WWE’s pay-per-view performance is not what it once was, and the company is determined to boost buys even in the currently lukewarm economy.
Peter Clifford, WWE’s senior vice president of distribution and affiliate marketing, told Multichannel News that despite lowering buyrate expectations to account for the less-than-ideal economic situation, WWE is committed to recovering its reputation of pay-per-view dominance.
One idea for pay-per-view turnaround is the greater utilization of on-demand services to promote its events. Clifford confirmed that WWE will create content for affiliates’ on-demand offerings in order to hype its August Summerslam event. WWE will also begin offering prize incentives to customers who order consecutive events.
The new strategy also explains WWE’s recent decision to change some of its pay-per-view titles, which included switching Unforgiven to Breaking Point, No Mercy to Hell in a Cell and Cyber Sunday to Annihilation.
“We’ve been doing these PPVs for a few years and we felt that some of the PPVs were a little flat in terms of what we wanted the titles to project, so we looked to see which ones we can rename,” said Clifford.