As competition increases and economic headwinds hit VOD streaming platforms, the need to optimise libraries and develop impactful content is key to subscriber acquisition, maximising advertising potential, and securing sustainable production pipelines.
Using RealityMine’s technology to capture title-level consumer behaviour beyond the walled gardens of streaming services, AMPD Research (the consumer insights division of Media Partners Asia) have deployed panel-based solutions across the Asia-Pacific region that enable streaming’s biggest players to better tailor their product offering to subscribers and advertisers. AMPD Research has examined the streaming and digital landscapes of 12 Asia-Pacific markets by deploying passive data capture technology to over 50,000 respondents on a continuous basis, delivering data via software using Gold Standard calculation rules. This has helped clients including Amazon Prime Video, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and regional OTT players to understand detailed consumer behaviour and refine their content strategies including reporting title-level consumption by putting content supply & demand in context, enriching data with meta data and delivering the metrics that matter such as churn predictors, content engagement, and service cross-consumption. Beyond content, clients such as The Trade Desk and Publicis have leveraged AMPD Research’s continuous panel measurement to size, profile and segment online universes across covered markets to enable clients to target and measure advertising efficacy.
The use cases are manifold and go beyond the conventional output of existing TAM panels and include actionable insights for clients to: (1) secure content pipelines and develop production slates; (2) identify titles that attracted new subscribers, and those that retained existing ones; (3) identify early churn
indicators; (4) understand the cross-media consumption habits of VOD users; (5) segment consumers by digital behaviour and standard demographics to maximise advertising potential.
Market coverage: Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Given the current lack of a robust measurement of title-level consumption of OTT or VOD services or any imminent plans of incumbent regional JIC suppliers to do so, AMPD Research was approached by several media owners to establish a pan-regional continuous streaming media measurement service.
Within the commercial realities and limitations of a non-JIC supported service, AMPD Research set out to build an offering that, where economically practical, aligned with the principles set out by the Audience Research Methods (ARM) Group’s Global Guidelines for Television Audience Measurement (GGTAM).
Having developed universe estimates for the online population, Establishment Surveys were conducted to enumerate the device ownership, method of internet reception, and other key variables for verifying panel controls. Given the scale of the project, river sampling was employed for the Establishment Survey and are conducted on a continuous basis and reported quarterly. The anticipated annual Establishment Surveys conducted are c. 400,000 (est. YE2022).
Launched in 2019 by Media Partners Asia (MPA), AMPD Research uses passive measurement to provide customer behaviour data and insights across the online landscape in 13 Asia Pacific and international markets.
Respondents for the passive panels are sourced from the Establishment Survey, with over 50,000 active panellists aged 15+ across 12 APAC markets. Panellists are incentivised to install RealityMine’s passive metering technology.
The appropriate incentives have been developed and are highly tailored to each market. Panellist onboarding is facilitated using video introductions and installation guides and average panel retention stands at 85%+ across an average 30-day period. The panels are replenished where possible using like-for-like panellists. A major component in reducing panel churn has been respondent education on data protection, whereby potential panellist must complete a market-specific data protection “know your rights” survey prior to downloading the passive meter, which has resulted in a 21% improvement in successful installations.
The data reported is anonymized and conforms to data privacy legislation in markets where the service operates including European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Republic of Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) which delivers parallel compliance among Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member states.
To enhance clients’ ability to analyse the passive output, each content title captured is appended with meta data including a market specific genre taxonomy, programme format, production credits and the original broadcast network. As less than 70% of Asian-produced content are categorised on open source or proprietary databases, a Content Asset Master File (CAMF) containing over 600,000 pieces of unique IP has been created.
Data is processed and rim weighed daily to address any panel imbalances. All data is projected to the universe estimates with data enrichment occurring within 7 days. Gold Standard calculation rules based on BARB standards are used to report and project reach and frequency.
Data is reported overnight and delivered to clients via a highly tailored version of TechEdge’s AdvantEdge tool, which has been reconfigured to report non-linear data as well as all other digital assets, such as website and apps consumption as well a search term analysis.
AMPD Research provides data-driven insight to the preferences and real-life behaviour of consumers in the world of online video streaming in APAC. AMPD findings have helped clients understand the APAC streaming economy and inform their own content investment and platform strategy decisions in 2022. A few actionable insights include:
AMPD found that in Jan-Aug 2022, between 70-85% of all premium video consumption in Japan, Australia, Korea and India was driven by local language content (Japanese, English, Korean and Indian languages respectively), underscoring the importance of local titles in some of APAC’s largest, “must win” markets for international streamers looking for subscriber scale and impact on a global stage. These markets require dedicated local investment and teams to facilitate the production and licensing of content to compete against incumbents in television and streaming and draw mass audiences. An in-depth understanding of the volume and quality of local content required to compete meaningfully has allowed AMPD clients to strengthen their go-to-market, and growth strategies in Asia.
Beyond APAC’s large markets, there is emerging demand for high-quality local originals in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Thailand. In Indonesia, AMPD found that exclusive local originals, even at low volumes, played an outsize role in driving subscriber acquisition (derived from an assessment of first titles viewed among new subscribers) for platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar and Vidio, providing early evidence on the genres and formats of local content that content teams could invest in to drive subscriber growth, even when local content may be contributing to under a third of total streaming consumption, much less than the above mentioned larger APAC markets.
AMPD Research found that Korean dramas are viewed by 21 mil. users and Japanese anime 14 mil. users per month in APAC, excluding their respective home countries, making these content categories the most popular and travelable across the 12 APAC markets tracked by AMPD. A detailed breakdown of the genres and formats of hit content allowed AMPD clients to make content investment decisions with ROI assessments not just in the domestic market, but across APAC, based on the potential travelability of new titles.
In 2022, Thai titles are streamed by ~9 mil. users outside of Thailand per month, despite a relatively limited volume of content online, indicating the potential for Thai content to travel beyond its borders with further improvements in production value. AMPD Research identified the regional appeal of Thai titles
since the release of Netflix’s “Girl From Nowhere” (Series 2 in 2021), providing early evidence for content teams looking for emerging content origins in Asia. Beyond Thailand, much of Southeast Asia’s content travelability remains and the service continues to monitor and provide dynamic insights to production houses, studios, and VOD platforms.
