TOWONA Received the 'Most Valuable New Media Award for Ad Placement' in China

BEIJING, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- At the recently-ended 2009 China Enterprise Spokesman and Media Value Annual Conference & Awards Ceremony, TOWONA was given two awards in recognition of its No. 1 position in terms of scale and strength in public transit TV resource coverage and its quality results recognized by 4A agencies and advertisers. TOWONA was awarded the 2009 Most Valuable New Media Award for Ad Placement in China, and the 2009 Valued Media Contributor award was awarded to Professor Gareth Chang, chairman & CEO of TOWONA, as well as Ouyang Changlin, head & secretary of the CPC Committee of Radio & TV Bureau of Hunan Province, Li Xiaofeng, president & head of Chongqing Broadcast & Television Group (General Station), and Xu Shaoda, head of Liaoshen Evening News. This is another award given to TOWONA following the Leading Brand of New Media award that TOWONA received at the China International Advertising Festival in November 2009.

Dominating China's Public Transit TV Industry Through Serial M&A

To meet the ever-growing ad placement demands of advertisers, underpinned by TOWONA's overall performance that has bucked the industry's downward trend to climb upward, TOWONA has made active moves in pushing for resources integration in the public transit TV industry since October 2009, acquiring and monopolizing the public transit resources in downtown Guangzhou as well as in Harbin, and becoming the exclusive advertising agent in Chengdu. Meanwhile, TOWONA continues to make a series of strategic moves to expand aggressively into Tianjin and Beijing, which have helped increase TOWONA's industry shares significantly. Currently, TOWONA covers over 30 major cities across China, boasting about 130,000 TV terminals in 800,000-plus public buses. TOWONA has a large amount of resources in tier-1 cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen, while it has the monopolized coverage in more than twenty tier-2 and tier-3 cities (or regional urban centers), such as Qingdao, Harbin, and Xiamen, among others.

According to industry analysts, after taking the Chengdu and Harbin markets, TOWONA has broken the previous balance in public transit resources in the industry to tip the scale in favor of TOWONA, whose market share has well exceeded 60%. Its leading position in terms of market share, the raising of its brand profile and its highlighting of the value of media have all contributed directly to TOWONA's revenue growth. TOWONA saw about 20% revenue growth in Q1 2009 year-on-year, with the income from key accounts growing over 50%. Its revenues in Q2 soared nearly 80% year-on-year, or 60% month-on-month, with income from key accounts growing 190% year-on-year. The performance of TOWONA in the second half of the year is particularly noteworthy, with the revenue growth from key accounts maintaining strong momentum. Undoubtedly, the awards this time were the biggest encouragement and rewards for TOWONA's dedication and professionalism.

The 2009 China Enterprise Spokesman and Media Value Annual Conference & Awarding Ceremony were co-sponsored by the People's Daily Online, Tsinghua International Center for Communication Studies, and International Public Relations Research Center of Fudan University. More than 300 people attended this Annual Meeting in Beijing, wherein there were over thirty government officials and industry experts, including Zhai Huisheng, Party chief of the All-China Journalists' Association, Yang Weiguang, honorary chairman of the China TV Artists Association & former head of CCTV, He Jiazheng, president of the People's Daily Online, Yang Wujun, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of China, and Professor Cui Baoguo, deputy director of the School of Journalism and Communication of Tsinghua University. About 80 enterprise spokesmen, brand directors and PR directors, including Wang Yan, head of PR for Mercedes-Benz (China), Luan Jianghong, vice president of Public Affairs and Public Relations of MacDonald's (China), the general manager of the Marketing Dept. of Air China, and Xu Jun, director of Public Affairs of DuPont (China) also attended. Besides these distinguished participants, there were also 100-plus renowned media leaders and media organization professionals, including Liu Weixing, general manager of Shaanxi Broadcasting Group, Chen Zhaohua, chief editor of Southern Metropolis Weekly, Fan Xuwen, assistant chief of Hunan TV Station & director of the Advertisement Division, and Jiao Shuhui, vice general manager of Henan Daily Newspaper Group. TOWONA had in-depth communication and exchanges with the participants and its media value and brand effectiveness were widely recognized by all participants.

About TOWONA Media:

TOWONA Media Holding Company Limited operates the largest OOH advertising networks using real-time mobile digital television broadcasts to deliver content and advertising on bus transportation in China.

In January 2003, TOWONA Media was established in Xiamen. Since 2006, TOWONA has received large-scale capital injection from many top international venture companies, including Cathay Capital, CDH Investments, Walden International, Chengwei Ventures and Baring Private Equity Asia.

In April, 2006 TOWONA moved its headquarters to Beijing, composed of 5 core departments: the Marketing Center, Human Resources & Administration Center, Finance Center, Program Center and Operations Center. In July, 2008 TOWONA appointed Prof. Gareth Chang, a renowned international media and technology business leader, who aims to create value by leading TOWONA media to be more customer-focused as chairman and CEO.

TOWONA owns many subsidiaries and representative offices throughout China. Its nationwide mobile TV advertising networks covers 35 Chinese major cities, and is available on over 80,000 buses and about 130,000 TV terminals, reaching hundreds of millions of urban residents every day.

    For more information, please contact:

    TOWONA Media Holding Co., Ltd.
     Harris Wong
     Media PR Manager
     Email: [email protected]
     Tel:   +86-10-59270032
     Web:   http://www.towona.com

SOURCE TOWONA Media Holding Company Limited