In this interview, Carlos Granier-Phelps, CEO of GoTV – Pongalo.com, talks in depth about the organization of Pongalo.com and tells us what his expectations are for the rest of the year, as well as the company’s strategies for reaching Latin American audiences.
Portada: What are the company’s goals and objectives for this year?
Carlos Granier-Phelps: To establish ourselves as a premium entertainment destination in Spanish for the Hispanic market.
Q: How do you manage content? What distribution agreements do you have in place?
CGP: We have a fairly flexible plan. We have exclusive and non-exclusive agreements for certain titles and entire libraries. Sometimes we take care of the whole content digitization process and other times we receive ready-made material. We also produce our own content. We can control where and when each program can be seen. We share the profits generated by each title with its respective supplier.
Q: What are the most visited categories?
CGP: It varies, but the highest viewed categories are the TV signals we broadcast live, as well as comedy and soap opera clips, which have a strong following because users view all episodes and are always keeping an eye out for new material we post.
Q: How do you handle the site’s ad marketing?
CGP: We have a direct sales team, as well as accounts with major ad networks and representatives in different Latin American countries.
Q: Who are your biggest advertisers?
CGP: At the moment, Toyota, Kraft and General Mills.
Q: What are your expectations regarding the agreement with The X-Corp?
CGP: It's just the first step in what we hope will be a deeper collaborative partnership that will allows us to boost their social networking project, and consolidate our brand and content within the U.S. Hispanic market.
Q. Do you have plans to strengthen the site in Latin America and any countries in particular?
CGP: We are making a big push in Venezuela, with thousands of new clips added each month and new local marketing alliances. We also have some interesting projects at an advanced stage in Colombia, Argentina and Mexico.
Q: Are you currently running any advertising campaigns to promote the site? If so, what are your targets and where are you conducting the campaign?
CGP: So far, all our publicity has been conducted through our social network users — mainly Twitter and Facebook). We have an account on Twitter, “@pongalo,” where we announce new content available on the site.
