TV standardization

Basic Types of international marketing strategies. Marketing strategies used by online TV services. Peculiarities of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video marketing strategies in India and services comparison. Netflix and Amazon Prime performances in India.

Рубрика Маркетинг, реклама и торговля
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Язык английский
Дата добавления 03.09.2018
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Content

Introduction

1. International marketing strategies of online TV services

1.1 Types of international marketing strategies

1.2 Marketing strategies used by online TV services

1.3 Marketing strategies of online TV services in emerging markets

2. Indian online TV services market as the most perspective one

2.1 Indian online TV services market potential and current situation

2.2 Peculiarities of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video marketing strategies in India and services comparison

2.3 Netflix and Amazon Prime performances in India

3. Key research findings

Conclusion

References

Introduction

international marketing strategy video

When a company goes international, first of all it has to decide, whether to develop a "standard" product suitable for all foreign markets, or an “adapted” one with the specific features for each market. This decision on standardization or adaptation taken at the early stage of a firm's entry to the foreign market can provide, on the one hand, the effectiveness of its foreign economic activity, and on the other hand, can determine the nature of its long-term marketing activities. Companies with a strong focus on the production process and costs might advocate the standardization of goods, while organizations, which care more about cultural differences, might be in favor of creating specialized products. However, when doing business in other countries and choosing this or that approach, a company should weigh well all the benefits and drawbacks of them in terms of short- and long-term perspectives in order to get sustainable competitive advantages on the foreign market.

For OTT video services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu, despite the global spread of the Internet, dilemma between standardization and customization is also one of the most crucial issues. While providing services in developed English speaking countries do not require any special adjustments, many factors in emerging markets lead to the necessary adaptation of the services. The less economically developed a country, the more changes will have to be made for the acceptance of a new product. In case of online TV services, it relates to local content production as well as large investment in local telecom infrastructure.

Nowadays one of the most perspective and fastest growing emerging markets is India. Since 1990s it opened its economy to foreign companies, which had to operate in an unfamiliar area, to deal with different law and to convince totally new audience. For two OTT giants, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, India has become the main battleground. Both companies invest a large amount of money in content production but they use different approaches in marketing strategies. Today, when a penetration of smartphones in India is growing, Internet speed is getting higher, online video streaming services are on the top of necessary things for the young audience which is craving for more. Thus, the study of implementing different marketing strategies in India is quite relevant since today many multinational companies are trying to do business in the Indian market and compete effectively.

Significance of this research is presented with deep examination of current Indian TV market potential, analysis of Indian audience and its preferences in content consumption. Accordingly, concerning the practical applicability, main findings of this study can be useful for media companies, which decide to take their business global and face challenges in choosing the right marketing strategies in India.

The paper is therefore devoted to the object of standardization and adaptation marketing strategies and more specifically to the subject of standardization and adaptation marketing strategies of online TV services.

The research aims to define which marketing strategy is more effective to implement by OTT video services in Indian market. The hypothesis is formulated as following: despite the fact that Netflix uses standardization marketing strategy, which has been providing its supremacy in many regions worldwide, an adaptation strategy allowed Amazon Prime Video to get larger subscriber base in India.

In this regard, specific tasks of the research consist the following:

1. to examine advantages and disadvantages of international marketing strategies;

2. to determine the strategies used by online TV services in developed and emerging markets;

3. to make an overview of Indian TV market and consumers' content preferences;

4. to analyze the performances of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video in India.

The paper is written using quantitative methods of research and case studies. All data necessary to prove the hypothesis is collected from professional reports and statistics, official companies' statements and business articles.

The research includes three main parts. The first chapter is a theoretical analysis of standardization and adaptation strategies used by online TV services in different well-developed and developing countries. Key finding of the first chapter is that for emerging markets OTT video services have to make more focus on the product adaptation.

The second part is analytical and includes an overview of Indian TV market and customers' preferences in watching video. The main idea is to show how Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are trying to attract Indian consumers with their services and to determine which marketing strategy provides higher number of subscribers.

The last chapter consists of key research findings and a bottom-line conclusion, which proves the hypothesis of the research.

1. International marketing strategies of online TV services

1.1 Types of international marketing strategies

As a company expands its operations, it has to decide, whether to take business outside domestic market or not. This decision requires a lot of research and many questions to be answered: does a company understand its target audience in other countries? Will it offer an attractive competitive product? Will a company be able to follow other countries' laws, communication and technological limitations?

