The next media bundle will be audience-first

Last week, it was reported that Netflix was searching for an executive to expand its video gaming efforts. This is the next step in a years old game of foreshadowing; recall that in 2019, Reed Hastings suggested that Netflix’s biggest rival was Fortnite (not HBO).

Noting the heavy dose of confirmation bias, I believe this potential evolution into games will be seen as an inflection point in Media:

But as Disney’s ex-CEO Bob Iger has previously remarked, “we’ve found that we haven’t been particularly good at [publishing video games ourselves].” So it’s not like this has never been tried before — what’s different this time around?

The pipes converge: First, content is now sent over the internet. Any user with an internet connection can “stream” this content. That means video, text, audio, and now even gaming come across the same pipes. You don’t need coaxial cable for video, radio waves for audio, and a printing press for text. The first driving force behind the legacy medium-specific bundles was the fact that the fixed cost of distribution was not only much higher but also specific to a single medium. This paradigm is over.

Brand-in-a-box: Beyond distribution convergence, one might remark that making video games and making movies are two markedly different things. True, but there’s another powerful technological shift that continues to make that statement more antiquated each day. Ever wonder how hundreds of new consumer brands emerge each year? This is made possible by the various ‘brand-in-a-box’ services from logistics software like Quiet Logistics to marketing software like Sailthru. If you choose a product to sell, roll-up a handful of these services, give Red Antler a call — you’ve basically got yourself a professional consumer brand ready for launch. These brand-in-a-box services exist for all consumer brands, including media, and they make publishing, production, distribution, etc much easier for anyone. The difference between making a video game and making a movie is shrinking rapidly.

Niche means big: Anyone who’s reading this knows the trope that the internet unlocks the global population and allows us to target any individual or group effectively, making niche audiences much larger than ever before. The fact that someone can do it means someone will do it — if you aren’t targeting a very specific consumer segment with your offering, someone else is — so you aren’t that consumer’s go-to brand.

The consequences of all of this:

• The next great media bundles — and they will exist — will be built around specific audiences (affinity, utility, etc) across all mediums (text, video, audio, gaming).

• They will be known for specific IP (Marvel, The Daily, etc) rather than how you consume that IP.

• While they’ll produce both games and video, it will be in name only; in reality, they’ll be leveraging whitelabeled brand-in-a-box services to do this well.

• The affinity that the target audience will have for these media brands will be unparalleled in our lives — expect lots more tote bags & even tattoos. Also, expect media brands to lean into tried & true ways to create that affinity — people (their faces, their voices) will be front & center (see: Super Creators).