OTT trends & future

predictions
Consumers expect streaming content from robust OTT apps
for mobile and connected TVs. But only the best brands
evolve these apps into successful enterprises. Now yours
will, too.

TV has proven to be one of the most influential mediums for brands to build awareness and drive sales.
But over-the-top applications are better.

OTT apps, or those that stream content without a cable box, combine the reach and power of traditional
pay-TV with the scale and flexibility of the internet to create an unstoppable force for content creators,
distributors, and brands everywhere.

While 70% of consumers have at least one major OTT subscription — Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or
Hulu — many look to other media outlets to fulfill their content demands. And that’s where your brand
can step up to fill in the gaps.

Hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses launch OTT apps every single day. What used to be
a strategy only million-dollar media companies could take advantage of is now entirely in your budget
and power to accomplish given the right team.

Since you can’t dive headfirst into OTT creation without a plan (unless you’re into wasting time, resources,
and money), let this whitepaper be your guide. It covers all the bases of creating a successful OTT
solution for your brand, including:

OTT entertainment and media spending forecasts

how UX will continue to drive OTT app engagement
pros and cons of direct-to-consumer TV apps vs. streaming
service aggregators
launching/improving an OTT service in 2020: challenges
and opportunities
growing your team: in-house vs. offshoring vs. nearshoring

With traditional pay-TV in freefall and the rise of OTT options, it’s never been a better time for content
creators and brands to connect with their audiences.

Subscription video on demand (SVOD) services put out more original shows than broadcast or cable
for the first time ever in 2018. And when you launch your OTT app, your content will be part of this next
generation.
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OTT entertainment
and media spending
forecasts
When we talk about OTT, we’re generalizing about
any standalone, streaming content that bypasses
traditional media distribution channels like cable
TV providers or telecommunications networks
and uses the internet instead.

The most popular OTT solutions come in the

form of:

desktop or web-based apps

mobile apps for smartphones and
tablets downloadable from digital
storefronts OTT video ranks second in compound annual growth
to virtual reality (VR), with a steady 14% projected
connectedTV apps users can download growth through 2020. Experts say OTT app usage
on internet-compatible TVs will grow to a $120 billion industry by 2022, and $200
apps for third-party digital media players billion by 2024, finally beating out pay-TV within the
like Roku, AppleTV, and video game next few years.
consoles
As findings from the PWC Global Entertainment &
Media Outlook for 2019-2023 show, the pay-TV
subscription model will continue to decline in the US
(dropping to $81.8bn), despite pared-down bundles,
advanced set-top boxes, and 4K TV.

46%
subscribe to
Check out these OTT stats at a glance:

more than 51 million US households regularly stream

two or more content from an OTT platform

OTT services 46% subscribe to two or more OTT services (most average
3.4 subscriptions), a 130% increase since 2014.

people spend over 100 minutes on OTT apps every day,

and pay an average of $8.53 per month per service.

the global OTT video market will double in size by 2023.

Asia Pacific will overtake North America as the world’s

biggest region in terms of OTT video revenue as soon as
2021.

As consumers more frequently cut the cord with cable, they’re also shifting from one OTT app or service to
the next in the hope of finding their perfect fit. If you don’t give your customers a way to stream your content,
they’ll look elsewhere. These digital platforms taking a share of your ad and subscription revenues are your
biggest competitors.

So to thrive, companies need to think holistically about their brands and come up with clear strategies to stay
relevant in a digital world where their consumers have an unlimited choice for how to spend their time and
money.

Create one OTT app or design a complete OTT solution, and your consumers can instantly stream and download
your content (be it audio, video, or other) on their favorite devices. Your OTT apps become ubiquitous branded
environments available to your consumers anytime and anywhere.
But great content alone will not succeed.
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UX drives OTT
app engagement
Do you know the top three reasons
why consumers recommend their
fave OTT service over another?
Content variety, ease of content
discovery, and stellar original
programming.
Just as valuable as your content
and infrastructure, amazing UX
(ie ease of content discovery)
inspires brand loyalty and compels
consumers to subscribe directly
from you versus choosing your
app from a third-party platform.

user experience:
defined and reimagined
User experience (UX) encompasses all the details of how a product or service helps users solve
problems. It’s as much about aesthetics as it is about user functionality.