Entering an international market, and therefore implementation of international marketing strategy can be caused by different needs of a company and have different reasons:

· Saturation of the domestic market, lack of growth potential, increasing pressure of competitors and emergence of possibilities of doing business abroad, which can provide additional profit;

· Onset of the crisis of the firm and the need for geographical diversification of activities by creating new markets and consumer groups;

· Availability of unused production capacity at the expense of new markets;

· Favorable commercial situation in foreign markets, characterized by lower labor costs, taxes, land and real estate acquisition, as well as the possibility of obtaining benefits from the state (loans, grants and so on);

· Change in purchasing power and exchange rate of the national currency;

· Creation of overseas subsidiaries becomes more efficient than direct exports, thanks to their location in close proximity to the target market;

· There is a possibility of access to certain "know-how" in foreign markets;

· Extension of the life cycle of a product (time of its sale as a whole).

· Desire to get a positive image as an exporting company in the domestic market;

· Receiving recognition abroad and gaining international prestige for the company and its products.

A company that decided to enter a foreign market first of all should answer three key questions:

When?

Company must clearly understand its time to enter a new market: whether to become a first-mover or a follower.

How?

Company must determine its scale of entering a new market: aggressive market seizure or gradual expansion of the business. It depends on the resources, investments and management competencies of the company.

Where?

Company must decide which markets and which segments it is most profitable to enter at a given time; in other words, find a balance between the attractiveness of the industry, risks and costs of entering a foreign market.

At the same time companies should understand possible difficulties and risks of entering foreign markets, which are following:

· Additional costs for marketing research of business environment in foreign countries, geographic, demographic, political, legal, economic, scientific, technical, cultural, social and other features of demand and business organization.

· Complication of the management and control. Necessity to have or prepare qualified and highly specialized experts with knowledge of markets' peculiarities, foreign languages, and who is familiar with the specifics of negotiations, requests and preferences of foreign consumers.

· Necessary modifications and adaptation of goods to the legislative, financial, technical requirements of foreign markets, as well as to the preferences of local consumers.

· High barriers and a wide range of protective measures of foreign states that prevent the penetration of foreign goods and services.

· Instability of the political and economic situation in another country.

In case if a company makes decision to start business in another country, it has to define the way of entering a new market. There are three the most common options: foreign direct investment (FDI), joint venturing, and exporting. They vary with the amount of risks, control, commitments and profit, which decrease from FDI to exporting.

Next important step is a choice of company's international marketing strategy, which can be different from domestic one. First of all, because of cultural peculiarities, which require an adaptation or sometimes even a radical change of all communication tools. Secondly, remoteness of other markets, which leads to the higher costs for controlling processes. Besides, in some overseas markets a company can face distribution barriers due to undeveloped infrastructure.

There are two main marketing strategies that define the level of a product's changes: standardization and adaptation. Advocators of the first strategy believe that in the era of globalization differences between countries become less, markets are getting similar, which means that there is an average consumer who use a standardized product. Their oppositionists are convinced that everything, starting from a product, communication plan and a company's attitude should be adjusted to the specific market.

The issue of standardization and adaptation strategies can be presented in several ways. Companies can leave an original product and use the same promotion in all markets. This is a pure standardization strategy, which minimizes entry costs. Companies may adapt only communication and promotion, while the product remains the same. Such way helps to reach potential customers more effectively and not to spend money on a product's changes. The opposite option is to adapt a product without changing a promo. Such strategy can be effective, for instance, for car manufacturers, since they need to meet local emission standards, or for detergent producers, which must take into account local water conditions. The strategy, called `adaptation' implies changes in both product and promotion. And there are some situations when a company has to invent a totally new product, since a current one cannot meet a new market's conditions. For instance, in countries with lack of affordable energy the clockwork radio has become the best solution for people.

The standardization strategy considers the product as a constant, and the place of its realization as a variable. The arguments offered by the supporters of this strategy are based on the fact that the newest communication tools and other social processes form a unity of tastes, demands, values of a significant part of the population in all cultures. This leads to the formation of a global market with identical demand for high quality goods at reasonable prices. The emergence of a global buyer implies that market is divided according to sociological features but not to geographical ones. For example, preferences of consumers living in the center of Manhattan are more like the ones of the inhabitants of Milan, than the tastes of people living in Bronx.

In fact, standardization of goods leads to savings in production costs, which allows companies to save profits and make prices acceptable to consumers. Even assuming that cultural differences exist, supporters of standardization strategy (Levitt, 1983; Jain, 1989) believe that price, quality and reliability of standard goods outweigh all the benefits derived from the adaptation of goods to cultural characteristics. According to their point of view, in the future, companies that will manage to apply the standardization strategy instead of creating a customized product will be more competitive and get long-term success.

