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DOES THE NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY INCLUDE LIVE STREAMED CONCERTS?

bsp-admin-1 on August 13, 2020

EVERYONE GETS A FRONT ROW SEAT

The crowd surfers may bump into the living room couch, but that’s the only glitch you’ll find with the live streaming experience that Brightcove delivered for top performers like Dropkick Murphys, Willie Nelson and more. Without pausing, buffering or any other issues, fans enjoy a rich experience that brings them every drum beat, every guitar chord and every word with the clarity and emotion that makes them feel like they are right there in the stadium.

9 MILLION VIEWS

When Dropkick Murphys decided to live stream their concert, called “Streaming Outta Fenway,” the venue they chose was Boston’s historic Fenway Park. Due to the pandemic restrictions, only 35 people were allowed inside the huge stadium, and that included the band and the crew. But those 35 people were soon overshadowed by a slightly larger number—9 million. Over 9 million views of “Streaming Outta Fenway” were seen worldwide, in living rooms, backyards, roof decks, on screens large and small, giving everyone a front-row seat to this amazing performance. With 12 different streaming endpoints, and over $700,000 raised for charity, it was a rousing success.

AMAZING PICNIC, NO ANTS

When Willie Nelson’s iconic “4th of July Picnic” had to pivot to a virtual concert, Brightcove was right there to live stream the concert from Willie Nelson’s Luck Saloon and Chapel. Bringing millions of dedicated fans together virtually to experience the music they love, Brightcove’s leading live streaming technology delivered  Willie Nelson’s loyal fanbase a high-quality live concert experience. The event featured interviews with characters from the Picnic’s past, as well as new, live performances from their favorite artists such as Sheryl Crow, Ziggy Marley, Margo Price, Steve Earle, and Kurt Vile.

MEET THE NEW MUSIC INDUSTRY

“The music entertainment industry is forever changed, and video is at the forefront of its evolution. Even beyond the pandemic, we’ll continue to see organizations use video to connect with their audiences as it’s the only way to deliver the authentic, real-life experience that viewers crave,” says Sara Larsen, CMO, Brightcove. With top performers such as Dropkick Murphys and Willie Nelson, Brightcove has demonstrated how its technology is essential to a thriving entertainment industry as it connects performers with their audiences. If you have a performance in search of an audience, talk with Brightcove and see how our superior live streaming will deliver an experience the fans will never forget.

10 QUESTIONS ABOUT JOINING THE BRIGHTCOVE PARTNER PROGRAM

bsp-admin-1 on July 14, 2020

TEN QUESTIONS WITH LYNN D. TINNEY

Video is the ultimate way for people to connect and inspire, and more than ever people are craving connections and inspiration. At this moment in time, Brightcove is in a unique position to help democratize video and help our customers bring their stories to the eyes of the world.

As one solution, we were able to welcome Lynn D. Tinney to the Brightcove family. A partner-industry veteran, Lynn has been a part of building partner programs from scratch, improving them, and honing mature partner programs. She was able to assess how Brightcove could bring a world-class partner program to life and after talking with customers, the market, and partners, Brightcove recently announced an expanded partnership under Lynn’s leadership.

At Brightcove, her goals are to simplify, improve, and expand the Brightcove Partner Program to serve more partners and their clients across the globe.

With the official announcement of our expanded partner program on July 14, I recently had the opportunity to interview Lynn diving into her career, what brought her to Brightcove, why she is so passionate about partners, her partner philosophy, and what the expanded Brightcove program entails.

Tell me about yourself, and what got you into the partner career path?

I started in a channel role at a large organization 2-3 years out of college with minimal direct sales experience, so I asked my manager for a position in direct sales to get the experience under my belt. This move helped me learn how to create and keep customer relationships. It also taught me to better understand a partner’s business. Eventually my career took me back to partnering and I had the opportunity to lead a team selling with a great set of partners.

