Why you should think like an entertainment company
Entertainment companies are constantly monitoring upcoming content formats. You should do it too.
In the words of a Netflix executive: “We compete with (and lose to) Fortnite much more than we do with HBO.”
Netflix has 149 million subscribers. Fortnite has 250 million.
Any entrepreneur will tell you, competition can sometimes come from a blind spot that you hadn’t planned to explore.
The same can happen in the content formats that your brand produces, publishes and distributes.
In an article in Harvard Business Review, Mark Purdy and Gene Reznik explain how companies should look at how the entertainment industry is evolving so that they can keep a constant watch on how consumers’ and customers’ attention is captured and kept.
They highlight the notion of convergence of content, gaming and interactivity.
From Starbucks to L’Oréal and Walmart, many brands are exploring, monitoring and testing new content formats such as virtual reality, augmented reality, haptic technologies, the Internet of Things and the development of in-house content studios.
If the beginning of the 20th century saw the convergence of text, sound and images, the 21st century will be at the heart of a new phase of convergence that will be even more complex and important.
Far be it from me to suggest that your brand should go all-in into virtual reality, but what is happening in this specific stream of production and development (and the others mentioned above) will surely set the stage for the next great advances in content and storytelling.
How do you keep your teams well informed of upcoming content developments? How does your brand ensure that it has a pulse on the next major trends that will capture and maintain the attention of your customers and consumers?
If you want to develop a monitoring strategy for your brand, contact us and schedule a free consultation with our experts at Toast today.