One of the authors of a standardization strategy is an American economist Theodore Levitt, who presented his ideas in the article called `The globalization on Markets' in 1983. He offered not to seek for differences between markets, but to find their common features and to take advantage of these similarities. This idea is based on the following hypotheses:

· Thanks to fast development of technology, means of transport and communications, the world will become homogeneous.

· Consumers are ready to give up specific preferences in order to get cheaper and better quality products.

· The standardization caused by the homogenization of the world will provide economies of scale, which will reduce the cost of production.

· In addition to significant cost savings, use of a global trademark will give the company a single image around the world, which will increase efficiency and enable additional savings when introducing products associated with the global brand.

As evidence, T. Levitt gave the examples of world-famous products such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Levi's, Revlon, Kodak. He added that multinational corporations in order to be globally competitive would look for all the ways to decrease prices, so they would have to create a standardized product.

According to professor of University of Nicosia, Demetris Vrontis (2009), standardization strategy is more applicable for the industrial products since the reason of their purchase is the same in all the countries. What is more, Vrontis assume that the more a product is sophisticated and complex, the more standardized it can be. As an example he gives Apple company's highly standardized products, which meet needs of the same category of customers across the world regardless location. The same can be said about all technological devices, watches and machines. Another situation when a product cannot be modified just by its nature. These are all works of arts, music, and books. In this case a product will be estimated by its merit, so it is complicated to predict its success or failure. For instance, movies that achieve stunning success in the USA can be not accepted at all by Japanese people.

To sum up, a standardization strategy has the following main advantages:

1. Global image of the brand allows customers to expect the same quality regardless the country where they make a purchase.

2. Economies of scale provide cost reduction, since a company sells large amount of the same product without any modifications.

3. Finally, standardization strategy helps a company to focus on a quality improvement, since it has only one product.

However the opponents of standardization strategy argue that even if there is a homogenization of human needs, it does not mean that the only true solution for a global company should be the standardization of goods and services. Indeed, Levitt narrows down a global marketing only to the standardization strategy. But despite the homogenization of needs, alongside with the `global' segments of consumers, there is a trend of `personalization of consumption', which leads to the more and more heterogeneous segments in different countries due to the cultural specifics and values.

Another argument against is that economies of scale are not necessarily caused by standardization strategy. With the development of new technologies, there are flexible production systems, which allow instantaneous change of the sequence of operations. This helps companies to take advantage of standardization and at the same time meet the individual needs of customers.

One of the disadvantages of standardization is the inconsistency of technical conditions and standards. In Europe, each country still has its own standards, which force companies to produce many variations of the same product. The same problem is with special trade barriers, which make companies to follow adaptation strategy. What is more, standardization can decrease flexibility of a business in new markets. It means that a global company, which implements standardization strategy will be less agile to changes in individual markets in comparison with a company using localization strategy.

Supporters of the latter make focus on the importance of customization. According to Czinkota and Ronkainen (1998), when a company enters foreign market, first of all, it must consider so called environmental factors such as climate, laws, languages, race and so on. However, they admit that there are important limitations, which can pose challenges for a foreign company. These are religion, customs and values. If a company takes decision to implement adaptation strategy, before entering new markets it should consider many aspects (Vrontis and Thrassou, 2007). First is an income level of consumers, which determines a purchasing power. The less economically developed a country, the more changes will have to be made for the acceptance of a product by the market. If per capita income in the country is low, the number of items in the package can be reduced compared to the usual one in order to make the goods more affordable. To adjust to a lower income level, razor blades, cigarettes, chewing gum are often sold individually instead of the usual packages of 10-20 units. If a concept of a product is unfamiliar for the market, a company should simplify a product and sell it at a lower price.

Second is a general level of technical literacy of local population, which may cause the need to simplify a product. In fact, a product manufactured for an underdeveloped market should be cheap, easy to use and amenable to repair in ordinary shops with ordinary equipment. In the latter case, a company should assess the level of work of repair and maintenance organizations, since the absence of qualified specialists may require a change in the design of goods.

Thus, in order to decide on modification of a product, a company needs information on the following issues:

- How does foreign consumers treat a current product? If they do not have claims to it, and the sales level is high enough, there is no special need for modification.

- Is it possible to implement a modification without increasing significantly the costs of production and marketing?

- Will a modification of a product lead to a change in sales of a "standard" product?

- Is it possible to unify modification methods for all markets where a company operates?

If, as a result of such a study, it turns out that it is impossible to sell a product in a given country without modifications, a product should be adapted.