To me, selling direct is like playing checkers and selling with partners is playing chess. Partner selling is dependent on building strong relationships as you need to understand all of the moving parts, including fiscal, technical, and competitive differences. In the end, you need to trust one another. That takes commitment. I enjoy putting that effort in and seeing it pay off for both my company and my partner.

What brought you to Brightcove, and what intrigued you about video?

I was at the point in my career that I wanted something new. Video is exciting as it’s the next big thing that is going to transform how businesses work, communicate, and entertain. Video has become the critical medium around the world in which we communicate today. As someone always curious, I wanted to jump in and make an impact immediately. Brightcove is the leader in the space and I really liked the people. Throughout getting to know Brightcove and its team, it became clear that it is a very human organization, and very authentic. Everyone I met was knowledgeable, passionate, and welcoming. There was an extraordinary and undeniable human factor, all the way up to the CEO. Walking out of the interviews, I knew I had to work here. I’m about five months in and thrilled to bring my expertise to Brightcove to build its partner program.

What does a successful partner program look like in today’s landscape?

A successful partner program in today’s landscape needs great technology with the most reach. But the program was also set up to ensure it communicates and is consistent. It brings a full suite of resources to our partners and their customers. Beyond consistency and mutual expectations, we need to be flexible and recognize differences across the globe and continue to work together to innovate on the best ways to partner together. It’s important Brightcove is available and supportive in the way our customers and partners move business.

How important is it to have a team and partners around the world?

Brightcove is a global organization, we have customers in 180 countries so global business is in our DNA and it’s also foundational to our partner program.

The human element at Brightcove ensures that every area is unique. Having a team around the world, recognizing the different needs and expectations, is critical to our success. We strive to have that human element in the Brightcove Partner program. Remember there is always a human on the other end, and building local relationships is critical.

Tell me about Brightcove’s partner program and why we are expanding it?

The program has expanded in two ways. The first is enhancing the program we already have to put consistent structure and communication around it for our solution and referral partners.

The second is launching the Master License Partner program. Clients of all sizes and partners come to us, and they need the quality and dependability of Brightcove. The Master License Partner program puts the full Brightcove platform within reach for all size clients. This new part of our program aligns costs with revenue streams. Partners can now deliver Brightcove video to multiple customers in an affordable way that recognizes how their business moves.

The Master License Partner is the unique differentiator for Brightcove’s partner program, why did you feel the need to expand to include Master License Partner’s?

In recent months, we’ve seen enterprise video grow over 91%. With the world working remotely due to Coronavirus and the cancelation of in-person events, video is vital to business in today’s climate. Due to Brightcove’s history and reputation around the world, the demand for Brightcove video is high, allowing us to expand our partner program in this way.

As the need for reliable enterprise video and virtual experiences exploded, the need for the Master License Partner program was evident. We deliver a high commitment level to our partners and ask for the same from the partners who participate. They commit to leading with Brightcove and we support them knowing we are critical to how they serve their clients.

Partners and aspects of the market that we would not be able to reach in our direct sales model now have the ability to use Brightcove video with the quality, scalability, and level of support they desire through our partners. In this crucial time, video delivery cannot be compromised as it’s all about delighting an audience.

What are you looking for in potential partners?

In one word: committed. We want to be committed to our partners, and we want our partners to be committed to us. We also want there to be a mutual expectation of commitment throughout the program. Brightcove is committed and dedicated to our partners, and we hope for the same in return.

Why is it pivotal for companies to embrace video today and in the future?

The world we live in has accelerated the need for everyone to understand video as a communication tool and that it’s not just for entertainment. Video enables communication in the business world, our personal lives, our healthcare journeys, our learning, and so much more. It’s not a “nice to have” anymore, but a must-have. It brings an intimacy back to where it has been missing in communication.

Additionally, today’s decision makers are video-oriented. Its second nature to consume information via video as they have been entertained by it, played sports, and stayed connected through video. Video done right is informative, engaging, compelling, and connected. Brightcove platform allows content creators to focus on the message because they know the delivery of the video is not in question.

