To win audience loyalty, personalization is a key differentiator. However, personalization should never mean feeding your viewers the same content all the time. Content discovery can expand, the horizon of personalization to help; viewers uncover and explore content that is engaging to them.
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Content Discovery Borderlines Personalization, but Has More to Offer:
Personalization – A Double-Edged Sword?
In today’s consumer-driven landscape, TV providers can use insights into what and how viewers have been watching to offer content that aligns with viewer preferences. Content discovery is the art of using the data that supports personalization to help viewers go more deeply into the nooks and crannies of OTT video libraries.
For many viewers, the tendency is to watch content that attracted you to an OTT service in the first place. While personalization can feed the viewer more of that genre, there’s a point at which such narrowed targeting can lead to boredom, a lack of awareness of other content that may be of interest, and ultimately to abandonment of the service. Research has shown that only a third of viewers have used menus to find content and a fifth of viewers have stopped watching when they can’t make up their minds.
Content Discovery Enhances Subscriber Satisfaction
Content discovery takes learnings from previous viewing selections and takes the audience down new aisles of the provider’s library. A viewer of “The Queen’s Gambit,” for example, might see suggestions for “Queen of Katwe,” documentaries on chess masters, or other dramas that blend competition with coming-of-age.
With content discovery, it’s not about hitting the bullseye every time. Instead, the goal is to widen the target to content that is related to, but not identical to, their previous experiences. Whether it’s making viewers aware of catalog content that previously had escaped their notice or simply exposing them to shows that they would not normally have watched, leading viewers in new directions can result in continued engagement and loyalty, creating greater long-term subscriber value.
While the types of content that are suggested are important, the context in which it is being viewed requires consideration as well. Is the viewer a commuter watching on a mobile phone or tablet on the way to work? Or a parent watching with the family on a big screen TV? Good discovery considers such factors as time of day and preferred devices, in addition to previous behaviors, to expose viewers to new sections of the service’s content library.
At Quickplay, We Know What Powerful Personalization Is
With the rising demand for interesting to me content, there is no doubt content discovery tools work hand-in-hand with personalization to enhance subscriber satisfaction. At Quickplay, we are fully conscious of the fine line between powerful personalization and “echo chambers” that don’t expand viewing horizons.
With our Personalization Engine, our video platform is leading the way in understanding what content is most “appropriate” for viewers and what informs their next interests, and why they may be receptive to certain topics. We’re ready to help your viewers dig more deeply than ever into your content library.
Quickplay has its headquarters in Toronto and additional locations in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Chennai, India. For more information, visit quickplay.com.