Reed Hastings, the founder and CEO of the massive streaming service Netflix, realized how effective advertising generates revenue for the business.
Hastings said he wishes the business had started including advertising in its offerings sooner. However, he acknowledged that he grew overly obsessed with the fierce battle with other industry titans like Facebook and Google. For a long time, Netflix rejected the notion of ad-inclusive plans. However, the business ran into financial difficulties a few months ago. This motivated the management to look for additional revenue streams.
“I didn’t believe in the ad-supported tactic for us. I was wrong about that. Hulu proved you could do that at scale and offer customers lower prices. So we did switch on that. I wish we had flipped a few years earlier on that, but we’ll catch up,” Hastings said.
“After a challenging first half, we believe we’re on a path to reaccelerate growth. The key is pleasing members. It’s why we’ve always focused on winning the competition for viewing every day. When our series and movies excite our members, they tell their friends, and then more people watch, join and stay with us,” the company said months ago.
Hastings unveiled a new subscription plan with a $6.99 per month ad-inclusive bundle. In addition, users will pay extra if they refuse advertisements to stop their viewing. The business uses this tactic due to the significant subscriber losses it suffered over the years.
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Hastings knew the losses
Hastings said that the management designed Netflix’s advertising strategy to entice more members. But he claimed to have overlooked several elements that many businesses previously employed. For example, Warner Bros, HBO Max, Paramount, Disney, and Hulu have already provided their members with more affordable ad-supported subscriptions. Individual reports claim that the initiatives provided businesses with more opportunities to increase revenue. The businesses could handle the escalating needs of the workforce and the economy thanks to the higher revenues.
“Our challenge and opportunity are to accelerate our revenue and membership growth by improving our product, content, and marketing as we’ve done for the last 25 years and better monetize our big audience. We’re in a position of strength given our $30 billion-plus in revenue, $6 billion in operating profit last year, growing free cash flow and a strong balance sheet,” said Netflix in April.
“The big thing that I missed is I was on the Facebook board, so I bought in for a decade to the belief that systems relying on data were going to be able to do higher CPMs than anyone else,” Hastings said.
“So Google and Facebook were going to mop up the world — and they have in non-TV advertising,” he added.
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Earning more
Additionally, Netflix started growing its gaming division. The business announced opening a game studio in Finland earlier this year. The stakes for the gaming sector business would increase as a result. Amir Rahimi, vice president of Game Studios, will manage the studio’s operations. He affirmed his belief in the endeavor.
“This is another step in our vision to build a world-class games studio that will bring a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games — with no ads and no in-app purchases — to our hundreds of millions of members around the world,” said Rahimi.
“It’s still early days. Creating a game can take years, so I’m proud to see how we’re steadily building the foundation of our games studios in our first year, and I look forward to sharing what we produce in the coming years,” he added.
Photo Credit: Ernesto S. Ruscio
Source: CNBC
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