So besides the technical aspects, OTT UX designers must take a comprehensive approach to how
consumers discover, engage, and interact with content on websites, mobile applications (Apple,
Android, etc.), and connected TV apps (Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, etc.).

This starts with a total understanding of your company’s full customer journey from beginning to end
and includes all customer touchpoints and pain points. UX intuitively predicts a subscriber’s desire
(like finding something interesting to watch) and rewards them (with relevant recommendations, for
example).

Hitting the mark on your OTT app’s user experience is the number one way to boost engagement. Bad
news? It’s the hardest thing for new OTT ventures to get right.

what separates solid UX

from average design
Anyone can create an OTT app with an okay user interface. It takes a lot more know-how and finesse
to craft one that’s unique, engaging, and glitch-free. Here’s what you need for gold:

intuitive interface and seamless navigation

Your OTT app’s user interface should predict your subscribers’ next move before the thought even
occurs to them. Each screen and user action should be adapted and optimized for the platform they
select.

Designing and building around users’ personal preferences, gleaned from data and usage patterns,
creates solutions that appeal to individual users and works for an audience of billions alike.
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personalization and tailor-made experiences

OTT apps give you a direct-to-consumer pipeline of information exchange. Allow subscribers to set up
user profiles -- and different viewers within the same household, or with the same login -- get to enjoy
their own curated experience. This boosts customer satisfaction and also provides a win for you: you’ll
snag data about their locations, interests, viewing and searching behavior, and individual preferences.
Based on this data alone, creators can fine-tune customized content; your marketing team can send
out tailor-made in-app and push notifications that convert. This streamlined communication ability
means: your customers won’t ever miss new content; you’ll reduce subscriber churn; and you’ll increase
customer retention.

content recommendations based on

collective-behavior relationships
Subscribers stick around when there’s engaging
content and an easy way to find said content. Content
An OTT app’s success depends almost entirely
on the ease of content discovery. Content
recommendations
recommendations drive 80% of shows watched
drive
on Netflix and account for 70% of YouTube views,
after all.

Users like recommendations based on their

viewing habits because they present personalized
80%
of shows watched
and relevant content that may break through on Netflix and
their preconceived notions of what to watch next. account for

70%
These suggestions help them discover content
they might not have otherwise thought to check
out.

Content recommendations leverage behavioral

data points with machine learning algorithms to of YouTube views
tell the OTT app how to merchandise your content
best to subscribers. This can trigger several types
of content recommendations, such as by ranking,
search, ratings, and similarity-based themes.

All your user has to do is click through your curated

selection in their personalized feed of “up next”
content. This provides a clean, intuitive way to find
and consume content in a comfortable, satisfying,
and engaging way.

“People are more demanding in how

they want to consume their content,
and what kind of content they want
to have, and what they want to see
on their home screen.”
- GUILLERMO MARTINEZ, STRATEGIC PARTNER DEVELOPMENT
MANAGER FOR ANDROID TV
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Collective-behavior relationships make this happen.

A smart UX employs artificial intelligence (AI) to uncover collective-behavior relationships, or trends that
relate content and connect titles that may not have a natural relationship with each other. These types
of complicated relationships are not something the average user may be thinking about, but monitoring
the aggregated viewing behavior of customers over time makes these complex relationships obvious
— especially to AI.

Your UX can recommend related titles based on cast, director, location, themes, and more. Global or
similarity-based behavior can also be discovered by dividing collective behavior trends by demographics
or specific actions. Here, you’ll be able to identify personas within collective viewing trends that you
can use with new customers, based on which cohort or persona they match.

compelling, personalized video previews:

artwork our #1 call to action
Artwork is one of the best ways to capture the As content libraries expand, viewers need a quick
attention of endless scrollers and recommend way of grabbing information about unfamiliar titles
new or unfamiliar content. These small thumbnails in their feeds. Video previews are specifically
must draw in viewers and give them a reason designed video synopses that make it easier and
to think about whether that new title is worth faster for viewers to make confident watching
checking out. decisions. They provide an overview of the story,
characters, and tone of a title in a few seconds.
Artificial intelligence takes artwork to the next
level. AI can highlight specific aspects of a title Video previews combat “browser fatigue,” i.e.,
— such as an actor, location, theme, etc. — and that endless cycling through thumbnails without
use that information to select the best artwork to ever finding something to watch. If the artwork
connect with each of your subscribers based on gets a subscriber to stop scrolling, the video
their viewing preferences. preview compels them to add the title to their list
or immediately start viewing.
Let’s say a user binge-watches movies starring
Robert De Niro. Instead of merely recommending User interface, personalization, and content
other De Niro flicks, AI goes the distance to recommendations are all part of UX. Nail these
recommend content with De Niro and makes sure components, and your content will have everything
to feature De Niro in the artwork, even if he’s not it needs to shine.
the lead.