Adaptation (individualization, localization, customization) strategy implies modification of products specifically for foreign markets and takes into account the importance of cultural differences, political norms and economic factors. The issue of adaptation of goods for selling abroad is similar to one that arise when introducing a new product on the domestic market. The first step in adapting goods to a foreign market is to determine a level of novelty that a given market can perceive. It is required to understand how people react to that novelty and how new a product is to that market. When evaluating novelty, a company should remember that many goods, which are successfully sold in the national market and reached the stage of maturity or decline can be perceived as completely new in other countries, and accordingly may require marketing of innovative products. The most important factor in novelty of a product is the influence of this product on lifestyle and traditions of consumers.

In most cases, difficulties in selling goods abroad can be explained by incorrect estimations of a market. A company should examine the system of values of potential customers. It can be called as "humanizing a good", i.e. considering it from all aspects of the habitat of a product's future user.

There are two types of adaptation: forced and necessary or optional. Forced adaptation caused by laws and local regulations, which cannot be evaded. Legislative requirements are the most obvious reasons for the adaptation of products, because, without fulfilling them, the company loses possibility of obtaining permission to trade in a given country. In order to satisfy mandatory legal requirements there is a wide variety of ways, from simple changes in packaging to modifications in the product itself. Less obvious reasons for adaptation are indirect legal requirements that may affect the characteristics or demand for it. For example, high taxes on heavy-duty vehicles lead to the shifting towards smaller cars' sales in the foreign market. This will determine the change in demand and will affect the volume of sales of tires and gasoline brand.

The most important regulations, which requires adaptation, are:

· Safety standards, which, for example, determine in some countries the height of bumpers of cars or their lighting, non-inflammability of materials for children's toys and so on. Pharmaceuticals and food products are particularly carefully tested for safety.

· Standards of hygiene. For instance, restrictions on the importation of low-quality food products or industrial products that pollute the environment.

· Technical standards. Not all countries use electric current with a voltage of 220V, frequency of 50Hz and sockets with cylindrical apertures. In some countries there can be voltage of 110V, frequency 60 Hz and flat holes. Hence, adaptation of household appliances with plugs to a socket of the European standard is necessary.

When legal norms abroad are less stringent than domestic ones, a company formally is not obliged to modify its products for another country. Nevertheless, it has to compare and weigh the consequences of the possible loss on the foreign market due to the fact that products with higher standards are more expensive for local customers. The question is: how much the products must meet international standards in order to avoid useless product modifications for some of countries? Despite certain achievements in this question (introduction of unified international standards), many norms still remain unconfirmed due to consumers' resistance or economic problems.

It should be noted that the value consumers give to various physical features of goods depends to a large extent on the customs and cultural environment. Product characteristics have complex symbolic meaning: peopl0e's status, tastes, achievements, desires and all other qualities that provide consumers' satisfaction. In order to maximize it, the adaptation of non-physical qualities of the goods can become mandatory.

For instance, Coca-Cola, which is presented as a global product, had to change the name of one of its drinks "Diet Coke" to "Light Coke" when entering the Japanese market, because Japanese women do not like to admit that they are on a diet. Moreover, for them any diet refers to diseases. That is why, instead of emphasizing the idea of weight loss, the product focused on maintaining a slim body.

Optional adaptation is a more difficult decision for a company and also can be caused by different conditions. One of them are local use preferences or customers' habits. For instance, in Japan people usually work with pencil, which means that copiers produced in other countries require special characteristics so that a light pencil line could be copied.

The most important reason of necessary adaptation is cultural preferences and customs. The way people think, speak and act will determine the acceptance of a product. One of the strongest aspects is a perception of symbols in differents cultures. Any object is associated with something in the minds of each person. It can can be about fragility or strength, reliability or its absence, high or low quality, great or bad taste and so on. All these associations are different from one culture to another.

Another important aspect is a perception of different colors and forms. For example, in China, white is the color of mourning, and black is the usual color along with others. Red is often associated with blood or death but at the same time can have positive meaning as luck and fortune. Therefore, companies must be very attentive in choosing colors of a brand, especially if it dominates the product and will be used in all marketing campaigns. Red Bull actively uses an adaptation strategy for Chinese market. Its original design includes red, blue and silver colors. But in China it uses red and gold colors, where gold means wealth and happiness.

To sum up, adaptation strategy allows to meet needs of local markets and to achieve higher level of customers' satisfaction. But alongside with advantages of this strategy there are some downsides that should be considered by companies. First of all, any modifications require financial expenses. Another fact is that a company following localization strategy will not be able to benefit from economies of scale. What is more, implementation of this strategy can take a lot of time since a business needs to gain expertise in local peculiarities, adjust marketing campaign and then put it into the practice. During this time there might be a risk that a market can become already saturated by local companies. But on the other hand, a corporation should not go extremely in a product's modifications since it can decrease the value of a global brand.

