Question

"This report is primarily intended to analyze and present the potential financial success and profitability of Zivago Private Limited, an online media portal which is proposed to be launched in the local market in Singapore. The content of the report mainly highlights the following points: A brief description of the services to be provided by the company, identification of the target consumer group, the proposed marketing and advertising strategies based on an overall market research covering the prominent global and local competitors and the potential revenue model that will be implemented following the same.

Zivago has been conceived to be a comprehensive online medial portal where viewers can watch their favourite commercial shows, movies, documentaries, live features covering a wide range of categories such as drama, comedy, suspense/myestery, sports, news and journalism and much more. Aside from the popular local shows and movies, the portal also contains various programmes from almost over 25 countries in different languages and substitles. Additionally, Zivago also features original shows in all these languages that are produced exclusively by Zivago and presenting popular actors/actresses from the local media insustry.

Based on a private and other government conducted market and consumer studies in Singapore, it has been estimated that more than half of the consumers in the media industry is increasingly preferring online videos and private streaming. In this regard, viewership is not only limited to only popular local shows but majorly include foreign ones as well. However, in this regard, only few portals have been able to access the international entertainment arena and although few have, they are not able to cater to the ethnically diversed population group in the country which includes native Chinese Singaporean, Malay, Bangaladeshi, Indian and various Middle Eastern. As an example, VIU an Starhubs predominantly feature some of the popular Japanese and Chinese drama based shows but not much services considering the diversed population group. The main impediments in this case are lack of penetration into the international media market and language barrier. Zivago is intended to address both the issues and in the process generate higher viewership.

Secondly, the studies indicate that the OTT viewership in Singapore has steadily increased among children and young adults and the most popular genres include drama, movies, sports, animation/cartoons and other entertainment and variety. In this context, Zivago specifically targets the children audiences and sports viewers by streaming various South Asian animation and cartoon shows and popular global sport events such as NFL,NBA,American Football etc. Such services are very much limited and expensive both by local and global competitors.

As internet and social media is gaining ever increasing prominence in Singapore, the company is looking to rely on digital marketing for marketing and promotional services. The studies reveal that Youtube, Facebook and Instagram users in Singapore are highest among the OTT viewers in Southeast Asia. Zivago mainly relies on online advertising and e-marketing through these social media and online platforms which features the most popular shows and promos and a brief description of the membership details. Zivago also conducts various promotional activities in local shopping malls and popular commercial centres across the city which will be featured at the official Facebook and Youtube page. A one minute promo of all the popular shows and movies will be displayed in the official Youtube page and Zivago online app which can be downloaded for free in both Playstore and IOS.

Zivago follows Subscription Revenue Model under E-commerce Revenue Model System. Unlike most other local and global counterparts including Zulu and Netflix, Zivago offers a free viewing of all its original shows for one week in the app as well in its Youtube and Facebook page, All the trailers and initial promos will also be available in app, Youtube and Facebook. The viewers can choose if they would like to continue watching further and subcribe.Under the subscription model, a free one month trial period is provided to potential viewers where they can watch unlimited shows (both original and local/global), movies and all other available contents. Following the expiration of the trial period, 3 subscription options will be provided based on monthly, 6 moths and yearly basis at reasonale pricing that are evidently less than some of the popular portals such as Netflix, VIU, HULU and Starhubs."

Based on the report, answer the question mentioned below:

The Strategy: From your channel description, do the following:

(i) Develop the programming strategies you used. Cite at least THREE (3) programming strategies and explain why you used them

(ii) Formulate your promotional strategy. How will you make your channel known?

Include at least THREE (3) traditional and new media strategies.
(iii) Evaluate the possible risks of such a service. Explain how you can effectively mitigate these risks.

Answer 1

Programming strategies of Zivago can be very much similar to that of its competitors. Following are three programming strategies which I believe would be beneficial for Zivago.

• Using recommendation for the users which will allow users to browse the entire content at ease and he would be able to view the content that is of more relevance to itself than being lost in the plethora of options available.
• UX design can be optimized so as to increase the traffic on the website platform. Analysing the analytics of the webpage we can gather data on which web pages are performing well, which keywords are helping the most towards SEO and thus helping to increase the traffic towards our website.
• Using optimized web content so as to make it work on almost all speeds of internet connection making it an experience to cherish for the customers.

The promotional strategy would include all the ways a company communicates about its products & services. These can include Advertising, Public relations activities, sponsorships etc.

We talk about the promotional strategies required by Zivago in order to maximize its reach and awareness among the consumers. The strategies that we would implement are stated as follows,

• Social media marketing can be leveraged to the benefits of Zivago since the majority of the customers of online video streaming belong to the category of children and young adults. These are the people who are actively engaged in the social networking websites such as Facebook, Instagram etcetera. In order to make our presence felt on social media appropriate social media marketing strategies can be implemented which can help In directing the web traffic towards Zivago website.
• Advertising on social media about the platform and the latest movies, TV shows can attract potential consumers to visit the website in order to view the latest video content. When new consumers visit the website, the UX plays an important role & hence UX should be very pleasing and fast which should force the consumer to visit the website again for browsing more content. The speed of browsing and quality of content matters a lot while implementing digital marketing strategies.
• Sponsoring with the famous brands which encapsulate our target group can increase our visibility among the target group. Since the associated brand is perceived as a quality brand among our target consumer it becomes easier to associate our brand with the consumers. Example of this could be associating with a sports brand which is famous among the local viewers. The crux of this strategy is to leverage the brand Image of already existing brand to our benefits.
• Building public relations should be on our radar as a promotional strategy since holding on to existing customers is always Important than acquiring more customers. We should focus on our existing customers and give them personalized experience in order to build long-term relations with them. Constantly keeping in touch with them over E-mails, providing loyal customers with exciting promotional offers can immensely help in increasing the customer retention rate.

These are few strategies which can be implemented in order to increase our presence among the potential consumers. Since we are already providing our services at prices lower than industry competitors we do not have to alter the pricing rather focus on giving our customer a seamless experience which will force them to visit the website again and make them a returning customer. Use of social media and analytics to understand the user behavior on our website can allow us to monitor the sections of the website which are not performing at its best, that is web pages with highest jump rate can be optimized so that visitors spend more time at our webpage.

These are the strategies which need to be followed for increasing the brand reach and awareness of Zivago.

The possible risks of such a service can be the threat of competitors, a disruptive technology which will make consumers averse to video streaming, increase in habits of book reading. Also, the non-availability of Internet, irregular electricity supplies & increase in affordability of digital devices. These are few risks to the business. In order to prevent such risk,s Zivago can invest in R&D to come up with its own products which will seamlessly make the experience of the customers better.