Onboarding Project | Disney+Hotstar
Disney+Hotstar : Product Showcase
What is Disney+Hotstar?
- It is one of the largest OTT players in the country, with a scale unmatched. The streaming service is owned jointly by Walt Disney Company & Star Network. It operates on a freemium model offering both free (with advertising) and subscription based video on demand and live streaming content
- Value Proposition: It's content library boasts of the best LIVE cricket, the biggest blockbusters, exclusive Hotstar specials, most-watched TV serials and non-stop regional entertainment. The product also provides access to the world of Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and National Geographic
What people love on Disney+ Hotstar
Content Category | LIVE Sports | Blockbuster Movies | Hotstar Specials | Indian Entertainment | House of Disney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Popular Content |
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Any innovative features/ types of genres |
| Bollywood, original movies, regional hits, evergreen favorites, documentaries, critically acclaims films across languages | Big, bold authentic stories from India's most acclaimed storytellers like Ram Madhvani, Neeraj Pandey, Venkat Prabhu, Tigmanshu Dhulia and more | Hindi & Regional TV shows on demand from Star India channels - Star Plus, Star Bharat, Star Maa, Star Jalsha, Star Pravah, Star Utsav, Star Vijay, Star Suvarna, and Asianet |
- Their Marketing Pitch: On Disney+ Hotstar, there's something for everyone and every mood. Its content cuts across all genders, age groups, regions, languages, affluent & non-affluent audiences, interests, content genres.
- The platform has hosted numerous IPL seasons, biggest sporting events, a humoungous content library and has presence across the country. These showcase the product has already crossed the PMF stage and is under mature scaling stage.
- Competitive Landscape: The Indian OTT wars are currently dominated by JioCinema & Disney+ Hotstar on the basis of the reach & viewers. Tis is on the back of a freemium model deployed by both these platforms. Other competitors such as Amazon Prime Video & Netflix are pure-play subscription players, who attract more premium & transacting audiences on their platform. While YouTube doesn't fall under the OTT category as it hosts User Generated Content (UGC), it competes with the OTT players for user attention, consumption/ watch times, advertiser monies and content slate.
User Understanding
To get a better understanding of the current platform users and to get a mental model of their behaviors, motivations, and pain points around content consumption, 7+ existing user interviews were conducted. Below are the set of ICPs documented.
Ideal Customer Profile
| | ICP-1 | ICP- 2 | ICP- 3 | ICP- 4 | ICP-5 | ICP-6 |
| Who are they? | Working Professional | C-Suite Executive | Parent | College Student | Blue-collar worker | Retired |
| Age | 25-35 | 40-50 | 30-50 | 18-24 | 25-40 | 60+ |
| Gender | Any | Any | Female | Any | Male | Any |
| Location | Tier 1 | Tier 1 | Tier 1 | Tier 1 | Tier 1 | Tier 1 |
| Occupation | Salaried Professional | CXO | Homemaker/ Non-salaried | Student/ Intern | Gig worker | Retired |
| Income | ~25-40 LPA | >50 LPA | NA | NA | ~3-7 LPA | NA |
| Relationship status | Any | Any | Married | In a relationship | Any | Married |
Lives with | Alone, Flatmates | Family | Family | Friends, Hostel | Alone | Family |
Time vs Money | Time | Time | Money | Money | Money | Time |
| Where do they spend time? What are their interests? | Work: 40-60 hrs/ week Spends time on reading, running, travel and outing with friends | Work: 50-80 hrs/week Spends time with family, fitness, networking & investing | Parenting & Household: 40-50 hrs/week Mornings and evenings dedicated to household chores and tending to the family & kid's needs. Afternoons are spent on relaxing, catching up on shows, browsing on social media (YouTube, FB, IG), speaking to friends/ family | College: 40 hrs/ week Spend time in college lectures, events, parties and batchmates. Social Media is a consistent companion in everything they do | Work: 60-80 hrs/ week Majority time till late evenings is spent on delivery services for Zomato & Swiggy. They browse through Social Media (FB, IG Reels, YT) during their wait times and in between servicing orders. | Spends time on managing work for the gated society, attends spiritual and community sessions with fellow elders in the society. Other time is spent on watching videos and going through Social Media platforms, along with gaming sites (Ludo, Tambola) |
