Social messaging app, WeChat, has partnered with South Africa’s popular satellite television service, DStv, to further user engagement using methods such as second screen integration of the local reality TV show Big Brother Mzansi Secrets. This is part of the Tencent-owned company’s mission to take over South Africa’s Instant Messaging (IM) scene and live up to the claim of being the world’s fastest growing social app.
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WeChat has been extensively pushing its service in and around South Africa recently. Though it likes to distinguish itself from other IM services as an all-in-one unique social app, WeChat is competing with popular, already established services such as WhatsApp, BBM and Mxit, to name a few.
To further prove itself as a worthy competitor, what better way than to promote itself through the region’s most popular satellite television service?
Big Brother Mzansi Secrets started earlier this month and last week the Housemates and the Chambermates were able to talk to each other using the WeChat app. Soon after, the Housemates used the app to vote for the Chambermate they’d like to have as their next Housemate and fellow competitor.
Furthermore, all South African citizens can, for instance, vote for their favourite contestants on Big Brother at no charge. All they need is the WeChat app and an internet connection.
Brett Loubser, Marketing Director of WeChat Africa, says that “WeChat is perfect for these hugely engaging DStv reality shows as it is the only social app which can also provide other forms of individual digital interaction”.
Viewers of Big Brother Mzanzi Secrets can, for example, post messages on the WeChat Big Brother Official Account so that they are displayed on their TV screens, allowing for an interactive second screen experience.
CEO of DStv Media Sales, Chris Hitchings, noted that “in line with international trends second screening is increasingly taking place in DStv homes with viewers using their smart phones, tablets and PC’s whilst watching their favourite shows.”
Hitchings said that “WeChat’s involvement provides an extremely exciting platform to enhance the viewer’s TV experience across multiple screens.”
