Why UX-Driven Media and Entertainment Software Solutions Are the Key to Success?

The media and entertainment industry has witnessed extraordinary disruption in the last decade or so, with content consumers being the greatest beneficiaries of the digital revolution. Today’s audience is spoiled for choices with unprecedented access to a plethora of entertainment platforms.

Historically, media and entertainment companies have followed a two-dimensional approach, competing in content creation and distribution. However, M&E’s future necessitates an intense focus on engaging the users and converting them into permanent subscribers.

Modern media and entertainment software solutions must integrate innovative User Experience (UX) to offer well-packaged, personalized, bundled, and on-demand content as modern consumers demand immersive 4D experiences involving AR/VR technologies. A leading analyst predicts that AR and VR headsets’ global shipments will touch 68.9 million units by 2022.

With 5G connectivity acting as an enabler, UX is fast becoming a key focus area for media and entertainment software development. While the emphasis remains on high-quality content, there is a greater emphasis on how content is created and delivered. The disruption by emerging technologies is enabling content creators to produce compelling and personalized content.

Various factors crucial towards delivering engaging user experiences include customization, context, immersion, spontaneity, affordability, shareability, and security. The only option for M&E market players is to either adapt or perish. Seamless orchestration of an extremely complex digital supply chain and a ‘glass-to-glass’ intelligent media production, distribution, and servicing is required to deliver engaging UX.

Whosoever can effectively manage customer relationship shall garner success in this new reality. Intelligent platforms offering personalized content and hybrid monetization models incorporating personalized ads for delivering differentiated UX shall emerge as winners.

UX to Drive Customer Retention and Customer Acquisition

According to PwC’s latest Global Entertainment and Media Outlook report, M&E content providers are under immense pressure to foster growth through customer retention and customer acquisition. Content alone is no longer enough to sustain that growth. The M&E industry has successfully managed to build long-lasting relationships with Millenials and Generation Z, demographic cohorts; ironically, most industries struggle to engage. But what is the M&E industry doing differently to maximize user engagement?

The answer lies in focusing on the UX. People love to binge-watch video content on platforms like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, primarily due to design. The UX design ensures user engagement, from releasing the entire season at one go to skipping intros and end credits and automatically starting the next episode. The more addicted you get to their content, the less likely you are to cancel the subscription.

Producing original content to keep the audience engaged is the name of the game, a trend Netflix started in 2013 by rolling out ‘House of Cards’ — a digital original web series. Netflix spent a whopping $15.3 billion on producing digital originals in 2019. Netflix allocates 80 percent of its content budget on original content production; the OTT platform’s content budget could surpass $17 billion in 2020.

The most successful M&E platforms ensure that the users keep coming back for more. The focus of their UX is primarily on usability by giving the audience access to features and content that is of value and unique to the platform. When it comes to entertainment, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ model, so M&E content producers need to rely on creating their magic formula based on buyer personas and customer journeys.

Improving UX with Hyper-Personalization

Video streaming platforms heavily rely on hyper-personalization to achieve great UX. For example, Hulu leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide precise recommendations for the users, enabling easy content discovery. The moment a user opens the app or website, they know what they have to watch next. The trend of using algorithm-based recommendation engines started by the M&E industry has spread to other sectors such as travel, hospitality, retail, and e-commerce, among others.

Delivering ultimate UX based on hyper-personalization requires adopting agile methodologies, building deeper user insights, and gaining the flexibility to respond to changing user preferences. Hyper-personalization leverages real-time data and AI to deliver more relevant content to the audience. The AI-powered applications that prove most effective in a hyper-personalization strategy include predictive analytics, UX, and content curation/creation applications.

Unified Customer Journey across All Channels

Rising costs and shrinking revenues are prompting the consolidation of the media and entertainment industry, with emphasis on minimizing redundancies and ensuring a unified customer journey across all media channels, including theatres, home entertainment, and OTT streaming. A data-driven digital strategy presenting a unified customer view will be instrumental in dictating UX’s quality and monetizing user engagement.

According to Gartner, over 90% of organizations don’t have a formal content strategy to ensure that their content is consistent across all customer touchpoints. The ideal solution for content creators and distributors is to value their content as a business asset, where people creating customer-facing content follow a more collaborative approach. Businesses operating in the media and entertainment space need to reinvent how to create, manage, and deliver content by breaking down the silos between departments.

Closing Thoughts

As per Frost & Sullivan, the user experience (UX) will surpass all other aspects to become the key brand differentiator by 2020. Evolving behavioral patterns of the audience are driving content creators to offer them personalized and intuitive user experiences. With recent development in technology such as advancements in wearable devices, the Internet of Things (IoT), and smartphones, the content consumers are hyper-connected across multiple devices simultaneously, which adds complexity to delivering engaging user experiences. Content producers and distributors need to leverage the right technologies and business models to provide consistent viewing experiences across channels to achieve market leadership. Choose the right media and entertainment software development partner to leverage technology as a differentiator for your business.