Keshet International Teams with Grupo Éxito to Bring Touch to Colombia

BOGOTÁ/TEL AVIV: Keshet International (KI) has secured an agreement with Grupo Éxito to bring its cross-media brand Touch to Colombian audiences.

Touch is based on a simple premise, asking players to deduce what does not belong in a particular picture and touch a digital screen before their opponents do. A series of shorts will air on Colombian TV channel Caracol between 8 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. every night in prime time for 15 week nights. Viewers across Colombia will have the opportunity to play along simultaneously to win a share of $685,000 in prizes.

Through the partnership, the shorts are being filmed in-store at Éxito and the images used in the game will showcase 150 of Éxito’s household brands and products, with the South American retailer acting as the basis for the interactive multiplatform game. Production on the shorts is being led by Frank Scheuermann, the head of development and production for Latin America at KI.

The technological element of the game is managed by KI’s Interactive division through its platform Mako Tools, which centralizes the web-based user experience into one system, enabling viewers across Colombia to engage with the Touch game on any web-connected device for a simultaneous experience. This deal follows on the heels of a recent collaboration between Keshet Studios and BuzzFeed Motion Pictures to develop a cross-media version of Touch for the U.S. Touch was created by Ido Rosenblum and Keshet Broadcasting.

“At Éxito Grupo we are constantly looking for innovation,” said Martin Nova, the VP of marketing at Grupo Éxito. “We found in Keshet and Caracol Televisión ideal allies for this new game that brings a dynamic to purchases and creates a space for fun and entertainment for our consumers.”

Kelly Wright, the head of Latin America for Keshet International, commented, “Our partnership with Éxito represents a major expansion in Keshet’s offered services in Latin America. With more and more brands wanting to pilot high-quality content to engage with buyers and promote innovative messaging, we really couldn’t be luckier to collaborate with a partner as enthusiastic as Éxito on this campaign. Touch is 360-degree content that has many forms of exploitation, and we’re thrilled to break ground on the format in Colombia on Caracol with Éxito and Mako Tools.”

Ziv Rabinovich, the head of KI Interactive, added, “I’m delighted that Éxito has opted to use Mako Tools’ simple and affordable service to bring Touch to Colombia. Because the technology already exists, our partners need only license it from us, rather than reinvent the wheel to deliver the game’s touchscreen interactivity.”