| What avenues do they look for to entertain themselves, when bored? How many times a week do they take actions to address boredom? | Browses through Social Media sites, during work breaks, to check up on the new happenings and posts by friends. After work: Watches content on YT or OTT for dinner. Sometimes, also reads non-fiction before going to bed, to keep his day productive. Frequency: Everyday, multiple times. High frequency during weekends | Doesn't get much time during the day. To relax, prefers reading, catching up on news, sporting events and taking brisk walks. Watches content while travelling for work and family. Frequency: 3-4 times a week, as the days are jam packed and hardly any time is left for leisure activities | Gets free only by late evenings after dinner, prefers to catch up on dance, singing and other drama reality shows. Also pretty active on IG, FB to see the new trends in skincare, beauty & personal care. Frequency: Everyday, mostly during the evenings (Me times) | Highly active on social platforms to be connected to friends & family. Goes out with friends, attend college parties/ fests, watches YT & OTT content to catch up on new web series, buzz-worthy shows and also go out for movies on days of free lectures. Frequency: Everyday, multiple times | High waiting times are spent majorly on watching reels on YT, videos on FB. Watches cricket matches and live updates. Frequency: Intermittently throughout the day, daily (Except during peak hours for delivery) | Spends time on reading newspaper daily, watching videos shared by fellow group members and family on Whatsapp groups. Likes to watch new videos posted on YT, FB. Catches up on all recent shows, especially reality shows and sporting events. Frequency: Multiple times a day, daily |
| Which OTTs do they use for content consumption? What factors do they consider for choosing the OTT platform for content? | Has subscriptions for Hotstar, Amazon Prime, JioCinema, Sony LIV & Netflix Factors: Content type, time at hand, interest, social construct (with friends or family) | Hotstar, Amazon Prime, JioCinema Factors: Content type, genre interest, time available | Hotstar, JioCinema, SonyLIV Factors: Reality shows, comedy, family co-viewing content, not serious or gory web-series | Hotstar, Amazon Prime, JioCinema, Sony LIV & Netflix Factors: Trendy shows, interesting plotlines, can be watched with friends and discussed with | JioCinema, Hotstar Factors: Sports events, free to use, regional content | JioCinema, Hotstar, Amazon Prime Factors: Has daily soaps, entertaining content, more variety to choose from |
| Pain Points: What are the challenges they face when streaming OTT content? | Too many options, takes time to find the right content | Interesting content availability, downloadable content that can be watched while travelling | Choosing good quality content that is lively & comic, something that all family members enjoy | Missing personalization, inability to watch with friends | Good regional content, affordable plans | NA |
| How often do they use Hotstar & what do they primarily watch on the platform? | 3-4 times/ week Disney movies & shows like Koffee With Karan, Sarabhai vs Sarabhai | 1-2 times/ week Sports, Web series | 2-3 times/ week, everyday when Bigg Boss Tamil comes. Reality shows (Dance+, Bigg Boss), Hindi movies | 4-5 times/ week Shows like Koffee with Karan, Moving In With Malaika, Disney movies, Football events, Anime | 3-4 times/ week daily during World Cup. Cricket, Marathi shows/ movies | 5-6 times/ week, daily during World Cup. Daily soaps, web-series like Aarya, Mythological shows, documentaries |
| Most used features on the app | Entertainment page | Sports page, MaxView, Download option to view while travelling | Entertainment page, add to watchlist feature | Entertainment page, Anime page | Sports page, MaxView, multi-cam view, live feed, scorecard | Sports page, MaxView, scorecard |
| Willingness to Pay | High Considerable disposable income, staying away from family, so consuming content as a means of entertainment is a given | High high disposable income, have very selective taste and is okay to spend on various subscription plans | Moderate Value conscious when choosing which subscription to continue. Would also be selective in subscriptions based on content liking | Moderate Would mostly be dependent on their parents for payments, may also be using their parents/ family/ friends accounts to watch content across platforms | Low Considers paying for entertainment as a discretionary spend, prefers to watch free content | High High savings, more free time at hand and would be willing to explore variety of content |
Disney+ Hotstar's Relevant Offerings for ICPs
D+ HS solves the user pain points, by addressing them as below
- Accessibility: Users can access the platform across mediums (App, Web, Mobile web, CTV)
- Affordability: Freemium model with subscription tier starting from Rs. 50/month
- Availability: Top content available across genres and both in the premium & massy space (such as Disney/ Pixar/ Marvel movies, Live sporting events, Koffee With Karan, Bigg Boss Tamil & Malayalam). Old episodes and seasons of marquee/ nation-wide shows that are loved by people and like to go back to often
- Innovative Formats: 24*7 LIVE streaming, multi-cam recording, MaxView (vertical full view for live matches), interactivities such as voting, quiz, polls
Jobs To Be Done
