25 May 2018
VGI unveils the vision: “Pioneering Solutions for Tomorrow” Strength to strength, reaching THB 10 billion within 3 years
VGI celebrated its 20th anniversary unveiling a new vision: “Pioneering Solutions for Tomorrow.”Having expanded its business offerings from the traditional offline Out-of-Home (“OOH”) media toembrace an integrated offline and online platform, the company envisions itself as the industry’sleading provider of Offline-to-Online (“O2O”) solutions; ultimately aiming to optimise customerengagement and deliver a seamless and meaningful customer experience.
VGI’s ecosystem is comprised of the company’s main advertising platforms including Transit,Outdoor, Office and Airport; payment and digital services under its subsidiary, Rabbit Group; andlast mile delivery services under Kerry Express and Demo Power, with its vast data pool serving asthe key unlocking the synergies between these different entities.
When it was first established 20 years ago, VGI recognised the tremendous opportunities theadvertising landscape in Thailand could offer. Accordingly, it started out by being a pioneer mediaservice provider transferring advertising from in-home to out-of-home, shifting share from aformerly television dominant market. Through its diversified portfolio, which consolidates amultitude of OOH advertising platforms – from transit and streets to buildings and airports – thecompany has since progressed to become the country’s largest OOH media company with over THB6,800 million inventory on hand.
With the acceleration of internet access and the corresponding growth in the popularity of digitaland online marketing, VGI has shifted its focus from raising awareness toward empowering brandsand marketers to better understand and stay ahead of the ever-changing consumer behaviour, andthereby to engage with their target audience more effectively. Recognising the need for a strongdatabase to help fulfill this new objective, the company took a decisive step to acquire RabbitGroup in 2017 in order to capitalise on Rabbit’s sophisticated data sets and technology within itspayment and digital service platforms.
In its most recent transaction, VGI further expanded its ecosystem to last-mile delivery through aninvestment in Kerry Express (Thailand) Limited in a deal worth over THB 5,900 million –the biggestin the Company’s investment – giving it 23% stake in the logistics giant. This latest venture represents yet another step in VGI’s effort to deliver the best solutions for clients, whereby thecompany would leverage Kerry’s logistics capabilities to harmonise its offline and online platformsto create complete seamless solutions that would better respond to consumer needs in this dayand age.
Speaking at VGI’s Pioneering Solutions for Tomorrow Day, Kavin Kanjanapas, Chairman of VGI,noted: “To put it simply, our vision is to create a seamless ecosystem. Our focus is no longer solelyon the advertising budget. Rather our three platforms, namely advertising, payment and logistics,will bring countless opportunities, including the capabilities to capture greater marketing share aswell as the growth of the e-commerce budget. While previously VGI was characteristically sensitiveto the cyclical patterns of Thailand’s advertising environment, our newly modified structuralfoundation for growth will make us more competitive and resilient. And with that, we aim to reachTHB 10 billion within the next 3 years.”
“We hope to be able to determine the exact value of our advertising assets relative to the rest ofthe market in the very near future,” said Nelson Leung, Deputy CEO of VGI. “Also, to ensure weremain at the top of the industry and consistent in providing optimal solutions for our stakeholders,we will work towards our company’s newly defined vision through three strategic steps: first, wewill digitalise only our top value OOH media assets; second, we will enrich our data throughstrategic alliances and research and development and third, we will strengthen our O2O platformthrough the continual enrichment of our data sources.”