Upon scrolling through this targeted, personalized

recommendation, viewers are captured and
compelled by the artwork like an enchanting
doorway to a secret garden. They’ll respond more
favorably to new content when it’s presented
alongside familiar favorites. You’ll improve the
overall customer experience, deliver more
valuable content, and take engagement levels to
new heights. That’s a quality user experience.
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benefits of UX in OTT
User experience has become increasingly important for media companies to differentiate their streaming
video offerings. So what happens when you prioritize all the pieces of solid UX in your OTT app?

clean ux = higher engagement, brand loyalty,

happy customers and retention

Developing OTT apps can be very tricky. It would Content is king, but engagement wins it all.
be terrible for you to spend months and thousands Personalized recommendations and an easy-to-
of dollars on a mediocre developer who delivers navigate UX boost content consumption, app
a buggy, clunky, ugly OTT app. So investing in UX engagement, and customer lifetime value.
upfront means you may significantly reduce costs
of fixing these issues down the road. The best part about having an OTT app is the
ability to control your customer’s journey. Similar to
Remember, 51% of people say “accessibility/ working a new lead through a sales funnel, you’ll
search of desired content” ranks in their top be able to guide your subscriber with personalized
three reasons for choosing, subscribing to, and recommendations for content every step of their
recommending an OTT app or streaming service. journey with your brand. When you display your
Make your UX as clean, simple, and intuitive as value by creating unique user experiences, you
possible, and you’ll make your viewers’ lives get return customers and brand ambassadors
easier. If your UX helps users quickly browse and (i.e., people who recommend and praise your OTT
discover content that keeps them engaged, they’ll app to others and amplify your reach).
choose to subscribe to your service directly rather
than through your third-party competitors. As you collect stats and analyze trends, you’ll
score in-depth insight to help you target new
niches within your subscriber base and word-
of-mouth referrals as they develop in real-time.
Adapting to your evolving subscriber needs with
fresh content increases conversions (or desired
actions you want users to take), reduces churn,
and ups brand loyalty.

All this matters when your subscribers have the

choice between downloading your OTT app
directly or going with an OTT aggregator.

51%
of people say
“accessibility /
search of desired
content” ranks in their
top three reasons for
choosing an OTT app
or streaming service.
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pros and cons

of direct-to-consumer
TV apps vs. streaming
service aggregators
How much do you want to invest in your own
direct-to-consumer offerings versus relying on
established companies to grow your subscription
base?

Before you answer that, you must understand that

the “streaming wars” isn’t just about subscriptions
and shifting your traditional business into the
digital age. It’s about the long-term and why every
media and technology company is fighting over
the same thing — the direct customer relationship.

OTT aggregators wrangle pipsqueaks and giants

of the OTT app world in one place so users can
browse for everything in a single platform. Roku
and Apple TV have joined Amazon in becoming
OTT aggregators via The Roku Channel and
Apple TV Channels, respectively. Consumers can
now purchase a video service, such as Showtime,
from at least a dozen different OTT aggregators,
for instance.

Should your app join their ranks or stand alone?

