat’s marketing director comments;
We are delighted and proud to win this award as it highlights the impact we have made over the last 12 months – spending a fraction of the budget of our competitors – and the incredible work of the whole company. We’re already building on this success through 2009 – adding more customers, channels and launching IPTV services such as BBC iPlayer.
Freesat has used PR agency Borkowski since launch. Farm handle all advertising creative work and media is planned and bought by MPG.
Freesat press release
June 10th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I was not aware they did any marketing when the service was 1st launched, it was almost a word of mouth thing! I think it’s been so successful because everyone wants some free HD to show off their new HD TV’s. In the recession the service seems to have slowed down a lot and the expected other HD channels seem delayed in coming live. Maybe when the HD freeview service gets launched the other HD channels will join freesat as well.
Lee BQuote
June 10th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I can clearly remember the adverts in newspapers. It was an excellant campaign
DenisQuote
June 10th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Yep saw adverts in papers, online and on tv, great campaign.
But the HD really did drive it, there is huge pent up demand for this service with all the new TV sets people have.
zagQuote
June 10th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Well done to all of you.
@zag I can only echo zag. Just a pity the broadcasters will not see the potential with this non subscription service yet. But from small acorns eh?
Iain.DQuote
June 10th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
@ Zag “….there is huge pent up demand for this service with all the new TV sets people have.”
Is there? With HD boxes available from £100.79 (inc, p&p), why are they waiting?
Perhaps they’ve gone to another provider?
derek500Quote
June 10th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
@ Lee B “….and the expected other HD channels seem delayed in coming live.”
I’m not aware of any other HD channels that were expected to come to Freesat. Do you know something that the rest of us don’t?
derek500Quote
June 11th, 2009 at 6:27 am
well done all at freesat on your success
i hope you continue grow and prosper,
a very informative site thanks..
m o malleyQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 8:55 am
I think JoinFreesat deserves this award along with the all users because Freesat’s campaign has been all but non existent and how anyone can suggest the Antiques Roadshow based Advert deserves an award is beyond me.
The best adverts for HD are currently on BBC HD – the boys fishing and netting a shark out of a pond, and the one with the lion running. The only problem is that you need BBC HD already to see them!!!!
Also, on the subject of quality, those adverts show what HD should be like, saturated, punchy, clear and ultra sharp. Pity all the programming can’t live up to the adverts (although most of BBC HD is good if not great).
Al (Original)Quote
June 11th, 2009 at 9:13 am
@ Al (Original) “……and how anyone can suggest the Antiques Roadshow based Advert deserves an award is beyond me”.
That was a BBC HD promotion, nothing to do with Freesat!!!
derek500Quote
June 11th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Having been in Marketing for years, I can’t understand why this advertising campaign won an award??? C’mon people, who can ever remember it? We’ve all seen memorable TV/Press commercials, sorry, this was NOT one of em! We are the one’s championing Freesat, not them. I say the award should go to this site, which has nothing to to with Freesat anyway. Well done to the boys that run this site!
SaltydawgQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
AI & Saltydawg,
I agree, I think much of the success of freesat is down to joinfreesat and the free HD on offer. I think we can also thank Sky for having a monthly £10 HD charge, as without the extra fees they might have won a few more converts.
Lee BQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
@ Lee B “I think we can also thank Sky for having a monthly £10 HD charge, as without the extra fees they might have won a few more converts.”
Sky HD is not doing too bad. It’s outselling Freesat HD by a 4 to 1 ratio. Now the initial rush for the PVR has gone, I’ll expect the next set of figures to be even better for Sky.
derek500Quote
June 11th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
@derek500 I never said Sky are doing badly, any company nearly giving away HD boxes, internet plus huge quidco payments can’t fail to pull in customers, when a freesat HDR is still expensive and HD limited, but imagine if Sky had not got the HD charge, how many of the existing freesat users might have just gone with Sky? I know I might have been tempted.
