How to Position and Monetize a New OTT Service
Learn more about OTT monetization at Streaming Media East.
Read the complete transcript of this clip:
Nadine Krefetz: If you were going to create another business today--we're going to create an imaginary business since it's not yours--how would you start the business? What would you focus on?
Chris Yates: That's a good question, in that you can't just do focus on one and not the other. You need to have great content, need to have a phenomenal user experience. If you can get a customer to either download your app or come to your service they actually find something you want to watch and they enjoy it and they come back again. So you need great content. A great user experience marketing is fundamental. With Redbox, we have 40 million people who use Redbox every year in the U.S., So we have a really, really nice platform from which to build services around. If you didn't have that, it can get tricky, but we're fortunate enough to have a really loyal fan fan base or customer base that come to us for a variety of things.
The one thing that I would add though, that often gets left out, but is in some ways more important than any of them, is distribution. You need to be on all the major devices, or as many of them as you can, within reason, obviously looking at your technology and resource constraints. Because frankly, if you're not on Roku, with its 53 million or so accounts, you're missing out on a massive chunk of the market. So, great content and great marketing and a phenomenal experience are really important, but you've got to get it in front of a customer's eyes. And that means being on smart TVs and set-top boxes as well as obviously your traditional mobile and web. For us, it's all about the 10-foot experience and those smart devices.
Nadine Krefetz: Okay. And what about the rest of you in terms of the smart TV and the distribution? I hear what Chris is saying about having to be on everything and needing to be able to support everything. But if your imaginary business can't do everything, what's the best strategy for you, if you're going to run the business? Gene, what would you do?
Gene Pao: Well, if I had my pick, it would be all of the top popular platforms. Smart TV was an area--honestly, I was surprised in terms of how well they are doing. But then if you think about it, it's like, it shouldn't be surprising because it's so easy that you can get a TV and out of the box connected to the internet, and then you have access to all this content. You don't have to buy a stick. You don't have to plug in a set-top box or anything like that. Outside of that, it's, it's the big platform. So Roku, Amazon Fire, Android, and Apple TV. And I think if you were to just stop there, you'd probably get 80 to 90% of the market right there.
Nadine Krefetz: Okay, very good. Damian, what were you going to say?
Damian Pellicione: You eally have to separate third-party as well as direct-to-consumer, right? So direct-to-consumer being that you're managing and you're operating that whole user experience and you own, or at least have the most access of ownership to the tech stack, but then playing out on FAST and AVOD with services like Frequency and Amagi and Xumo to be able to reach the greatest possible audience, which--like they were saying before--Samsung and Roku channel being such a big beast in the market. Revry exists on over 50 platforms, only five of which are owned and operated by us, our direct-to-consumer. Those 45 are essentially the places where we're getting the most point of discovery, and monetizing at a much higher field, because we don't yet have the Disney or the Redbox marketing dollars to get in there. But eventually we'll get there.
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