Trend 1: Ad-based VOD (AVOD) eats subscription VOD (SVOD) time spent
Ad-funded video streaming is expected to overtake time spent with subscription channels in 2023, as streaming giants such as Netflix and Disney+ add ad-funded tiers. With viewers under new economic constraints, streaming platforms are competing in an increasingly expensive content arms race, and innovative technology will enable more targeted and creative messaging.
As such, AVOD is set to enter a new age of domination over the video streaming category. Many platforms are caught between the deteriorating economic situation which pushes cost-conscious households to reconsider their subscriptions to streaming services, hence the appeal of ad-funded programming and its promise of cheaper subscriptions is becoming a streaming service of choice. Forrester projects that the streaming platforms’ revenues from advertising will rise from 21% in 2020 to 38% in 2027.
Trend 2: Games everywhere
With 3.2bn estimated video game players across the world in 2022, gaming is now a mainstream activity. This has not gone unnoticed by technology platforms and media outlets who are actively working to incorporate gaming elements into their offering as an audience attraction and stickiness factor.
Netflix has always kept a close eye on gaming. The platform has developed several shows directly inspired by video games. In April 2022, it introduced a month-long interactive daily quiz show that was essentially an adaptation of the mobile game Trivia Quest.
Gaming is also starting to invade TV. In June 2022, Samsung introduced an Xbox app for their smart TVs that allows viewers to play a selection of games without an Xbox. Users need to buy a controller to connect to their sets but can then play as if they have a console.
Games were a part of the Facebook experience in the early days, with titles such as FarmVille becoming popular with users until Facebook changed its algorithm. Now two leading mobile-first apps, Snapchat and TikTok, are introducing games as a way of engaging more users.
TikTok has reportedly started to test HTML5 games within its app, creating a special tab in markets like Vietnam. As for Snapchat, Augmented Reality (AR) has long been a key part of its experience, and earlier this year the platform introduced a new AR lens that is a game.
Trend 3: The rise of the super apps
A super app combines various features – typically messaging, commerce, booking and payments – to provide a fuller service to its users and remove the need to download lots of specialist apps, but instead give one app, one sign-in, and one user experience.
WeChat, which started as a messaging app, is a good example of a super app. It has expanded its focus from messaging to video, content, entertainment, commerce and more. Other apps are integrated into it as mini apps, meaning you can request a taxi via Didi while you are within the WeChat app.
By diversifying and adding more features it has become an essential life tool, providing help throughout the day, whatever its users want to do. Other popular super apps around Asia include AliPay, OMNi, and Grab.
While Western-owned apps do not seem to have quite this scale of ambition, we are seeing several add more features to extend the scope of what they offer. TikTok is a classic case in point. It has been evolving from a video app to include commerce and live video, and its parent company has recently trademarked TikTok Music in several markets including the United States. TikTok Music would let users create and share playlists and use the app as a music player without watching videos.
Trend 4: Social algorithms give users what they don’t know they want
TikTok’s most important innovation was the endless feed based on observed interests and popular content, rather than follows. Users’ feeds are different, but this is largely driven by the algorithm, rather than who they have consciously decided to follow.
Services such as Instagram also rely on algorithms, but until recently algorithms picked the content users would see from accounts they follow, rather than broadening the pool to include all content on the platform. These days if you use these platforms it can seem like half the content is from accounts you do not follow, shown with explanations like “Based on your likes” or “Accounts you follow also follow.”
What this shows is that social media has now become much more about the content shared than the fame or the number of followers the user has. It is now much more possible for content from anywhere to go viral, and for new users’ content to be seen, if it is judged to be good by the algorithms, based on likes, shares, video views, and more.
Moreover, younger people are searching less on traditional platforms such as Google and are taking to social apps to search for content.
Source : www.marketing-interactive.com
