How Video Data Analytics can help OTT Platforms Like Netflix, Hulu?

Over-the-top or OTT media is the new drug! In the light of the global COVID-19 pandemic, people who are forced to follow the lockdown and social distancing mandates have found a new savior for entertainment. OTT platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime have been in headlines for years. But COVID-19 by coronavirus brought them increased hours of viewership and a new set of binge-watchers. While content is the king, OTT has unfolded a multibillion-dollar industry where each competitor is racing to lead the market and revenue share. A report by Research and market forecasts that the OTT, along with the video-on-demand (VOD) market in the Asia Pacific, will generate US$ 42 billion in revenue, growing from US$ 351 million subscribers, by 2023.

Although the content by OTT is focused on viewers, its main stakeholders are advertisers, content providers, and marketers. And these stakeholders face challenges when trying to comprehend the performance of OTT content, target the right segments, or formulate an effective business strategy. To understand what viewers like and for the long-term strategically planned success, the stakeholders must focus on various parameters that give insights on viewers’ behavior. These metrics can be segmented as the data per location, per subscription (SVOD, FVOD, AVOD, TVOD), per actor, per genre, and export analytics report to share with upper management or showcase any required metric. All these will help to gain more in-depth insight into viewer likes, dislikes, and preferences, values, routines, and habits.

The best way to study these is by leveraging video analytics. Using video analytics, we can get answers to ways of retaining and increasing subscriber growth rate, plan for personalized ads, better ROI, and others. “Deep video analytics is of utmost importance to the OTT industry. Analytics help the OTT industry and OTT service providers, specifically with content recommendations and churn models. Serving up content viewers want to watch based on previous viewing habits keeps audiences engaged on the platform and coming back for more,” says Vinit Mehta, Country Manager, Brightcove.

“For example, if a viewer signed up for a service to watch a specific series, recommending a movie or another series that is similar to what they just completed will help to keep them on the platform longer than originally planned. Meaning, because relevant content was recommended, the viewer stays to watch, and the platform receives more revenue,” he adds.

Some of the OTT analytics platforms are Dacast, Jump Deep Insights, KALIX, Truoptik, Tavant, Canviva, Quickplay. Even Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers OTT content providers and audience, a measurement platform with the help of Artificial Intelligence. Using these video analytic tool decision-makers comprehend and decipher customer behavior and optimize multichannel marketing efforts to explore better business direction. It also allows us to harvest personalized insights through segmentation and predictive modeling to augment operational efficiency and mine value from omnipresent data for smart decisions. One success story is when Netflix took things a step ahead in 2013 and moved from predictive to proactive. They spent US$100mn on producing House of Cards because their data collected (based on the success of the original BBC miniseries, audience preferences for the genre, fan bases of director David Fincher and actor Kevin Spacey, etc.).