Lee BQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Freesat gained approx. 320,000 HD sales in the last year; are you saying Sky managed 1,280,000 new sales over the same period? I’m not sure that is right!
adminQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
Freesat scoops Marketing Society Award………………..for over exagerating HD on its service!
Heard today that Channel 5HD will launch on freeserve next year.
Come on Freesat pull your finger out!
pedroQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Freeserve……………..I mean Freeview
pedroQuote
June 11th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
It is correct that terrestrial digital TV hopes to include HD channels in due course, but the roll out will be regional because the additional bandwidth (channels) can only be found as the analogue services close down. Some areas will have to wait quite a few years. There has already been an engineering test in London (for those with suitable kit and knowledge) but the actual service for London is a long way off.
In addition your existing Freeview TV or box will not receive HD channels because the code is different. I rather doubt that the firmware will upgrade on any existing unit, and it will be a case of buy a new decoder for HD. It will, of course, eventually be built into TVs in the same way as existing SD Freeview tuners are now.
Buy a Freesat unit now and don’t wait for a terrestrial service based on silly rumours, or an expectation of a service “next week”. Regards.
DerekQuote
June 12th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Seems a waste of time to spend all this money developing freeview HD, when it will only ever be a limited service i.e. Maybe 4 HD channels. Money would be better spent on freesat which has the ability to transmit a large number of HD channels and is not restricted to areas the analog signal has been shut off in. Freesat is really crying out for some more HD channels now, maybe freesat can drop the EPG charge for any HD channels that join.
Lee BQuote
June 12th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
@ Lee B There hundreds of thousands of people who live in flats etc. that are unable to receive DSAT transmissions. Why should they be deprived of HD channels.
derek500Quote
June 12th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
June 12th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
@derek500 This is a Freesat website, sorry for being pro freesat. I stand by my statement that a freeview HD service will only ever be a limited service due to the small amount of bandwidth available, and Freesat is the better choice….if available to you in your dwelling!.
Lee BQuote
June 12th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
@ ian-d “Freesat gained approx. 320,000 HD sales in the last year; are you saying Sky managed 1,280,000 new sales over the same period? I’m not sure that is right!”
I said it’s outselling, not outsold.
In the most recent quarters’ figures published for both platforms we have 243,000 for Sky HD, against 70,000 (approx as we don’t know the exact SD/HD ratio) for Freesat HD.
Maybe it’s a 3:1 ratio.
derek500Quote
June 12th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
@derek500
Nice to see you pay attention to what’s being said on this site. BTW it was admin who commented on your point…not me.
Iain.DQuote
June 12th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
derek500 – fair enough, for a quarter, but you compare an entire year, the ratio isn’t that high, as per your previous discussion on this:
Iain.D – derek500 wasn’t referring to you with ‘ian-d’, but my handle on DigitalSpy
adminQuote
June 13th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Any chance of doing a new poll? I would be interested to find out what the ‘early adopters- pre PVR’ are doing/have done with their original box.
Opyions could be:-
It’s still my main box.
I’ve upgraded to the PVR and kept the original in use somewhere else.
I’ve upgraded to the PVR and the original not used anymore.
I’ve upgraded to the PVR and sold/given away my original box.
I’ve since switched to another provider e.g. Sky HD/Virgin.
Other.
derek500Quote
June 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
All very well but what is happening about further HD channels on Freesat?
Just read a post on Whathifi.com re introduction of C5 HD in 2010.
http://whathifi.com/News/Channel-Five-to-launch-HD-programmes-on-Freeview-from-2010/
This info also suggests that C4 are keen to get on the bandwagon akthough they lost out on this occasion !
Sos if you want more HD it looks as though it’s back to Freeview ?
peterhbQuote
June 14th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
@ peterhb C4 have already been given a Freeview HD slot. It was totally expected that C5 would get the this one and not Film4.
derek500Quote