Onboarding project by Amir Memon | JioCinema | GX'21

About JioCinema:

JioCinema, India’s one of the leading video-on-demand service, stands at the forefront of the country's entertainment and sports streaming landscape. As part of Viacom18, one of India's fastest-growing media conglomerates, JioCinema has rapidly become a powerhouse of diverse and high-quality content. The platform offers an extensive library that includes popular network shows, riveting originals, digital film premieres, and non-stop reality series. JioCinema is also a premier destination for global sports, featuring iconic events like FIFA, IPL, Olympics and LaLiga.

The platform caters to a wide audience with ultra-HD streaming across multiple languages and genres, providing new movies every week, daily episode releases, and 24/7 non-fiction reality content. JioCinema also brings exclusive premium international content from leading studios like Warner Bros. Discovery, HBO and NBCUniversal, making it a prominent leader in the Indian entertainment industry. Accessible on Android, iOS, Web and TV, JioCinema is truly built for Indian viewers, offering unparalleled content experiences.

Why Jio Cinema?

It’s an interesting time for JioCinema, as it has exhaustively covered all the major sports events right from IPL, World Cup, to the recent Paris Olympics. Jio Cinema is doing wonders with acquiring more and more users by covering all sorts of Sports events, and exclusive shows like House of Dragon. The diverse content on Jio Cinema caters to people from all ages, backgrounds and interests. Some broad categories include:

Content Categories:

Content Catrgories	Examples
Sports	IPL, World Cup, Paris Olympics, etc.
Television Shows & Movies	BigBoss, Khatron Ke Khiladi, Naagin, Bloddy Daddy, Queen, Bose
Web Series	Asur, Broken, Suits
Regional Content	BigBoss Marathi, Hasya Jatra, content from other languages like Telugu, Tamil, etc.
International Shows, Movies, Series	The Office, House of Dragon, Harry Porter
Kids	Pokemon, Motu Patlu, Kung Fu Panda

Currently Jio Cinema is also offering a discounted price for their subscription to get hold of a good market share. Just Rs 29/ month

Some traffic insights (Source: SimilarWeb)

Total Visits: 56.5M

Bounce Rate: 38.96%

Pages per Visit: 3.19

Avg Visit Duration: 00:05:58

Note: All these numbers are for the month of July’2024 where it saw a significant increase in traffic due to Olympics and other events

Jio Cinema also has an interesting mix of channels for acquisition:

In-app freemium content leading to Ads and pop-up for buying subscription at an extremely discounted price
Jio WiFi giving complementary subscription for Jio Cinema
Recharge plans for Jio sim including OTT channels like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5, SonyLiv along with Jio Cinema. Clearly cracked partnerships with competing OTT platforms in the space

Along with this, they also run Paid Media across different channels

Lot of Referring Sites

Competitive Landscape

The table below provides a comprehensive comparison of JioCinema with its major competitors, highlighting each platform's strengths and opportunities for growth.

Parameter	JioCinema	Netflix	Amazon Prime Video	Disney+ Hotstar
Core Problem Being Solved	Offers a diverse range of entertainment and sports content tailored for Indian audiences.	Provides global content with original shows and movies across genres.	Combines streaming of diverse content with benefits of Amazon Prime.	Delivers a mix of local and international content, with a strong focus on live sports and family-friendly entertainment.
Products/Features/Services Offered	- Indian Originals - Global Sports (FIFA, IPL, Olympics, LaLiga) - Reality Shows - Digital Film Premieres - Multi-language Ultra-HD Streaming	- Original Series and Movies - Global Content Library - Documentaries - Kids Content - Interactive Features	- Original Content - Wide Range of Movies and TV Shows - Amazon Prime Membership Benefits - Multi-language Support	- Indian and International Content - Live Sports (Cricket, Football) - Disney, Marvel, Star Wars franchises - Kids Content - Multi-language Support
Who Are the Users?	Primarily Indian viewers seeking localized and international content, with a strong interest in sports.	Global audience with diverse tastes across genres and regions.	Amazon customers, families, and general entertainment seekers globally.	Indian viewers with a strong interest in live sports and family-oriented content.
GTM Strategy	Leverages Viacom18’s network and Jio’s telecom ecosystem for extensive reach.	Direct-to-consumer global approach with heavy investment in original content.	Integrated with Amazon ecosystem, offering added value through Prime membership.	Focuses on a mix of local and international content with aggressive pricing and bundling with other Disney services.
What Channels Do They Use?	- Jio Platforms (Mobile, Web) - Viacom18 Network - Social Media - Partnerships with ISPs	- Streaming on multiple devices - Social Media - Content Partnerships - Original Programming Promotions	- Amazon ecosystem (Fire TV, Echo) - Prime Memberships - Social Media - Cross-promotion through Amazon retail	- Hotstar app - Disney ecosystem (TV, movies, merchandise) - Sports broadcasting - Social Media
What Pricing Model Do They Operate On?	Freemium model with ad-supported and premium content tiers.	Subscription-based model with various plans (Basic, Standard, Premium).	Subscription-based model with a bundled Amazon Prime membership.	Subscription-based model with ad-supported and ad-free tiers.
Brand Positioning	Positioned as a disruptive, all-in-one entertainment platform for Indian viewers, combining local and international content with live sports.	Positioned as the leader in high-quality original content, known for its global reach and diverse library.	Positioned as a multi-benefit service offering value beyond streaming, with a strong focus on customer convenience and variety.	Positioned as the go-to platform for live sports and Disney content, with a strong family-friendly appeal.
What is Your Product’s Right to Win?	Strong integration with Jio’s telecom infrastructure, deep understanding of Indian viewer preferences, and exclusive sports content.	Unmatched global content library, strong brand reputation, and cutting-edge original programming.	Integrated services providing value across shopping, entertainment, and more; backed by Amazon's ecosystem.	Exclusive access to Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars content, coupled with live sports streaming and local content.
What Can You Learn from Them?	- Expanding global partnerships to enhance content diversity. - Enhancing user experience with more interactive features. - Leveraging telecom infrastructure for broader reach.	- Invest in high-quality, original content. - Enhance personalization and recommendation algorithms. - Expand global market reach.	- Leverage bundled services for additional value to consumers. - Offer multi-language support to cater to diverse audiences. - Integrate with e-commerce for cross-promotion.	- Capitalize on popular franchises and live events. - Balance local and global content offerings. - Implement tiered pricing to attract a broader audience.

