Why Amazon Mini TV works & Zomato originals didn't? 😭
Welcome to the 55th edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
Everyone wants a piece of the pie but it's only cut out for a few!
The entertainment industry has taken India by a storm. With hundreds of new shows shelving OTT platforms every month, Indian viewers have never found themselves so spoilt with choices.
Quick back story 🗓
In a quick study conducted by ET BrandEquity, a little over 55% viewers have admitted that they have shifted to OTT platforms. Probably with this insight, our favourite Zomato also entered the video streaming war & failed.
Why did they launch?
Short answer: Keep the users hooked. Long answer 👇👇👇
Zomato wanted the mindless scrolling on the app to turn into a destination for users to consume videos, when they were not consuming food. While launching the video streaming on their app, the brand said
Interestingly, most of our users spend a lot of time on our app on a daily basis. This presents the perfect opportunity to discover our video food streams that will make them laugh, learn and come back for more.
It’s been a little over 3 years to the launch, but originals have not taken over our world the way their social media memes did. They have also been deprioritised on the app.
On the other hand, Amazon Mini TV is a hit in India. Launched a year ago, Mini TV has approached the market in a different style than its mother service provider. It expanded on the depth of the content & picked India’s most popular categories
✅ Lifestyle (beauty, cooking)
✅ Comedy
✅ Short web series
Now people ask, firstly, why would Amazon launch mini TV when they already had a very well oiled Amazon Prime video functioning, and secondly, how is it different?
As the name suggests, mini TV is focused on short interactions and does not require long commitments. You start something and you’re done with it say in 30 minutes or so, but the launch GTM goes deeper than this knowledge.
Here’s how !
🔥 Distribution
Netflix promotes shows on Netflix. Hotstar promotes shows on Hotstar. But content on Amazon Mini TV will be promoted by Pocket Aces, TVF, Filtercopy, & some of India’s biggest production houses. Mini TV also partnered with creators like Ashish Chanchlani, Prajakta Koli, Amit Bhadana, Dolly Singh, Saloni Gaur and Be YouNick to create exclusive content for miniTV.
Focus is on distribution and not creation.
🎯 Driving top of the funnel
Amazon wants people to join the forces, doesn’t matter the source. In that quest, Mini TV is a goldmine. The hypothesis is that once they come on-board & spend time on Amazon, the brand would become their go-to option in others domains too.
Focus here is on introducing more people to the Amazon ecosystem.
🤑 Monetisation on day 0
Of course, this is no Christmas at your grandma’s house, so what’s the catch? This platform is AVOD, meaning advertising-based video on demand. So Amazon here is making money by showing relevant ads to their audience. ⬆️ MAU = ⬆️ Money
Interestingly, Amazon’s advertising arm is 8x times as large as Snapchat’s entire business, and nearly 7x as large as Twitter.
Focus here is on never forgetting monetisation.
🛒 Gate to e-commerce businesses
The biggest master stroke there is to this video streaming game is that Amazon placed this strategically on the Amazon.in shopping app. This can now lead to many opportunities for the brand
Higher DAU/MAU
Higher open rates
Brand recall
Navigating through your e-commerce feed before/ after you head for streaming free content
Making Amazon.in kind of a super app: e-commerce, payments, grocery and entertainment
Strong data points & influx of advertisers
Will Amazon take over its competitors like Facebook & Google with this? Not sure, but it is here to give them a solid challenge. With data points like what users are actually buying, adding to cart, or factors which they explore before making a purchase, Amazon is seconds away from unlocking another million dollar business.
Now we know, e-commerce is not the only business Amazon is in.
With this move, Amazon has got both the content & distribution in its fist and one is really not sure which all brands could be at the receiving end of this challenge? Facebook? Google? Netflix? Zomato? This list could be long.
That’s all folks! Assume it’s year 2050 & you’re praying that business exists other than Amazon 😆
I am going to keep giving a book every week going forward. All you have to do is share this issue on Twitter (takes 5 seconds) I will announce the winners in every Friday issue.