Professors Michael Smith and Rahul Telang answered the following questions on this article:
“The making of House of Cards illustrates how a bunch of different changes coming together at the same time can be really disruptive to the traditional industry. The thing that Netflix had that nobody else in the industry had was they knew exactly who those Kevin Spacey fans were and they could use the platform to target them directly. So, Netflix went out and created nine separate trailers for House of Cards and targeted them directly to those users. So, I think part of the story is the power of detailed customer data to help you do a better job of marketing the content.”
- People have made a big deal about the idea of “binge-watching” as the embodiment of the changing way we consume media. But, what about the tailored content, based on users’ tracked habits? Which is more important?
- Both. It’s understanding at a detailed level how individual consumers are accessing the content, and then using the platform to help them discover and find exactly the right content that’s going to meet their tastes. What the academic literature says is that consumers get an incredible amount of value from being able to find exactly the kind of content that meets their unique tastes—and that consumers’ tastes are incredibly varied, more so than what you can find with traditional broadcast channels.
- What’s the biggest reason streaming services have a leg up over traditional media companies?
- Netflix, Amazon, and Google all own their own data and they don’t share it with anybody in the entertainment industry.