RTBF

Success Story: RTBF

As part of its digital transformation, RTBF, the French-speaking Belgian public broadcaster, faced several challenges in fulfilling its mission to “build society in a personalised world”. To achieve this, it entered into a long-term partnership with Actito.

The client

RTBF (Radio-Télévision belge de la Communauté française) is the public service radio and television broadcaster for the French Community of Belgium. With its four TV channels, six radio stations and digital platforms, its mission is to inform, educate and entertain all audiences, whilst promoting social harmony and cohesion.

As a public service broadcaster, RTBF has a duty to counter audience fragmentation and ensure that all viewpoints and perspectives are represented. It plays a crucial role in addressing societal challenges such as disinformation and the polarisation of opinions. To continue fostering social cohesion in the digital age, it focuses on building close, trusting relationships with its users.

The context

The media landscape is undergoing a period of profound change driven by digitalisation. Whilst this new paradigm offers opportunities in terms of creativity, collaboration and the free flow of information, it also presents its own set of challenges.

Firstly, the digital ecosystem facilitates the spread of fake news and disinformation. The algorithms of social media platforms and search engines create filter bubbles that trap users in silos of opinion. This trend contributes to the polarisation of society and undermines social cohesion.

Secondly, the policies of major tech platforms are undermining the media ecosystem. Constant changes to algorithms and monetisation rules – such as Meta’s recent decision to stop paying publishers for their content – threaten the media’s business models.

Finally, the emergence of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) is challenging the paradigm of the attention economy. With the ability to obtain answers directly from conversational interfaces, there is a risk that users will turn away from media websites.

The challenges

For RTBF, the main challenge is to maintain control over its relationship with its audience by strengthening its ownership of first-party data. This involves getting to know and understand its users better in order to offer them a personalised and meaningful experience that transcends filter bubbles.

This involves rethinking how interactions are orchestrated across different touchpoints, moving beyond the simple logic of channels and segments. The aim is to build seamless journeys that encourage discovery and engagement, in line with its public service remit.

From a technological perspective, the challenge lies in enabling heterogeneous systems (CRM, SSO, automation, analytics, etc.) to communicate with one another in order to utilise data effectively. RTBF also needs tools to script and automate targeted and personalised communications on a large scale, whilst managing the challenges of privacy and data protection.

The solution

To address these challenges, RTBF has relied on Actito’s expertise since 2004. This choice was driven by several factors. Firstly, the company has demonstrated its expertise in managing sensitive data, an essential prerequisite for a public service broadcaster committed to protecting its users’ privacy. Secondly, the close relationship and high-quality support have enabled the development of a long-term relationship based on trust. Actito has positioned itself not merely as a technology provider, but as a true partner, capable of understanding RTBF’s business challenges and offering tailored solutions.

This bespoke approach has resulted in the gradual development of new features to enhance the system:

• A Single Sign-On (SSO) system to simplify user authentication across different platforms and facilitate the collection of first-party data
• A CRM system to centralise customer data and provide a 360° view of user profiles and their interactions
• Engagement tools such as Qualifio to engage communities through competitions, quizzes and surveys
• A loyalty module to reward the behaviour of the most engaged users
• Automation features to script and personalise communications at scale

In 2024, RTBF renewed its trust in Actito by adopting its new QNTM ecosystem. This major development enables personalisation to be taken even further thanks to a more open and agile architecture. The aim is to be able to utilise data in real time to deliver the most relevant content via the most suitable channels.

The results

The partnership with Actito has enabled RTBF to lay the foundations for a modern, personalised customer relationship. Thanks to segmentation and targeting features, the broadcaster can now plan campaigns tailored to its users’ profiles and behaviour.

Beyond traditional use cases such as newsletters, the platform enables the large-scale delivery of bespoke communications based on preferences and consumption history. For example, the sending of greeting cards has been automated and personalised on a large scale by intelligently combining the various modules (form, database, scenarios).

These advances have a tangible impact on performance indicators. RTBF has seen an increase in engagement and retention across its digital platforms. Gamification and reward schemes encourage audience interaction and loyalty.

Mastering first-party data also opens up new opportunities in terms of customer insight and optimising user journeys. By better segmenting its audiences, RTBF is able to recommend the most relevant content at the right time, thereby strengthening brand loyalty.

Finally, the flexibility of the architecture enables the organisation to adapt quickly to new requirements and evolve its use cases. RTBF is becoming more agile, allowing it to test new approaches and make experimentation a driver of innovation and growth.

Future actions

To take this further, the roadmap envisages a shift towards a profile-based approach to enhance the discoverability of diverse content, in line with the public service mission.

The orchestration of all channels, both digital and offline, is also a key area of development to create a seamless omnichannel experience.

Finally, even closer collaboration is expected between RTBF’s algorithms and data and Actito’s automation and scripting capabilities, particularly to optimise delivery times based on content.

Watch their success story on video

Featuring testimonials from Pierre Dubois, CRM Manager at RTBF, and Johnny Mukuta Mensah, Managing Director for North & Benelux at Actito, who spoke at Activation Day 2024 about their experience with Actito in a session entitled: “The importance of a trusted partnership in a transformation project”.

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