HBO banks on stars to energise sales teams

St Patrick, who stars as Keith, the angst-ridden former lover to Michael Hall's David in the show, was due to visit at press-time, but had to pull out due to extended filming commitments. However, HBO's director of marketing communications Caroline Wong said the broadcaster was looking to bring St Patrick in next year, coinciding with the show's fifth season. "We are always seeking to bring stars to Asia for our properties as part of our training initiative for our call centre personnel (CCP)," said Wong. HBO had planned the visit to give the award-winning series "a larger than life feel" for CCPs, who sell subscriptions for the premium channel. "CCPs only deal with customers on the phone and have to handle rejection; visits (by stars) will help make selling easy, fun and larger than life for them," said Suarina Chan, vice-president of affiliate sales. "CCPs play a crucial role in our subscriptions sales, particularly as we are a premium channel; these visits acknowledge their role and help put HBO top-of-mind with CCPs." Citing Singapore's cluttered environment as an example, Chan noted that CCPs for its cable partner StarHub were selling telco and internet services on top of pay-TV. StarHub has an overall subscriber base of about 380,000, which "is a big pool of subscribers for us to tap", according to Chan. St Patrick has hosted training videos, which HBO has used in the region. He has done similar motivational visits to CCP staff in the US. The planned visits are part of HBO's Originals programming strategy build its brand as well as drive subscriber usage. This year saw HBO bring in four new series and movies, the most it has brought to the region since the launch of its 'Originals' strategy three years ago. In October, it will launch Carnivale series, followed by made-for-cable-TV movie Angels in America at year-end. "Based on client feedback, our cable operator partners see value in our Originals strategy to drive subscription and renewal sales."