The buyers of today grew up on video. Organizations are learning their employees and consumers, whether B2B or B2C, are very comfortable with video and a virtual environment. What audiences won’t tolerate in compromised quality. Smart organizations are implementing a video-first strategy.

And lastly, what can we expect out of the partner program in 2020 and beyond? 

We have so much in the works. We are going to listen and grow the program with our partners. We are committed to innovating together and continuing to grow our enablement including upping our game in partner marketing and building pipeline together.

It’s really an exciting time to partner with Brightcove.

SVOD SUCCESS WITH DAILY, WEEKLY, AND MONTHLY ACTIVE USERS

bsp-admin-1 on July 1, 2020

The success of Netflix has established it as a daily destination for its subscribers and the yardstick by which many other OTT services measure themselves against. But this isn’t the only path to viability. SVoD services can still find success with an audience that engages on a weekly and even monthly basis.

One of the main questions in running an SVoD business is how often are subscribers returning to watch content? Are they coming back daily, weekly, or monthly? What is the optimal frequency of return visits to keep customers subscribed long term? The easy answer is, it depends.

In the continuing saga of the Streaming Wars, several companies are building massive content catalogs, spanning genres and categories to reach broad appeal as consumers look to cut the cord from traditional broadcast services. In an effort to become the daily destination for consumers, large services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, etc., invest heavily in licensing and producing original content to increase their appeal and reinforce their value proposition.

Their strategy appears to be working, but there is room in household budgets for a variety of streaming services. A recent study by Parks Associates shows that 76% of U.S. households have at least one video streaming service, and according to nScreenMedia, the average subscriber has more than 3 services. That said, not every service needs to be the daily destination to be a successful one for consumers.

DON’T TRY TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE

Many OTT services are able to attract loyal subscribers that visit a limited number of times per week by providing fresh content with a very broad appeal. Either new movies for “family night” viewing or a couple of new episodes of a popular show to which they may have exclusive access. These services can compete by providing a deeper catalog of older shows and movies that are less expensive to license but have a broad appeal–less top-level titles but a deeper bench of “role players.” The challenge in this type of service is keeping users engaged when the season ends or top tier content is running thin.

In addition, there are services that have a great deal of success where users check in once or twice a month. Their content usually has a general appeal but is more focused on a particular topic or genre. Users tend to be considered more like group members rather than just subscribers, creating a more tailored experience.

Regardless of the type of service being run, your goal is to keep your users coming back at the appropriate frequency to deliver on your value proposition. We have all heard the expression “content is king” as it applies to managing subscription services. While that’s true, it’s not the only reason for success in finding and retaining subscribers.

No matter the type of service you are running, the reasons for churn are very similar. The main reasons people cancel subscription services are typically price, experience, and content availability to some degree. When we break those reasons down a bit, we often find they’re interrelated.

For example, price is less of a factor in deciding to leave a service. Individual realities change and users have to cut back when times are hard, but price is generally a reflection that the user doesn’t perceive they’re getting enough value for the cost of their subscription. This can really be about the experience of the service:

  • Do I have access to enough content?
  • Can I find content easily?
  • Are the apps easy to navigate?
  • Can I access content from multiple devices?

Many times the decision is about the price of the service (I knew that going in) but does the perceived value I am getting meet the price of the service?

If you’re relying on subscribers to come back at least a couple of times per week, make sure content discovery is as seamless as possible. You want subscribers to think, “I’m getting the content I want, as well as discovering new content while I watch the shows I like.” If subscribers are coming back too frequently, they will consume lots of content hours, so guiding them to the next movie and show becomes increasingly important to deliver on that value proposition.

Two key data points in delivering on the frequency of engagement to look at are current and past viewing behavior. These help identify early on when a subscriber shows signs of waning and can allow you to make good recommendations to quickly bring them back.

