Personalization drives acquisition and retention of subscribers

“The more personalized the service is, the more subscriber acquisition and retention will be driven,” commented Thomas Schaeffer, CEO of Float Left Interactive during his conversation with Kirby Grines, founder of 43Twenty, in the context of the virtual event OTT Blitz Week, organized by Fierce Video.

“I think that the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated what was being done with brands. Now they are more connected with consumers. Personalization is key. For brands that are thinking about OTT, this is the moment to launch the service,” added Schaeffer.

The talk served as a prelude to the panel Driving OTT Growth: Engaging and Retaining Your Users.

The panelists mentioned the benefits of being included in the offer of content aggregator services, such as Roku and Amazon, but they also indicated that since they did not have their app, they were not owners of the data generated by users.

“The role these platforms are playing is acquiring new clients. It is a good source of income. The aggregator handles all the aspects of streaming, it is the same content and quality as linear TV, but they are not owners of the users, we don’t have them to do marketing. That is the disadvantage,” said Harry Lang, Product VP at Hallmark Labs.

Along with Lang, the panel was composed of Devin Emery, Head of Growth, CuriosityStream; Ashley Podoll, CMO of Intelivideo; Marty Roberts, CEO, and co-founder of Wicket Labs and Jason Schaeffer, Senior VP of Growth at Crackle Plus.