Thus, the adaptation of goods requires more consideration of buyers' requirements in different countries. However, such a policy is very complex and expensive, because it demands differentiation of production capacities and more complex marketing. Therefore, most often companies strives for a strategy of achieving a compromise between standardization and adaptation of products: making standard a large number of a product's components and changing the final characteristics or individual parameters in accordance with the specifics of demand in a given market.

For example, in Panama, confectionery is sold in metal boxes, not in cardboard ones due to high humidity. "Coca-Cola" exports its concentrates to bottling plants located in all parts of the world, but the carbonation, color shade and the addition of sugar are made according to local preferences. Such changes do not entail any serious costs, because standardization relates to the process of manufacturing only the main concentrate, while exporting a final product is not necessary.

Nowadays such approach is becoming one of the most common in international marketing. According to researches (Vrontis and Thrassou, 2007), standardization and adaptation strategies are not mutually exclusive, they give better results in coexistence. Elements of both approaches should be implemented in order for a company to succeed on the foreign market. The case of McDonald's can be a good example for that point. The company is well known with its global branding, menu and customer service, but at the same time in every country it works with local food producers and suppliers in order to get the highest products' quality and to meet local customers' preferences (Mac Arabia in Middle East or Maharaja Mac in India). Thus, the company can benefit from both standardization and adaptation strategies.

In fact, the dilemma between these two strategies reduces the issue of internationalization to the choice between everything or nothing. But instead companies should balance two approaches and maximize the benefits offered by standardization such as economies of scale and image of reliable global brand and take advantage from localization strategy such as meeting needs of local customers and addressing rapidly the issues on the local market.

1.2 Marketing strategies used by online TV services

The Internet, which entered into the lives of billions of people around the world, has made fundamental changes in the processes of interaction in society and remains the main driver for the further development of the global communications ecosystem. The way of watching content via cable connection on TV is passing by and people start using more online streaming services that provide a large amount of movies and TV shows whenever is needed. Nowadays Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu are the main players in streaming video service market.

According to a global study made by Nielsen (2016), two-thirds of online consumers around the world (65%) use VOD services (video on demand). Among them, 43% watch videos using these services at least once a day. Movies are the most popular content in all the countries. 80% of respondents noted that they watch movies with VOD services, another 50% includes TV programs (comedy, sports and documentary). In the US market in households with subscription to video on demand (SVOD) services, traditional TV is much less watched. Usually, SVOD users are young people with above average income.

In the Asia-Pacific region, 44% of respondents want to abandon cable and satellite TV in favor of online services. In Latin America, 24% of respondents have the same intention, in North America - 22%, in Europe - 17%.

The long-term impact of the growing online services market has strengthened their popularity among young consumers. In fact, the rise of OTT (over-the-top) video services has significantly changed media habits of people, especially young adults. Worldwide, 34% of representatives of the generation Z (15-20 years old) and the same percentage among the millenials (21-34 years old) pay for content to the internet providers, while the same is said only by 31% of the representatives of the generation X (35-49 years), 15% of baby boomers (50-64 years) and 6% of older generation (65 and over) of respondents.

According to Juniper Research (2017), the revenue of SVOD in 2017 was $64 billion, and by 2022 it will increase to $120 billion. The key factor in revenue growth is the investment of SVOD services in the production of its own content. A good example is Netflix original series such as House of Cards, Stranger Things and Orange is the New Black, which have become a strong reason to subscribe. In 2018, Netflix is going to invest $6 billion to produce new original content.

One of the critical barriers for SVOD services is the Internet infrastructure of operators. Netflix releases its new series not like one episode per week, but immediately publish the entire season. On the day of the premiere, network providers are working with heavy loads, since fans of the series begin to watch a new season. Researchers admit that SVOD services will have to negotiate with operators about joint investments in the network in order to provide fast and high-quality access to content for all subscribers.

In the short term, SVOD-services can find a new source of revenue: sports broadcasts. Currently Amazon is working on getting rights to show the English Premier League. Netflix is also interested in the rights to show other popular sport programs in its main market, in the US. Pay TV operators are trying to keep up with OTT services. However, nowadays they are limited to launching their own online cinemas with content duplicating other popular platforms.

Today Netflix is one of the leading streaming video services in the world. At the end of 2017, it had 117.5 million subscribers. Its revenue increased from $1.36 billion in 2008 to $11.69 billion in 2017 (The Statistics Portal, 2017).