Brightcove Audience Insights can be a great tool to identify these users and make the right suggestions to keep them engaged and coming back.

IDENTIFYING WHERE USERS ARE IN THEIR VIEWING HABITS

The Engagement Status Over Time Insight (Fig. 1) is invaluable for determining users’ viewing habits. Each user is assigned an Engagement Status based on their most recent viewing pattern. Are they engaged (coming back recently and frequently)? Have they stopped coming back recently or weeks ago? Knowing your users’ viewing habits allows you to customize your messaging based on this status and look at recent consumption to target them at the right time with the right content options.

Engagement Status Over TimeFig. 1 – Chart of Engagement Status Over Time

When the current season of a popular show ends, we often see people start to drift away from a service because they don’t know what to watch next. Identifying this early (within the first couple weeks) is crucial to keeping that customer coming back on a weekly basis before they become idle and decide to cancel their subscription. Identifying these subs quickly and leveraging the Content Explorer in Brightcove’s Audience Insights can help you make the right suggestions so your users discover that next show or movie.

Content ExplorerFig. 2 – Find out how audiences crossover with Content Explorer

Content Explorer Sort
Fig. 3 – Preset filters allow you to find Hidden Gems, Promotable Shows, and Dynamic Duos in your content catalog

Content Explorer easily identifies which content to promote to your users based on the shows they have been watching by finding key correlations to other shows in your catalog and the consumption behavior of subscribers. Combined with the Attention Index, it allows you to uplevel your suggestions from “people who watched this also watched this” to “people that watched and liked this also watched and liked these shows.” Pre-set filters allow you to find the Hidden Gems, Promotable Shows, and Dynamic Duos (Fig. 3) in your catalog, introducing the right suggestion to subscribers at the right time.

By leveraging the right data and the right tools, you can suggest the content to subscribers they are looking for, on the devices they use, in a timely fashion that ensures a great customer experience and reinforces the value of your service.

A DISCUSSION ON VIDEO AND EMPATHY WITH JIMMY CHIN

bsp-admin-1 on June 25, 2020

Video is a powerful motivator, often channeling the kind of stories that inspire and captivate the audiences that watch them. We asked renowned adventurer and award-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin his thoughts on the power of video to tell stories and connect audiences.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED DIRECTING AND CREATING YOUR OWN DOCUMENTARY FILMS?

I never had formal instruction on photography or filmmaking. I was self-taught and spent most of my career making it up as I went. For the most part, I feel like I still am. I started as a climber first. I loved and still love climbing and being in the mountains. That passion for living life and pushing myself was my door into understanding people who did the same. It was through that door that allowed me access to photograph and later film with some of the greatest athletes and adventurers of our time.

I’m motivated to tell these stories of people dreaming and achieving the impossible but also to show the realities, sacrifice, hard work, and tenacity it requires to achieve anything great. These are the stories that inspire me and push me to do my best work.

WHAT IS SOMETHING YOU BELIEVE VIDEO HAS THE POWER TO DO THAT NOTHING ELSE DOES?

I think we are told a lot of ideas, given things to think about. We get a lot of material to digest intellectually. Film is powerful because it can not only get ideas across on an intellectual level, but it can make you feel something, experience something new, see something in a way you never had before. It can transport you. That is a very powerful tool. If you do your job well, you can create empathy.

Films are one of the most incredible mediums to create empathy. You have the opportunity to share an experience with someone from a totally different world or perspective. And not only will your audience learn something new and see something from a different point of view, but they should feel something and be moved.

WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS IMPORTANT FOR VIDEO EXPERTS TO SHARE THEIR STORIES AND IDEAS?

Films have the capacity to not only convey complex ideas to audiences on an intellectual level but also have the potential to move people on a visceral and emotional level.

It is an incredibly powerful tool to do good in the world. You never know who will be moved and inspired by your work and what it will motivate them to do in the future.