Let’s weigh all your options.

pros of partnering with aggregators

reach a mega audience one-stop-shop for consumers
OTT aggregators widen your reach. People Market research shows that customers
outside of your target audience will see your increasingly expect a single provider to make all
app as they’re scrolling for their own customized the TV services they want to watch available in one
content. Prime Channels puts your brand in front place. Respondents in one focus group admitted
of Amazon’s 100 million subscribers, for example. that they would rather purchase a subscription
We often hear clients admit that they love being a video service through an OTT aggregator than
part of the Prime Channels program because the directly from the network. Why?
customer acquisition cost is zero dollars.
Because the ease of a single-user interface (and
managing a single bill) is too tempting to pass up.
Consumers Consumers suffering from “subscription fatigue”
suffering from ditched their cable bill only to assume three or
“subscription more OTT subscriptions. That’s why more than half
of all direct-to-consumer subscription purchases,
fatigue” ditched such as HBO, are made directly through Amazon
their cable Prime Channels. The rate’s even higher for
bill only to Showtime (72%) and Starz (70%).
assume three
Create your OTT app, and a popular aggregator
or more OTT will integrate it into their offerings so your
subscriptions. subscribers don’t have to add another subscription
to their budget.
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cons of partnering with aggregators

loss of direct-to-consumer relationships
If you only partner with an OTT aggregator and don’t invest in your own direct-to-consumer model, you
risk losing leverage with your customers. The OTT aggregators get to fend off their competition (i.e.,
you) by stealing your customer relationships and earning a percentage of your subscriptions. PS: OTT
aggregators typically keep about 30% of your revenue.

Don’t become another Toys R Us story in lost leverage. In 2000, Toys R Us signed what was supposed to
be a 10-year contract as the exclusive vendor of toys on Amazon. One day, Amazon decided to change
the rules and began to allow other toy vendors to sell on its site anyway. Toys R Us sued Amazon to
end the agreement in 2004. However, it took another 13 years for the company to get serious about its
e-commerce brand and compete with Amazon and other online retailers. They waited until it was too
late, and it led to their demise.

Toys R Us became overly dependent on a single strategy and a single affiliate partner. The retail giant
completely lost its leverage and the same can happen to your company.

All consumer-facing brands must create leverage

so their competitors won’t render them totally
useless. Toys R Us stopped providing customers Without leverage,
with any reason to do business directly with them.
They failed to give their customers anything your brand’s dead
more than what they could get from Amazon. So
they literally gave Amazon their customers, their
browsing and buying habits, and the majority of
in the water
their revenue. You don’t have to follow suit.

All consumer-facing brands must create leverage so their competitors won’t render them totally useless.
Toys R Us stopped providing customers with any reason to do business directly with them. They failed
to give their customers anything more than what they could get from Amazon. So they literally gave
Amazon their customers, their browsing and buying habits, and the majority of their revenue. You don’t
have to follow suit.

loss of control
An OTT app allows you to speak directly to your customers and guide them with thoughtfully-targeted
content. When you give aggregators your content, they earn this direct chat time with your subscribers.
And they control how your customer journeys from discovery to recommended titles. They reflect your
brand and speak on your behalf.

But you have no idea what they’re really up to. And you have no control over how they market your
content to your audience.

Let’s take a well-known player like HBO to demonstrate this risk. HBO is virtually non-existent in the
base Prime Video offering. To watch HBO on Amazon, you have to scroll through rows of Amazon
offerings first. Then when you click the HBO portal, you’re taken to a crummy, impersonal landing page.
Want to browse the network’s movies? Have fun scrolling through the single row of 200 unorganized
titles.

No subscriber wants to deal with a row of jumbled, random content like this. And HBO knows that. HBO’s
direct-to-consumer app gives subscribers access to 100s of movies, and they’re all neatly organized by
genre, to provide real value to their customers. Aggregators don’t care how your content is presented.
And that doesn’t bode well for your customer relationships.
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pros of investing in your direct-to-consumer

OTT app
personalize your customer journey
The beauty of investing in your own direct-to-consumer OTT app is the ability to personalize the user
journey with relevant messaging and video recommendations. You define customer journeys and user
experiences across your website, mobile, and connected TV apps that are most conducive to your
business’ success. And you get to decide everything a user engages with — from the user interface to
the click-through noises to the content recommendations.

You lose this crucial ability when you go with OTT aggregators. As we saw, most will simply dump
your content into an unorganized heap and force your interested viewers to search for their proverbial
needle in a haystack. That’s not the best branded experience you can give your customers. But your
direct-to-consumer OTT can be.

deliver exclusive content, raise subscription price

Going in the opposite direction of the lowest-price model, giving subscribers exclusive content and
original programming via your OTT app may boost subscription revenue. Subscribers will pay extra for
content they can’t get anywhere else.

