What’s New for 2020?

John: I work within the APAC regional Investment team at GroupM.  The role of the investment team is to work and partner with media and technology partners across the region and with local partners. These partnerships are in place to ensure our clients are getting access to the most innovative opportunities to unlock growth for their business.  I focus primarily on the partnerships with the regional digital media vendors.

John: Historically, traditional (linear) TV has been consumed on a large screen in the living room.  We are now seeing consumption move to new devices like mobile, tablet etc and through new OTT platforms such as iflix and Viu.  Despite OTT being consumed on a different device, it is our belief that it still a similar experience to watching linear television – a lean in immersive experience.  Therefore, OTT should be considered an extension of a TV plan rather than considered a “digital” buy.  Linear TV is still (rightly) the backbone of media plans due to its ability to reach a huge amount of consumers very rapidly.  However, OTT can exist as a line item on a TV plan (the same way pay TV does) that helps add incremental reach or through more focused targeting using data enhancements.

John: A lot of the broadcasters in US or Europe are asking their users to register before accessing their content.  This is allowing them to build up strong deterministic data sets that they previously did not have.  The broadcasters that are doing well are the ones that are able to share certain user signals in a privacy compliant way (e.g. hashed ID’s) allowing advertisers better levels of targeting on their addressable TV campaigns.

Other broadcasters who have been successful are the ones that are thinking about how digital technology can help enhance the linear TV advertising experience.  A great example of this is Sky in the UK.  Their Adsmart product uses data from the set top box (and other data sources) and ad interception technology to allow different ads to be served to different households during the linear broadcast.

John:  The term “premium” is generally a reference to the amount of money spent on the production of a piece of content E.g. it costs a lot of money to produce an episode of Game of Thrones (GoT) versus uploading a home video on YouTube therefore GoT is considered more “premium”.   However, advertising is about delivering business or marketing outcomes for clients, not about the cost of production to the media owner or channel creator.  The unit price a client is willing to pay for an advertising position (within any media channel) is linked to the ability of that impression, spot, page or panel to deliver an effect to their brand.  It is up to the content producer to demonstrate the outcome it is delivering to the advertiser to justify any premium of the unit price.

John:  They really shouldn’t.  TV (which includes OTT) is about “watering the tree” to allow it to grow and bear fruit.  Search is about “picking the fruit” from the tree when it is ripe.

John:  I am not aware of any market in the world that has a converged currency (although I could be wrong)  Australia has made great strides in creating VOZ (Virtual Australia) which brings together viewing on TV sets (OzTAM and Regional TV audience measurement (TAM) TV ratings) and connected devices (OzTAM’s Video Player Measurement (VPM) Report) to provide all-screen, cross-platform planning and reporting for Australia’s television industry. However, I believe there is still a bit work to go on this and it will only cover Broadcast Video on Demand (BVOD) channels and not all Advertising-based Video on Demand (AVOD).

Xianghua: iQIYI aspires to become a technology-based entertainment giant that brings fun and joy to people and their families. The company continues to invest in technologies and original content, in order to provide users with a seamless and high-resolution viewing experience, as well as rich and premium content. Our services include both free and paid membership systems, allowing users to have the option of free viewing or paying for a better viewing experience, based on their demand. In China, we bring happiness to 180 million users every day, and we are hoping to bring the same happiness to more users outside of China.

Xianghua: Internet services are naturally global. Before iQIYI announced its expansion overseas, users around the world have already been enjoying iQIYI’s services by downloading the iQIYI App through App Store and Google Play, or visiting the iQIYI website on their PCs – hence there were already many users outside of China using iQIYI back then. We now additionally provide local language interface and subtitles, so that users around the world can better enjoy our services.

Technological innovation has also been a huge driving force for the rapid development of online video platforms and the expansion of the video-led entertainment industry. In terms of content, iQIYI has recently produced various original content such as Story of Yanxi Palace, Burning Ice and The Thunder, which have been well-received both by reputation and by ratings in the overseas markets.

With our confidence in technological innovation and content popularity, we believe that Asian culture is the next global phenomenon after Hollywood culture. At present, iQIYI has provided entertainment services to countries and regions including Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Thailand. Last November, we rolled out localized services for the first time in a foreign market by partnering with Astro, Malaysia’s leading media brand.

 Xianghua: First of all, our services are a membership system, not a subscription system. Under the membership system, members pay more attention to what experiences and benefits we provide. Therefore, from the first day iQIYI started its membership business, our focus has been on providing better experiences for our members, which is our unwavering commitment. These experiences include earlier access to content, access to more content, better audiovisual effects, meeting their idols who star in our content, etc.

Other content-unrelated membership benefits include dining discounts and joint membership. We hope our members can achieve a sense of convenience, eminence and prestige through iQIYI. Take our original dramas for example, we update 6-8 episodes every week, users can watch them for free, but members can have a week’s earlier access to next week’s episodes.

Xianghua: The free-and-paid business model is more suitable for countries where people have varying living standards. Some people don’t want to pay for content yet, so we provide them with free services but with advertisements; some people are willing to pay for better viewing pleasure, so we offer them such services. Our business model gives users more choices so that everyone can enjoy our services. In addition to the free-and-paid business model, we also have a diversified monetization model including gaming, live streaming and IP derivatives.

Xianghua: The Coronavirus outbreak resulted in the wide adoption of shelter-in-place and accelerated the evolution of users’ entertainment behaviour and paying habits. In response to the pandemic, we have taken a series of measures to ensure the availability of high-quality entertainment content to cater to the needs of users who are confined at home. In the meantime, we hope the pandemic could end soon.

In January 2020, we introduced the “early-access transactional on-demand mode” in an effort to balance the interests of users, film producers and platforms. It allows users to view latest releases online at a moderate price, while also enabling film producers to obtain greater revenue by establishing more distribution channels. We as a platform also benefit from it by being able to provide more high-quality content. So far, Enter the Fat Dragon and Knockout are films that have been released on iQIYI through this mode. Through this mode, we hope to serve users and film industry partners in the long term while also overcoming current and future challenges.

We also observed that some of our users were transferring their offline entertainment activities to online. During the COVID-19 outbreak, we launched multiple films which were originally planned for theatrical releases. We then hosted Spring online screenings in partnership with Beijing International Film Festival (BIFF), allowing movie-goers to enjoy a film feast through just a click. 32 films were screened including Academy-award winning films Marriage Story and Judy, the Golden Globe-nominated film Bombshell, to name a few etc.  In addition, in response to lifestyle changes during this period, we have optimized our platform’s release schedule by pushing forward releases of content including The Chinese Doctor and The Great Ruler.

We also rolled out a new series of original variety shows that are filmed and produced through “cloud recording”, in which celebrity guests take part in karaoke, work-out challenges and games by filming remotely in their own homes. This provides users with relatable yet diversified entertainment options when they stay at home. Moreover, due to the delay of nationwide school openings, we have cooperated with Sichuan Radio and Television Network to launch 13 livestreaming channels that contain courses for primary, junior and senior high school students in Sichuan province through our Shu Little Fruit Set Top Box. The channels also consist of a special section which offers recap videos that are automatically cut and edited by AI technology, and categorized based on grades and subjects. By combining livestreaming and on-demand videos, iQIYI enables students to adopt a more flexible and efficient approach to learning new courses at home.