Bevin Fletcher:
Hi everyone. I'm Bevin Fletcher, senior editor of StreamTV Insider, and I'm here at the StreamTV show with Domenic DiMeglio, CMO and Chief Data Officer of Paramount Streaming. Hi Dom.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Hi, good morning.
Bevin Fletcher:
Good morning. Great to have you here.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Thanks for having me.
Bevin Fletcher:
Okay, so I'm accepted to talk. Now churn is an industry-wide issue for streaming, and I think Hub came out with a recent study that said consumers increasingly have a difficult time differentiating between different Major S-FODs. So what are kind of some of the main marketing techniques or messaging you're using to show the value prop and communicate what makes Paramount Plus unique to consumers?
Domenic DiMeglio:
Yeah, I mean I think you're hitting on one of the things that we focus on the most, and I would say break down into two things. One of course is when users are evaluating their subscriptions, both the new ones they want to sign up for and the ones they have, value is the most important thing in terms of course you have to have shows and content they want, but from there they want to know that they're getting the value for their subscription fee. And so one of the things that we have been very conscious about in all of our marketing is always balancing the amount of single title marketing efforts that we're doing and always having a layer of sort of multi-title and Paramount Plus brand creative to go along with that so that you're both exciting people about the new shows and movies that are coming, but also showcasing the breadth and depth of the service at the same time.
And then the other thing is to hit on your point, which is platform linkage. It's not just enough you want to get people excited about a show, but they need to know where to find it. And we see in all the research across the industry that linkage to the streaming service is where the awareness metrics lack the most. And it's true across streamers, and I'm sure anecdotally sometimes you talk to people and they watch the show and they couldn't tell you which service they watched it on.
Bevin Fletcher:
Definitely.
Domenic DiMeglio:
And so that's something we're very focused on in all of our efforts to make sure that we're tying our titles and our broader content offering back to the Paramount Plus brand to help build that linkage. And that's been sort of a differentiator for us.
Bevin Fletcher:
That makes sense. They don't have to Google where do I find this show and pop up there.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Exactly.
Bevin Fletcher:
Now, do you find this is also an issue for free streaming? Is that a same challenge with Pluto TV?
Domenic DiMeglio:
It is, but I would say differently with Pluto where I think we're able to have a healthier balance of brand and multi-title as well as single title in terms of channels or stunts that we're doing for Pluto. And so I feel like the balance is a little bit there, but absolutely in general with so much choice out there for streaming, we still want to make sure from a Pluto perspective that we're breaking through because you open up your device and it's like what am I going to click on? And we want to make sure Pluto is the app that they're choosing.
Bevin Fletcher:
Makes sense. Interesting. And so another thing I've seen recent research about is that younger consumers are more actively and deliberately kind of subscription cycling and turning in and out. So as you think about marketing and trying to balance subscriber acquisition costs, how are you thinking about non-direct channels like bundling or aggregation and have those become more important or needed in recent years?
Domenic DiMeglio:
I mean, I think I would say from a bundling perspective in the way we evaluate those, I wouldn't say that they're specific to the challenge that you're talking about in terms of people coming into a service and then sort of leaving. And so what we're really focused on there, it kind of goes back to what I said before, first and foremost is when we're able to attract a younger audience for a title that they want to watch on Paramount Plus, we also want to make sure that they understand everything else that we offer. So it improves the likelihood that they'll stay with us because we have more than just one thing. And so that's been really important for us.
But the other thing that we see is when we work really hard to win back subscribers and with each successive resubscription people are staying for longer and driving higher lifetime values. And so we also look at it as an opportunity, which is yes, maybe they had a first short subscription stint with us, but we're hopefully going to get them back and get them to stay longer, and then we get more bites at the apple to turn them into long-term customers.
Bevin Fletcher:
That makes sense. And on that point of keeping them to stay longer, retention is obviously a big issue.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Huge.
Bevin Fletcher:
So what are some of your key strategies there in terms of marketing and keeping subscribers on the platform and the channels you're looking at?
Domenic DiMeglio:
The biggest thing I think is engaging with them at every part of the life cycle. I often say that our retention marketing starts while you're signing up for the service. Just that experience you go through, the show picker that you engage to tell us the types of movies and shows that you want to watch, then our marketing onboarding series in terms of the emails and push notifications you get, how we use those insights to then sort of do paid engagement and retention marketing. And ultimately we're also trying to really harness all those signals back and we've been building a sort of a customer data platform to then be able to understand all of the signals you're sending us, both things you like and don't like, and then using them to determine the next best action in terms of how we engage with you. And so that's one way that we're really trying to optimize the customer life cycle.
Bevin Fletcher:
Excellent. And I thought it was really interesting during your keynote, how you mentioned that kind of first month is a really critical time to keep that user engaged.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Absolutely.
Bevin Fletcher:
And keep them on the platform. Well, thank you so much for being with us.
Domenic DiMeglio:
Awesome.
Bevin Fletcher:
And thank you everyone for watching. Tune back in, we'll be here all week with live interviews from the show.