If you can’t offer exclusivity, try early access for original programming. Releasing new episodes on
your app before they’re live anywhere else will prompt subscribers to choose your app over your
competitors. Starz releases episodes for their popular series on their OTT app a day before they air on
live TV, for instance. Peacock is offering similar early release options; both The Tonight Show Starring
Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers will air hours before linear TV viewers can tune in.

offer consumers a lower price, grow subscription base

Did you know Netflix saves $1 billion every year just by recommending the most relevant content to
each individual user? Owning the user data from your direct-to-consumer app will help your team make
smarter decisions to save money while growing revenue. Since your biggest competitors are now the
digital platforms taking a share of your ad and subscription revenues, you may be able to beat them
on price.

How flexible you can be on your pricing comes down to how well you can minimize your operating
costs and whether you have restrictions in your existing partner agreements. Become the lowest price
in town, and subscribers may soon flock your way.

download-to-go
OTT aggregators don’t offer subscribers the option
of download-to-go, which lets users download
content directly to their mobile devices to watch
whenever they want regardless of connectivity. Netflix saves $1 billion
This feature is often standard for direct-to-
consumer subscribers — and another area where
every year just by
you’ll gain the competitive edge. recommending the most
relevant content to each
individual user
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cons of partnering with aggregators

you have to budget for and create marketing for viewership
an ott app… welp.

What happens when you ignore the aggregators OTT aggregators make fantastic affiliate partners
in favor of creating your own OTT app? Your brand’s thanks to their “built-in” audience. But when you
in control and on the hook for everything. But your create an OTT app, they’ll become your direct-
ROI may be well-worth the upfront investments in to-consumer threat for viewers and subscribers.
time, resources, and capital. You’ll need to create a plan to attract enough OTT
subscribers to make your app profitable. This
Think about this: requires a deep dive into your short- and long-
Back in 2001, Target signed a deal that allowed term strategies for engaging with subscribers
Amazon to run its e-commerce operations. Less across various marketing channels to grow both
than ten years later, Target pulled out of the sides of your business.
Amazon deal and assumed full control over the
design and management of its e-commerce Only your brand knows which path is best for
technology platform, fulfillment, and guest your audience. For most, a combination of direct-
services operations. to-consumer offerings paired with an aggregator
partnership makes the most sense. So how do
Target had to pony up $2.5 billion per year to you go about building this type of OTT solution?
make this a possibility without tanking revenue.
But they foresaw the benefits and the profit
from this direct stream being worth the cost of
development. Their e-commerce revenue stream
became too strategically important to outsource
to, essentially, their competition.

You must never stop providing customers with

reasons to do business directly with your company.
Offering value they won’t receive elsewhere
starts with your OTT app. This means you’ll
need to handle all the technology, infrastructure,
content, retention, and billing duties. And when
issues arise, you’ll also need to provide customer
support.

Target had to pony

up $2.5 billion per
year to make this a
possibility without
tanking revenue
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launching and
improving an OTT
service in 2020:
challenges and
opportunities
Building a sustainable OTT service is technically
complex; it requires a thorough understanding of
advanced technologies that continue to evolve. If
you want to launch your OTT app or expand your
streaming services, you may want the help of a
specific OTT expert or OTT agency. They’ll know
exactly where to begin and what challenges to
take on first, such as:

1. technology
and infrastructure
Unlike building apps for mobile, OTT TV apps
are much more fragmented, and there are clear
problems creating infrastructure for every option.
Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Android TV,
Samsung Tizen, XBOX, etc. all have their own
separate development platforms.

Then every platform has its unique coding languages and SDKs. Roku uses a language called
Scenegraph, which is a mix of XML and their proprietary language, BrightScript. Android TV is based
on, you guessed it, Android. Apple tvOS uses Objective-C, Swift, and Javascript. Amazon Fire TV can
use either Android or HTML5. And many SmartTVs run purely on HTML5.

What about the upcoming 5G rollout? Consumers are spending more time online, yet many Americans
still have insufficient bandwidth. 5G could make more complex (or heavy) UX/UI load faster, improving
your app’s performance despite more elaborate builds.