THIS YEAR WE’RE TALKING ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF SERIOUS STORYTELLING THROUGH VIDEO. WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE SERIOUS ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?

I believe in pursuing my craft with passion and excellence. There is an incredible opportunity to contribute to the human experience and understanding of the world. There is also an amazing opportunity for self-discovery in one’s journey towards perfecting a craft. It can provide meaning and purpose in one’s life. Is there anything more important?

LASTLY, WHERE DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF VIDEO GOING IN 2020 AND BEYOND?

I believe technology will help enhance the potential for filmmaking and the viewer’s experience in the future, but the age-old craft of storytelling and creating empathy will always be at the core of making great films.

Q1 2020 GLOBAL VIDEO INDEX: EVOLUTIONARY EVENT DRIVING OTT CHANGE

bsp-admin-1 on June 15, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic has proven to be an evolutionary event for streaming video as millions of new users, following strict shelter-in-place edicts, turned to streaming video for entertainment, news, remote learning and work. That’s one of the findings from Brightcove’s Q1 2020 Global Video Index.

Media and entertainment trends included a surge of viewing on computers and connected TVs and a pause in the growth of share of viewing on mobile devices after six consecutive quarters.

Video views globally increased nearly 23% for entertainment, news and sports properties. In North America, views were up 19% and time watching increased 21%. Asia-Pac saw a 67% increase in views with, Australia/New Zealand up 39%, with a 31% jump in time watched.

The increases were even higher in Europe, where views were up 58% and time watched increased 43%.

COVID-19 DROVE BIG GAINS IN NEWS CONSUMPTION

Some of the biggest gains were, unsurprisingly, in news content.

As the COVID-19 pandemic raced across the world, consumers increasingly turned to streaming video sources for their up-to-the-minute news briefings, data from Brightcove’s Q1 2020 Global Video Index shows, with video views up 47%.

As news became more critical and the world’s attention turned to al-things coronavirus, consumers increasingly saw streaming news as their best bet for breaking information about the world, their country and even their hometown.

Globally, and in most regions, March saw the highest engagement with viewers and the last two weeks of March saw more views and time spent with news than the first two weeks.

Among the news highlights:

  • In the US, time spent watching news video increased 319%

  • 42% of all news video view for the quarter occurred in March

  • Australia/New Zealand saw Y/Y news video views increase+57%

  • Europe saw Y/Y views of news increased by 47%; views in March made up 41% of the quarter’s views

  • News views in the Middle East/North Africa region rose nearly 3X, with March making up 42% of the quarter’s views; time spent viewing news video nearly doubled.

ENTERPRISE, RETAIL VIDEO USE SOARS

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was even more evident on enterprises and retailers.

Views of enterprise videos nearly doubled globally (+91%) as companies increased their efforts to stay connected with a remote workforce, customers and vendors.

March saw more than 41% of all views in the quarter, with the second half of the month accounting for 23% of the quarter’s total video views.

Retailers also turned to online video as the coronavirus impacted their willingness to put ads alongside the grim news of the pandemic. But consumers remained curious about retail, increasing consumption 135% globally as they increasingly moved online to shop.

Unlike media and entertainment, smartphones remained at the center of consumer’s video world when it came to retail, with video views up 253% Y/Y on smartphones and 143% Q/Q. Views more than doubled in the United States and were up 188% in Europe.

Brightcove’s Global Video Index assesses more than 400 billion anonymized data points from Brightcove’s thousands of customers each quarter, drawing industry insights that can help guide strategic and tactical decisions for businesses of all sizes.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The coronavirus pandemic saw streaming increase across the globe. It legitimately can be seen as an event that will change the course of how Internet-delivered video is used and accelerate its adoption around the globe and across virtually all demographics.

In terms of news, it’s far more flexible in terms of delivery than broadcast, able to spin up additional news “channels” quickly. That gives publishers and content owners more bandwidth to deliver in-depth reports on either a macro- or micro-basis, including live events as they happen.

