There are a lot of conversations to be had about online TV streaming. Whether it’s replacing traditional TV watching or fragmenting the entertainment industry into tiny bits are just two of them. The likes of Netflix, Hulu, NowTV, and so forth have been in heated competition for some time now but Jeff Bezos’ Amazon Prime appears to be doing much more to attract customers than any of its rivals.
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In the UK, an Amazon Prime subscription includes access to the company’s delivery benefits as well as to four other services; namely, TV and music streaming, its eBook library, and Twitch Prime, which rewards people who watch video game streaming channels with items to use in the same title. Netflix, on the other hand, allows its subscribers to watch movies and TV – and that’s about it.
Extra Value
Netflix has never needed to make a special effort to outperform its rivals because, up until the last decade, there weren’t any. However, Amazon Prime reached 200m members in 2020 after a stellar year for the retailer. While there’s no hint of how many of these subscribers use Amazon’s streaming platform, as those figures aren’t published, it’s likely to still be a long way behind Netflix’s current count of 207m (Q1 2021).
It’s unknown how and if Netflix would alter its product if Amazon Prime ever began to truly challenge its platform but it does raise an interesting point. Netflix has done very little to incentivize its offering beyond original content. Unfortunately, that’s now standard practice in the industry. Just look at Hulu’s Originals, Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney Plus, or Amazon’s The Boys.
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The worry for Netflix is that creating extra value around web services is not an especially unusual thing to do. Free gifts, loyalty schemes, and access to secondary products are popular marketing tools in lots of industries. A notable example is Epic Games, which, in its bid to overtake rival platform Steam, offers free titles every month. A similar model is used by the casino industry, which favours regular promotions.
Original Content
Casushi, for instance, supplements its table games with the Sushi Train, a pop-up slot that appears once the customer’s Loyalty Bar is full. Much like many other casinos, Casushi also utilises a points system that rewards the player with free spins just for using the product as intended. While this kind of scheme might not work for Netflix in its current form, the platform may need to find something to retain subscribers in the future.
So, as a bit of a thought experiment, Netflix could offer exclusives or early access to shows that are normally broadcast once a week. Alternatively, they could fold Millarworld, a comic book company they acquired in 2017, into the main Netflix business to create something like Amazon’s Prime Reading. Netflix is currently using Millarworld’s stories to fuel its original content machine.
Overall, there’s much that Netflix could do to make its platform more attractive to customers, especially now that Amazon Prime has one foot on the same ladder.