ICPs

The following ICPs are based on my primary & secondary research. As part of primary research I conducted 3 user interviews and have distilled my insights in the following sections (ICP, JTBD, Activation Metrics)

JTBD

Onboarding Teardown:

Link to the Google slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CWF34xoVtRvgdzGAwVMCtJPpGoukFSg02ZpvhSjWIZo/edit?usp=sharing

Activation Metrics:

Since JioCinema also runs on a freemium model, meaning there is plethora of content that can be watched for free if the user is patient enough to tolerate the Ads.

Therefore the North Star for a platform like JioCinema would be to successfully activate & engage the onboarded users and then convert those onboarded users into Premium users.

In the following table I’m mentioning some of my hypotheses for better user activation and conversion to Premium. Once the user signs up,

Hypotheses for activation	Reasoning
Within the first {30} days of user signing up, the user completes ≥ 3 hours of watch time	From my user interviews, I learnt that people subscribed to Jio Cinema to watch specific and exclusive shows like House of Dragon, and primarily stuck to it. In general any web series, releases a one hour episode every week. So is the hypotheses
Within the first {7} days of user signing up, the user completes ≥ 3 sessions (watch time> 30 mins)	For our ICP 3 (TV serial aunty) the episodes are 30 mins long and run 5 days a week
Within the first {7} days of user signing up, the user watches at least 1 movie or Web series episode	For our ICP 2 (The Movie buff), successfully discovering and watching the right movie makes sense to get properly activated
Within the first 7 days the user discovered & watched (at least 15 mins) content from 3 different genres/ categories	It’s critically important for the onboarded user to discover the right content and our recommendation engine suggests accurate content. Only if the user discovers relevant content, will they be able to perform the core actions based on their JTBD
Within the first {7} days the user clicked on Premium content at least 3 times	If the user is active, they’re continuously discovering diverse content on the platform, while browsing on the platform they should also discover premium content that picks their curiosity and eventually leads them to purchase the subscription

Underlying metics to track:

Conclusion:

Currently JioCinema is at an interesting position, trying to get the maximum market share through lowest subscription prices
They’ve different channels of acquisition as discussed above, some noteworthy ones include- complementary subscription as part of Jio Wifi, and some Jio sim Recharge plans. Apart from this exclusive content streaming (like House of Dragons, IPL matches) is another important channel, usually based on “Where can I watch?” search queries
All steps in the onboarding process are thoroughly discussed and recommendations are provided. Some key points include:
- On the Google search page for Jio Cinema, Rs 29/ month is oversold. Some part of the estate could’ve been used to highlight the availability of Sports content on the platform, as it’s one of the major categories and has no mention at all
- App rating on Playstore is significantly low. Need to actively take measure to improve the rating. After the user discover an AHA moment/ Happy flow display a pop up to rate JioCinema on Playstore
- The sequence of posters on Playstore can be better prioritised to highlight the diverse & exclusive content on the platform. E.g. “House of Dragons”, “Best of Hollywood” can be placed earlier in the sequence
- After app install failed messaging to communicate Why user should Allow Notifications. User is bound to disable notifications, as it’s the first pop-up after App install
- After the user clicks on a Premium content, Lost opportunity to communicate the value of Premium subscription. Can add a visual poster in the background instead of a black screen, Also, can do a much better job of convincing the user to try premium subscription based by mentioning at just RS 29/ month
- Can also mention “No Credit Card required” to eliminate user biases as this is a subscription product
- There isn’t much effort on learning what content types the user enjoys the most once onboarded. Need to add more layers of depth here, instead of just understanding based on the languages they watch content in
Overall, JioCinema also needs to significantly improve on their recommendation engine. A good amount of real estate (approx 40%) at the start of homescreen (Horizontal scroll Content cards) are just Shows/ Movies the platform wants to promote and are common for all users.