Established in 1997, Netflix originally was engaged exclusively in the rental of DVD-movies by mail. In 2007, it began distributing streaming video, which let it become one of the largest companies in the world. The switch to a new model was caused by the fact that DVD was not the only way to distribute content, and with the advent of cloud services, most of the information has been stored on the Internet. There was a new niche that Netflix could fill.

In 2013, the company introduced a family subscription, according to which each member of the family can choose to watch a separate film for $11.99. The main concern was about the need to increase the unique content of the service in order to attract as many users as possible. In 2008, Netflix signed an agreement Starz Entertainment Studio, which provided Netflix with more than 2000 movies and TV shows. That was only the first step. By 2010, the company reached an agreement with such major film studios as Paramount Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Lionsgate, Disney, MGM and GBS.

In 2010, Netflix started to go international. The company was aimed to enter the countries of Western Europe and Latin America. A year later Netflix became available to users of New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

In 2011, Netflix started to focus on the production of its own series. It made a step into the distribution of original content in 2013 by shooting House of Cards, which was watched by almost 5 million people within the first month of its premiere (The Statistics Portal, 2017).

In 2013, agreements were reached between Netflix and Marvel Television to produce series about four heroes: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and Luke Cage. TV series from Marvel were supposed to increase the audience of the service. In addition, Netflix signed an agreement with Disney to broadcast the sixth season of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Special attention should be made to the company's attitude to piracy. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, mentioned that despite the negative impact of illegal content, it was very useful (vc.ru, 2015). With its help Netflix assesses the attitude of users to new genres and plots on the market, which allows better understanding of the audience. Therefore, before buying a new series or movie, Netflix checks its popularity on torrents. However, such a position does not imply that the company seeks to block links to downloading its own content.

Netflix is ??a great example of a company with a flexible business model that managed to conquer a selected market. From the very beginning the service, despite the presence of strong competitors, was able to find its niche and the advantages that ensured its further development. This applies, for example, to a very loyal system of modifications, when any change, before its implementation, passes through an audit of a potential audience. Moreover, Netflix collects enormous data about its subscribers' behaviors, which is used in order to provide desired content. As a result, Netflix perfectly understands customers' preferences and offers them the most relevant titles.

Among the main features of Netflix is a wide base of series and movies. It should be noted that they become available almost immediately after the presentation. Viewers do not need to wait for every new episode, they get the entire season right away. Besides, Netflix gives customers an access to a huge collection of movies in a selective 4K quality. There are no pirated copies or "telescreens".

Another important fact is that Netflix application can be found on almost all multimedia devices. It works on iOS, Android and Windows Phone, Windows and OS X, almost all models of Smart TV, PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox 360 and other platforms, which means that users get access to movies and series in high quality from any device anywhere in the world.

Although almost a half of Netflix subscribers are in the USA, the company currently operates in over 200 countries and provides the service for more than 80 million people around the world (Ingram M., 2017). Netflix global marketing strategy can be presented by three Cs: content, cost and competition.

The price of a subscription in each region is almost the same, but the number of movies and TV shows available is different. The difference in libraries relates, first of all, to the purchase of licenses. To acquire the rights to broadcast certain content in one country can cost more than another, which is not always beneficial. Netflix tries to get a global license for broadcasting around the world, but this does not always happen. For example, the exclusive rights to show "The Walking Dead" in the UK belong to Channel 4, so there is no possibility of a global broadcast of this show by Netflix. That is why the company is highly interested in its own content development. According to Netflix official statement, the company is going to spend around $7 billion on the new original TV series in 2018 (Koblin J., 2017).

It should be noted, that Netflix used to focus on English language content in all the countries, but in the last couple of years it started to invest in local shows such as French thriller Marseilles, Columbian drama Narcos and Japanese stand-ups. In other regions Netflix tries to provide high quality dubbing and subtitling. Nowadays it has up to 20 languages in its catalog.

As for the cost, Netflix is considered to be the most expensive SVOD service in many countries. Today it has three plans to subscribe:

· Basic - $9.78 per month without HD quality and a user can watch content only on the one screen.

· Standard - $12.23 per month without Ultra HD quality but content is already availably on two screens.

· Premium - $14.67 per month with all features and 4 screens to watch on.

Netflix keeps its cost on the same level in order to provide high quality content and the service. But if for western regions an offered price might be affordable, in emerging countries users are not always willing to pay extra money for online TV, especially when they have an access to the content from cheaper local operators.

One of the main challenges for Netflix is local competitors. For instance, in Europe, Sky company is among the largest content buyer and producer. Moreover, in not English speaking countries it becomes important, since local players can offer the most relevant and popular shows in a local language.

