Sky Appoints i-Level To Drive Subscriber Growth

Satellite broadcaster, BSkyB, has appointed i-level to help drive continued growth in sales of Sky digital and Sky+ via its sky.com website.

Over 7.7 million customers in the UK and Ireland now receive sky digital, with the number of Sky+ customers more than doubling to 770,000 in the 12 months to 31 March 2005.

Around 15% of new subscriptions are currently achieved via sky.com, showing that the internet is considered as a primary customer acquisition channel, enabling the broadcaster to reach its goals of 10 million subscribers in 2010 and 25% penetration of Sky+ within its customer base (see Sky Confident Subscriber Rise Can Quash Freeview).

Commenting on the deal, Dawn Whittaker, Sky’s head of internet marketing said: “Sky.com is a highly cost effective channel for new customer acquisitions. We look forward to working with i-level to deliver continued progress towards our ambitious growth targets.”

The decision to award the business to i-level was reached after a competitive selection process, Charlie Dobres, deputy chairman of i-level said: “To win an account of the size and prestige of Sky is a fantastic testament to what I believe is an unrivalled quality of people, thinking and campaign results at i-level.

Dobres added: “Internet advertising itself in the UK has really hit an amazing growth period so our approach since the beginning of the year has been to be constantly geared up to be able to handle significant wins.”

The internet’s dominance in terms of advertising is confirmed by other industry experts. New figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the World Advertising Centre (WARC) reveal that online adspend in the UK topped £653.3 million in 2004, compared to £407.8 million in 2003, an increase of 60% year on year (see Sky Sees Subscriber Increases At A Cost).

BSkyB recently exceeded industry predictions with stronger than expected subscriber growth for the third quarter, achieving net direct-to-home growth (DTH) of 95,000, up from 66,000 in the same period last year.

Sky: 08702 40 40 40 www.sky.com