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It's really important to utilize all of those different channels
again to drive awareness and interest in your brand and
engagement. And ultimately driving them back to the core
product. And because we are a storyline-driven business
and we are 52 weeks a year, with no off-season or re-runs,
we keep the storylines going.
Then we have over 200 different talent IP, over 200
superstars who are in and of themselves their own brands,
who are also on these social channels keeping you
engaged.
We have over 650 million social media followers right now
and that number grows every single day.
O'Reilly: Are there any particular geographical areas you
are focusing on expanding into?
McMahon: Yes, in China for example, we just had a big
press conference where we announced a new media
partnership with PPTV. We announced a live event
coming to Shanghai in September, and also we signed our
first ever Chinese superstar, whose name is Bin Wang. And
we also conducted a whole talent recruitment and try-out
for four days in Shanghai at the Mercedes Benz arena.
Out of that I believe we had seven recruits who we are
vetting to potentially bring back, so it's really exciting.
China is a focus for us, India is a clear focus for us, as well
as South America.
O'Reilly: You were talking about your mother earlier and
the inspiration you have taken from her. She left to run for
US senate. What are your thoughts on the current
presidential campaign right now?
McMahon: I think it's interesting, I was at a breakfast
earlier today, where it was mentioned not necessarily
the importance of the candidates but what's happening
in the culture in America right now and really in other
countries as well, which is the voice of the people. The
need for authenticity and the need for a real connection
point.
Trump was brought up as an example only because he
hasn't done the traditional marketing and advertising
spend, so he is presenting himself as more of a voice
of the people, leveraging and utilizing social media in
a very clever and smart way, regardless of what your
affiliation is, it's an interesting time in the world right
now and something we should all be paying attention
to.
O'Reilly: How about your own advertising spend?
How much is geared towards digital now versus the
traditional channels?
McMahon: I wouldn't say we are traditional in any
way, but again we are really platform agnostic. What
we do is we utilize and leverage a lot of our own
properties to really reach our consumers more directly
and it's a healthy mix of TV, digital, social, etc.
There are three key pieces to keeping audiences
engaged, and the evolution of that. One is a contentfirst strategy because you need to provide the best
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