By the number of covered territories, nowadays Amazon is a number one competitor of Netflix - its Prime service is already available in 200 countries. Amazon is a global e-commerce company, which offers online retail, consumer electronics, computing services, and groceries.

Amazon's story begins in 1994, in a garage where American entrepreneur Jeffrey Bezos placed three homemade tables with computers and a server. Nearby, he rented a small room, and it was the first headquarters of the start-up on selling books online. In October 1999, amazon.com became one of the 25 most visited Internet sites (about 1.9 million daily visits), and the number of client base was more than 1 million (Malanin I., 2012).

By 2000, Amazon was not selling only books, but also music on DVD, toys and electronics, since the sale of only printed products narrowed the audience. In 2003, the company created its own IT-center, and in 2005 - the Amazon Prime service for the most active clients. Besides, Amazon acquired an online streaming service Twitch, IMDB, bought a popular audiobooks seller Audible, and released its first Kindle reader. In 2009, Amazon acquired one of the largest online stores of footwear and clothing Zappos.com. And personally Jeff Bezos now owns one of the largest newspapers of the USA, Washington Post.

Amazon's marketing strategy can be presented in the following way:

· Goods and services in free access

· User-friendly interface

· Branches all over the world

· Modern methods of communication

· Universal behavior and thinking

Amazon makes focus on Internet communications and close partnerships, for example, with Target, Sears Canada, Timex Corporation and Marks&Spencer. Partners can place a link to specific products in Amazon on their website, receiving money for each conversion.

As for Prime service, Amazon launched it in order to stimulate sales of own products. Prime-package costs $99 per year and assumes free delivery within two days (in some cities even on the day of purchase). In 2017, there were almost 80 million subscribers in the USA (The Statistics Portal, 2017).

Besides two days free delivery, membership in Amazon Prime has many other advantages:

· Free use of the widest resource of the media library and Amazon library (for Kindle e-book owners);

· Discounts on certain products from Mom and Amazon Students categories;

· Early access to the best daily offers in MyHabbit;

· Unlimited space for storing photos;

· Prime Music service, where music is divided into genres and periods, which will allow users to easily find the song that corresponds to their mood and taste.

· Amazon Instant Video, which provides many TV shows and movies;

Prime Video is available on Smart TV, desktops, and in applications for iOS and Android. It consists of a large content library as well as original Amazon series. The most popular of them is the drama Transparent, which in 2015 got two Golden Globes and three nominations for the Screen Writers Guild. Another popular Amazon show is The Grand Tour with Jeremy Clarkson. Moreover, for additional fees users can get content of Showtime, Starz and other channels. Attraction of new audience is also happening by sports broadcasts. In 2017, streaming service showed NFL games, and since 2018 Amazon got exclusive rights to show all main matches in men's tennis. It should be noted, that last year Amazon Studios' shows were nominated for 15 Emmy Awards.

For 24 years of operation, Amazon has penetrated into a wide range of industries and currently is engaged in almost everything from creating original content that receives Emmy awards to providing computing power and selling sneakers. One of the reasons of Amazon success is huge data on customers' behavior. And in comparison with Facebook, which knows what people like or Google, which knows what people are searching for, Amazon actually has information on what people buy.

Amazon continues to grow rapidly today. The company constantly offers new convenient services. Recently it launched the delivery by drones, and opened an offline store Amazon Go. This is a unique place where customers do not have to pay for purchases: the system automatically calculates the cost of goods buyers took, and withdraws this amount from an Amazon personal account.

Another major online TV service is Hulu. Currently it is available only in the USA and Japan. The number of subscribers has grown from less than one million in 2011 to almost 13 million in 2017 (The Statistics Portal, 2017). According to the survey, 23% of those who use streaming video services have a subscription to Hulu. The cost for Hulu Streaming Library starts from $7.99 per month with limited advertisements. In order to turn off commercial users need to pay extra $4. Hulu with Live TV costs $39.99 per month. Unlimited number of screens to watch on will require additional $14.99 each month.

Hulu began producing original content in 2011 with a news program about pop culture, The Morning After. In 2012, Hulu produced Battleground series, which had only one season, consisting of 13 episodes. Today the service has shows from CBS, ABC, Fox and NBC. It also got rights to broadcast hundred episodes of 30 Rock, Parenthood, Will and Grace and This Is Us. Besides, Hulu has an exclusive agreement with Magnolia Pictures to show their movies after theatrical releases.