Aside from COVID-19, with recent events, we’ll see an even more significant surge in viewing consumption for Q2.

It wasn’t just news, obviously, that has seen greater adoption of video; entertainment moved front and center (as evidenced by Netflix’s 15.8 million new subscribers in Q1) during the quarter, as well.

Simply put, consumer’s accelerated adoption of OTT in Q1 (and we’ll see more in Q2) is an example of how we adapt to change. It’s evolution in action.

Content owners and distributors need to understand that this isn’t a blip in data, it’s evolution… and we won’t be going back to the way it was.

STREAMING OUTTA FENWAY: MUSIC FOR A CAUSE

bsp-admin-1 on May 29, 2020

The bases are loaded at Boston’s historic Fenway Park, but this time the field isn’t filled with major league players. For the first time, in what seems like a millennia, the park will re-open its gates to a whole new kind of ball game, one that will kick off summer and rock music fans across the globe.

On Friday, May 29, 2020 at 6pm EST, one of Boston’s all time favorite bands, the Dropkick Murphys, will be streaming a live benefit concert straight from the field of Fenway park to audiences everywhere.

Fun Fact: This will be the first time in Fenway history that a band has played right on the baseball diamond! A stage that certainly won’t disappoint.

 Screenshot of The Dropkick Murphy’s announcing their Streaming Outta Fenway event on Facebook

The Line up: The inner field at Fenway Park, geared up for a night of epic entertainment

There will also be a special guest performer, “the Boss” himself, Bruce Springsteen, who plans to stream virtually to the park, right on the big screen, making this a double stream for a home-run kind of experience.

Music for the Cause:  While fans around the world can tune in and enjoy this historical performance for free, the band hopes to turn this virtual experience into something bigger than just entertainment. The Dropkick Murphys, in collaboration with their guest performer Bruce Springsteen, will be raising funds to help support organizations that are on the front-lines of the global pandemic such as the Boston Resiliency Fund, Habitat For Humanity Greater Boston, and Feeding America.

Not only are they helping to keep the spirits high for typical summer concert goers (now stuck at home), they’re also helping to bring financial and supportive aid to those who need it most.

Taking the park and the world by storm: The event anticipates a global audience of over 10 million virtual viewers who will tune in from 5 different channels on the band’s Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, and http://www.dkmstream.com.

What’s the point of hitting a home-run as big as this one if no one can see it? To make sure they’re able to rock fans everywhere on any device, the band will be partnering with Brightcove to provide a high-quality, reliable streaming experience for their fans. I don’t know about you, but I thoroughly enjoy the opportunity to sing along to my favorite songs in real-time, without missing a beat.

And the Dropkick Murphys aren’t the only ones looking to create a reliable engaging experience for their audiences. As companies all around the world are having to make the shift toward more virtual solutions, innovative business leaders look toward video as the most effective way to reach viewers everywhere. So no matter the type of content, businesses can still rock the socks off their audiences with the power of video.

WHY BRIGHTCOVE PIVOTED TO A VIRTUAL CUSTOMER CONFERENCE

bsp-admin-1 on May 26, 2020

What is it about live industry events? They’re addictive, and sometimes unforgettable. They can drive huge results for our brands, and are always somehow completely exhausting. But we love them.

Some elements of events are irreplaceable in a digital form: The energy of a crowd; the satisfaction of our wanderlust; the immersion of being on location.

That’s why, when Brightcove announced that we wouldn’t be gathering at the Encore Boston Harbor for PLAY 2020 due to the pandemic, I was disappointed. I’d spoken at PLAY in previous years and had been looking forward to emceeing fireside chat interviews and moderating panel discussions this year. I was ready to learn from each of the speakers, meet attendees, and to ride the unspoken thrill of all that could go wrong in a live experience.

When it was cancelled, I’d expected the same fate for so many events in 2020: a virtual seminar experience. I was so wrong. And I wanted the chance to explain why I’m so excited about what the Brightcove team did instead.

