Netflix + Explicit Content = Exercise
The corporate goal of Netflix is that they want to entertain the world. Whatever the taste, no matter where we live, they want to give access to best-in-class TV shows, movies, and documentaries. Supposedly, the members should control what they want to watch when they want it, with no ads in a simple subscription. We can define an objective on why we want to improve it.
In my opinion, there will be around three key metrics that we want to target, expand the user base, increase engagement and increase retention or minimize churn. Since Netflix subscription is quite affordable compared to other services in par, I think retention should be covered until now and expansion. Currently, the available country is still expanding, so I guess both user base and retention are pretty on track. So, in this exercise, I will be focusing on the objective of increasing engagement.
As a Netflix user above 30 years old with family, I use it at least three times a week for entertainment purposes; I like to watch series, movies, and documentaries from different countries. As a family person, I want to enjoy these entertainments with my family as well. I like to spend time with my friends and family to watch this together on weekends and holidays. The first pain point that my family and I have right now is increasing nudity and explicit content on many movies and series. The increasing number of these scenes bothers us as a family when we want to enjoy content together. The second paint points are that movie recommendation often does not match the interest. The third paint point is that there is lacking regional/international content.
In terms of customer segmentation focusing on engagement, we can assume few segments based on their demographics and frequency. In this exercise, I would focus on targeting regular users with family (login and scroll on at least once a day). We can then divide more into subsections on those who are sure what they want, those who are not sure of what they want, or both.
There are a few solutions to address the pain points that are mentioned previously with regard to the customer segmentation
1) Introduce an option to skip the explicit content in advance
2) Social component where can people can recommend movies to their friends
3) Content Wishlist
For the first option, what we can do is that we can have a pre-watch option, for example, to skip explicit content based on the criteria that we want, for example:
- Explicit sexual content
- Explicit violent content
- Explicit language content
- Explicit nudity content
For this option, I think the impact will be high because according to the numbers, around 70% of users are those on demographic of 30 years old and above, so we might reasonably assume that these segments are of those who has family and want to spend time enjoying the content as a family. The effort, I think, should be medium as this will require a way to create and set the filter pre-watch and identify the content and the duration.
The second option is the ability to recommend content to our friends, because people loves to share what they like to watch, we can see by the way people are sharing the songs that they like on the Spotify everyday, the impact for this I think it will be high, but for pre-requisite, there should be social ability first, so the effort might be high.
For the third option, there should be a way for the user to request content to be available on Netflix, and this should be shown on the homepage, for example, #1 Most Wanted Movies, Series, or Documentaries. It will create hype and excitement between the users, and they will share with their friends and interact. In terms of engagement, I think the impact will be high. I think it will be low about the effort, as it will be creating a page where users can submit their movies/series/wishlist, and Netflix then tracks it and show it on the homepage the #1 most wanted movies/series/documentaries.
Based on the proposal above and their effort vs. impact category, we can start with the content wishlist, the skip option, and the social component. After we implement the solution, we can do split testing and define success metrics, for example; the engagement metrics should be something like:
1. Rate of watched content
2. Rate of drop watch content
3. Rate of a given recommendation
4. Rate of received recommendation & watch & finished
Anyway, this exercise was not to bash those who like explicit content. Based on the vision of Netflix; the user should be able to control or given the options on how they want to watch the content comfortably.
I hope this article is useful, check out my other article on my medium.