Nowadays Hulu actively tries to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. For example, an original Hulu series The Handmaid's Tale at the last Emmy ceremony got five statuettes: for the best television drama, stage direction, script, best female role and best actress in a featured role. In addition, Hulu has several projects that can compete with Netflix series. For instance, the thriller Dimension 404 is usually compared to Black Mirror, and Castle Rock to Stranger Things. Moreover, the service has signed an agreement with a streaming music service Spotify. According to their bundle, students will get two services for $5 per month, while Spotify Premium itself costs $5 per month. However, so far neither Hulu nor Amazon can surpass the popularity of Netflix among viewers. 40% of all hours spent on viewing streaming services, belongs to Netflix (Techradar, 2017).

Besides companies already mentioned, Apple is also entering the market of streaming video services. Jamie Elyrich and Zach van Amburg, who previously worked for Sony Pictures and were responsible for such series as Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, will be in charge of the new service.

Disney company also plans to open its online cinema. That is why it stops partnership with Netflix and will move all own shows and movies into the own streaming platform.

1.3 Marketing strategies of online TV services in emerging markets

If when entering markets of developed countries, companies usually follow the standardization strategy, developing countries in most cases require adaptation of the product due to local specifics. Studying emerging markets is becoming one of the most important issues on the agenda of marketers in large corporations, since operations in a foreign market are usually implies the need to study foreign culture, language, consumers' habits and traditions. In addition, companies often face political uncertainty, economic instability and restrictions of laws. Such aspects as the level of telecommunications facilities' development, literacy and education level, number of rural population and many others define a lot a perception of the product.

There are several main factors that might require OTT video services such Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu to adapt their strategies in order to succeed on the emerging markets:

1. Demand for local content. All video streaming services mainly provide Western TV series, shows and blockbasters, while regional competitors have a lot of local content. For instance, media holdings in Germany and France in order to compete with global OTT services make their own shows that meet local audience's preferences.

This is especially true in such country as China. Netflix tried to enter the Chinese media market for many years, but the company failed to launch its product due to very strict laws on content. The rules regarding foreign services and media in China are quite tough: many imported TV shows and movies are censored before appearing in public. That's why it would be extremely difficult for Netflix to launch its service in China: it would have to spend years building a content library that would meet the strict requirements of Chiniese government.

Netflix also have an example of successful launch in one of developing countries, in Brazil. In fact, there is a large Latin American TV company, called Globo Group, which produces the most favorite Brazilian content - telenovelas. Netflix decided to invest in original local content and invited a popular Brazilian actress Bianca Camparato to head '3%' series, which became so popular, that Netflix decided to show it in other countries. However, the company faced challenge with local internet infrustructure. In fact, even in big towns internet speed was quite low. So Netflix made a partnership with one of the largest telecom companies, Telefonica. According to their deal, Netflix supplied additional servers, which was beneficial for both companies.

2. Language barriers. Most of the content in online TV services' catalogs is in English, which is a common thing in English-speaking countries and most developed regions, while for emerging markets with their unique cultures and languages, it is not user-friendly. For instance, both Amazon Prime Video and Netflix came to Russia with a small amount of shows translated to Russian languages or at least with Russian subtitles. Moreover, the interfaces of both services are in English and there is no possibility to choose Russian language in settings. What is also important, at the time of launch, OTT services did not include any Russian local content. Finally, the cost of subscription was quite high - $8-12 per month. And that is the next point.

3. High price for the services. Since in developing markets the purchasing power is lower than in developed ones, online TV services should adapt their prices for local consumers. While Amazon Prime does change subscription plans in emerging markets (Kovalszyk P., 2018), Netflix shows opposite. For instance, membership cost in India and Indonesia is higher than in the UK and Canada (Rodriguez A., 2017). That is why, Netflix is often considered as one of the most expensive services.

4. Underdeveloped payment infrastructure. If in many developed markets giving banking card details is common process, in developing countries it is not widespread, and sometimes people even do not have a credit/debit card. Following local payment traditions are important for companies. For example, in Russia Netflix offered only payment by card or via PayPal, which is barely known among local population. So in order to provide users with a high quality good, OTT video services will have to invest in local payment infrastructure development.

While Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu originally are form the USA, so they have to find a way to enter emerging markets, there is a video streaming service, called Iflix, which was created in Malaysia specifically to operate in developing Asian countries. Iflix was launched in 2015 and nowadays it has more than 5 million subscribers (Shaw L., 2017). By its name it can be seen that it is created opposed to Netflix like a low-cost substitution. In 2017, it raised $90 million from Sky and Liberty Global companies in order to enter the Middle Eastern and North African markets. According to Iflix Head of MENA (Vivarelli N., 2017), its strategy is based on three streams: content localization (dubbing), international programs, Hollywood blockbusters and local shows.


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