[A full disclaimer that Brightcove is a client – more on that below – but this post was my idea. I have a reputation for calling out the marketing industry’s bad behavior, earning me the nickname “unapologetic marketing truth-teller,” but I believe in celebrating our high points and proud moments. PLAY TV is undeniably one of them. Carry on.]

Here are three lessons all teams can takeaway from Brightcove’s new, Netflix-like, binge-worthy streaming experience, PLAY TV, which launched this week:

1. CHANGE BEGETS CHANGE

When is the right time to take a risk? There’s no easy answer, but times of immense change create the best environment for further change. Looking at the pandemic through this lens, it’s a phenomenal time to go big.

“We were originally thinking this would be a pivot. It was actually a total transformation,” said Brightcove CMO Sara Larsen, when we chatted via Zoom to talk about the experience of bringing PLAY TV to life.

“Unlike a live conference, it requires totally different content formats more akin to a TV, broadcast, or entertainment experience. When you program a live event, there’s a playbook for that content. There was no playbook for this.”

Of course there’s no playbook. This is not a conference, it’s a totally new streaming service. It’s got live scheduled elements, oodles of on-demand video, and it’s all available right now on mobile, TV, or the web. It lives on well beyond the 1-2 days of a conference, too, with new content planned. This is no virtual event. It’s an entire buffet.

This shift meant that goals must of course change as well. Sara revealed that even with a turnaround time of less than 60 days, the team immediately crushed their original signup goals before launch.

Without the physical barrier to entry – literally, the need for hotels or flights, companies could send 5-10 team members rather than the traditional 1-2. (The price point likely helped here as well. FREE is a very compelling offer!) It’s a lesson in going big and changing what we know to be the status quo. If not now, then when?

2. PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS

Brightcove is running PLAY TV on its own product, Brightcove Beacon™, their new SaaS-based, OTT platform. Talk about drinking your own champagne… what better way to demo a product then to immerse users in it?

“New products succeed not because of the features and functionality they offer but because of the experiences they enable.” – Clayton M. Christensen, Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

“This was a company-wide effort to ensure our own technology could reach new audiences at scale, no matter how they wanted to watch this content – apps, web, mobile and smart TVs,” Sara told me.

The strength of this platform is how well it aligns with the modern consumption habits of video viewers today – our proclivity for binging, our short attention spans, our desire for content on-demand.

“While some of the same content could translate from the original on-site plan, the format had to be different,” she explained.

The team constructed a true Netflix experience, including series with multiple episodes, original content in specific channels, all delivered in a way that allows the viewer to navigate across themes.

3. REMEMBER WHAT MATTERS

What makes this streaming experience really work is that it celebrates one the most fundamental parts of any live event: the content itself.

“In a streaming experience, the convenience is there. It’s all about the content,” Sara pointed out.

I asked her how they decided what content would make the cut for PLAY TV: “We looked at what type of content was most relevant to our audience in the past at earlier PLAY events. We knew that they wanted thought leadership content, inspirational stories and keynotes from people that can help them think differently. Just as important were specific how-to series with content that is both practical and actionable. Finally, we knew customer content and stories are critical.”

I had the opportunity to interview Brightcove’s Chief Product Officer, Charles Chu and a variety of Brightcove customers. Personally, I can attest that our conversations will be helpful to peers navigating the world of video, as they get to the heart of our industry’s accelerated adoption of digital transformation – it’s people! I had the opportunity to interview remarkable people at the center of the shift to digital, and to tell their amazing stories.

Brightcove’s team stepped up with creativity and resilience in a time of wild uncertainty to bring PLAY TV to life. They did it of course to firstly protect the health and safety of all involved with the event, but it’s also a testament to the power of adaptation. In my opinion, they’ve raised the bar for all teams to reimagine conferences as we knew them.