Goal Priority | Tags | ICP-1 | ICP-2 | ICP-3 | ICP-4 | ICP-5 | ICP-6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Primary | Personal | To spend some time for relaxation & be distracted from work | To utilize free time while travelling to watch interesting shows of their liking, for entertainment | Get relaxed from the daily duties and take a break from the daily rut of household chores with entertaining content | To be abreast with the recent trends, web series & shows, along with entertainment, for a mind fresh from studies | To fight boredom and daily rut of the same hard labour | Watching interesting stuff that would keep them hooked through out the day, and relax during their retirement days |
Secondary | Social | Use it as a means to network with work colleague & friends and bond over common interest & likings | NA | NA | Sound cool and spend quality time with friends watching content | NA | NA |
Onboarding Teardown
Onboarding Teardown_Hotstar.pdf
Activation Metrics
Hypothesis 1: 30 min watch time in the first 1 week from onboarding
- Reasoning: The daily total time spent per viewer per day in the industry is around 30-40 mins. That is, an average user spends about 30 min in a day watching OTT content. For a new user, we'd expect them to spend more or at least the industry standard, because they would have come on the platform with a clear JTBD. With a view on early drop-offs, we'd need to track a new users daily watch time or consumption on the platform
- Metrics that can be tracked
- Daily Watch Time
- Daily Average Total Time Spent By Viewer
- Daily Views
- App Open in a week
- Content type watched
- Demographics of the users (Age, Gender, Region, Language, Device)
Hypothesis 2: Average completion rate of 70% on videos viewed in a month
- Reasoning: Completion rate of a video showcases the viewer journey, how interesting they found the content, the intent of the user, the user experience. Average completion rate is around 60%. A completion rate slightly higher than the average would depict the user had a clear intent in mind and the product is delivering it to the user. It also helps plan the ad model depending on where in the viewer journey do they drop off more >> ads strategy to be placed accordingly. On the other hand, a very low completion rate of videos can demonstrate poor content, unclear core proposition, JBTD isn't being satisfied. This metric can also help us improve the LTV.
- Metrics that can be tracked
- Average Daily Completion Rate
- Completion Rate by Content Categories & Content Genres
- Additional layer of completion rate by gender, age, region, language of the specific content categories
- Churn rate at each second of the videos
Hypothesis 3: Retention rate of 30% in the first week
- Reasoning: D7 retention rate of different content varies, but on an average about less than 30% of the users come back to watch on the platform, within a week. Retention rate can help us improve the LTV. Retention rate is also an important metric for daily soaps or daily shows that get appointment viewing, just like TV. This is where even though the consumption platform changes from a linear TV to a VOD digital platform, but the user behavior is still the same. Catch-up TV phenomenon can be tracked through the weekly retention rate.
- Metrics that can be tracked
- D1, D7 retention rate
- D1/ D7 retention rates >> showcasing stickiness of the platform
- Retention rate by content categories
- User cohorts made by the different %s of the retention rates (Low, Med, High sticky users)
Hypothesis 4: Watched >3 content categories in a month
- Reasoning: By content categories we mean, movies, web series, reality shows etc. Users who explore and watch content across multiple categories are more prone to be retained. Whereas users who stick to viewing just one content category, are prone to churning as their content consumption would be highly dependent on the content titles being launched on the platform. A multi-content category viewer would be a high value viewer for the platform, and can increase the chances of monetization.
- Metrics that can be tracked
- No. of content categories watched by a viewer
- No. of episodes/ movies within each content category bucket
- User cohorts based on the consumption patterns (Like movie buffs, sports enthusiasts, Hollywood lover etc.)
- Watch time and total time spent per viewer per day on each content category
- D1, D7, D30 retentions for each of the content categories
Hypothesis 5: Free to Paid Subscriber within 3 months of onboarding
- Reasoning: For a freemium-led revenue model of D+ HS, a paid subscriber ensures clear monetization of the platform. Within a span of 3 months, it is hypothesized that the user is well accustomed to the product and uses it for its entertaining content (JTBD). For a user that gets high value from the product, they would want a ad-free experience that enhances user's viewing journey. Hence, transitioning from a free to paid user withing the first 3 months of onboarding can be a activation metric tracked. It also ensures, higher LTV of the user on the platform.
- Metrics that can be tracked
- Monthly viewers, views, watch times, total time spent per viewer per day for free users
- Conversion rate from free to paid users
- No. of subscribers coming from the free tier
- Free to paid subscriber cohorts demographics (Age, Gender, Region, Language, Devices etc.)
- Paid plans transitioned to, from free users
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