THOSE WHO ADAPT, THRIVE

This a weird new normal, I’ll admit. We’re living in a time when the Met Opera can be live-streamed, globally (also, by the way, a Brightcove experience.) But just as change begets change in-market, it must do so within ourselves as well.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

This is a creative and bold statement from Brightcove on what an industry conference can be.

Will this become the new battleground as conferences are put on hold and the world of business content goes full Netflix? Though I will miss in-person events for a while, if this shift forces all teams to raise the bar YoY on high-quality content, delivered through digital experiences that are uber-convenient, count me in.

HOW TO CALCULATE LIFETIME VALUE IN AN SVOD BUSINESS

bsp-admin-1 on May 22, 2020

How much revenue do you think you will receive from your next customer? Will they stay for a few months, then cancel? Or will they join the ranks of your multi-year subscribers?

Each of these questions relies on understanding the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer and using that value to compare natural segments of your users to find veins of satisfied (and long-subscribing) customers. How else would you know whether spending $30 or $60 to acquire a new customer is worthwhile?

CALCULATING SUBSCRIBER LTV

Take, for example, an imaginary site for Arctic enthusiasts called PolarFlix. They charge $10 per month and have a fairly high monthly churn rate of 20%.

One of the most common ways to measure the lifetime value of a customer is using the churn rate and your average revenue per user (ARPU). We can combine those two values to a group of users and, on average, it should reflect the LTV of our average new customer. The formula looks like ARPU/Monthly Churn. For PolarFlix, this is 10/.2 = $50.

Imagine that PolarFlix adds 100 customers on December 1st. We would expect this cohort to accrue payments to PolarFlix each month. Here’s a table showing how this “Monthly Churn Model” behaves. (Note: the formula includes partial customers, but these examples are rounded.)LTV Calculation TableLTV Calculation 1They receive $50 per customer, so now they can allocate some of that to marketing, operations, and content licensing and keep the rest as profit. However, if they did this, they would be underinvesting in their business.

In subscription-based businesses, the retention rate doesn’t follow average churn. Instead, what we see at Brightcove is that new customers churn at a very high rate, often as much as 30-40% monthly churn over the first few billing cycles, while more tenured subscribers churn at a rate in the single digits.

LTV Calculation 2The customer loss curve for our example company, PolarFlix, shows the LTV for this cohort of customers is $66 on October 1, 2020, with over ten customers still active. For a service with 100,000 subscribers, that’s a $1.6 million difference.

So, how do we make our formulas match our observed lifetime spending? Peter Fader and Bruce Hardie’s 2007 publication, How to Project Customer Retention, has been instrumental in our work with contractual (i.e. renewing subscription) businesses. We use historical data about our customers and create a retention curve. A retention curve shows the probability, as a value from 0 to 1, that a customer with a tenure of n days, will become a customer of tenure n+1 days. From that, it’s simple to show how much revenue we expect to receive.

With the Fader and Hardie method, we can even predict the curve beyond the longest tenure of our customers, something that Kaplan-Meier, a very common survival analysis method, cannot do. There is an important caveat to this method. As you can see in the chart above, the curve may only reach 0 many years in the future. You have to choose some cutoff date for valuing these customers.

At Brightcove, we looked at the actual retention curves of our media customers and chose to estimate LTV through 1,000 days of subscription. This allows 2 cycles of churn for annual subscriptions and, for typical churn rates, captures enough of the extra value from the long-tenured subscribers to make a material difference in the LTV.

AN ACCURATE LTV ENABLES BETTER INVESTMENT

An accurate LTV number lets you invest with confidence in acquiring more customers, license more content to address churn, or allows you to lower the price of your service to capture even more customers.

In addition, you can use LTV and churn measurements to compare natural segments of your customer base to understand what part of your customer base is healthy and which deserves additional investment. Given the advantages to the predictive model, we are upgrading Brightove Audience Insights to base all LTV values on these retention curves.

Learn more in our PLAY episode, “Metrics that Matter”.