If you want to build apps for each platform and continue to update them as technology advances, you
need a team with innumerable technical skills. And these wizards are often extremely difficult to find.
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2. content acquisition
What’s the plan for your OTT content? Capturing Figure out these content decisions first:
and engaging your audience with original content
is a challenge. Consumers consistently demand
content, but fresh, new programming is expensive. type of content to offer
So you’ll need to create a continued content (video, audio, etc.)
development plan that fits within your subscriber genre or niche to specialize in
pricing strategy. amount of content to provide
(unlimited, tiers or levels, etc.)
frequency of content releases
budget and target production value

launch type (live, periodical,

on-demand, etc.)

3. advertising and monetization

You may start with free branded content to inspire The three primary ways to monetize your app are:
users to sign up for your app. But you’ll want to
transition to advertisements, subscriptions, pay-
per-view pricing, or other revenue-generating
strategies to monetize your OTT app and create a charging for subscriptions
viable profit stream.
charging for transactions
advertising

While the process of charging for subscriptions is self-explanatory, charging for transactions can be
more confusing. However, we need not look farther than mobile to see how consumers are used to
making in-app purchases. The same is true for your OTT app.

In-app purchases for content or channel subscriptions will entice your viewers to browse around, get
an idea of the content they can expect, and see the value you provide before they have to commit to
paying.

Advertising, like in-app purchase options, is also something many users are accustomed to and expect.
As a revenue model however, you have to dance the fine line between showing too many ads that
alienate viewers or cause advertising fatigue or else your users will drop off and you’ll have no one left
to show ads to.

Of course, there are hybrid models of the above. Hulu charges for subscriptions but offers a reduced
rate that is combined with advertisements to attract different types of customers.

NBCU’s Peacock has recently revealed new advertising plans that are somewhat similar to Hulu. The
new streaming service, which promises to be light on ads, will show fewer than five minutes of ads per
hour for both Peacock Premium and the free version.

For comparison, Hulu shows about nine minutes of commercials per hour, Tubi, a free streaming service,
shows about four, and traditional TV networks show, on average, 11 minutes of commercials each hour.
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4. UX and programming guides

You already know how important UX is to the adoption of and continuing engagement with your OTT
app. So you’ll need to multiply this need by every screen you plan to offer content for. Each screen
presents a different challenge to the best viewing experience. And you need a multi-screen distribution
strategy to leverage the strengths and weaknesses of each platform.

TV screens are still your most significant revenue generator. So OTT apps streaming to your TV will be
a large profit driver. Smartphones are ideal for finding and sharing content thanks to push notifications
and the ability to cast to connected screens. Tablets may be the best of both worlds: its smartphone
capabilities are conducive for sharing while its “lean-back” style of immersive TV screens boosts
satisfaction.

5. piracy
How will you control potential theft, copying, or hacking of your content? What about subscribers
sharing passwords? Will you prevent people from downloading your content on multiple devices, or
for extended periods?

6. subscriber churn
Interesting content keeps 64% of US subscribers
and 55% of UK subscribers loyal to their OTT
services for more than a year. But survey responses
show 38% of Americans canceled one or more
OTT services in the last year, with Hulu users
slightly more likely than other platform users to
bail ship.

The top two reasons cited for canceling an OTT

service? Subscribers either can’t find enough
content they like, or they don’t find the service a
good value for their money. Your content and UX
should help here, but you’ll still want someone in
charge of customer engagement.

So who’s going to handle all the building, analytics,

troubleshooting, and maintenance of your OTT
app and subscriber base?

38%
of Americans
canceled one or
more OTT services in
the last year
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growing your
team: in-house
vs. offshoring vs.
nearshoring
How do you create reliable infrastructure that not only works but differentiates your OTT app from
the fierce competition? It all depends on how much you’re willing to invest and how quickly you want
your product to hit the proverbial or physical shelf. It’s ultimately up to you to decide on the amount of
resources and time you’re willing to devote to the project.

considerations for building an OTT app

How will you best take advantage of the OTT marketplace? You must follow the best practices for
creating and launching an OTT app. You’ll need to outline a plan for which devices you’ll start with
first and whether you’ll use a template or completely customize your UX and UI design.

You don’t need to launch OTT apps on every platform at the same time. Start with the most beneficial
and then work outwards after analyzing your usage data.

For example, over half of OTT users stream from mobile apps due to their convenience. Yet certain
content performs better on TV screens than mobile (like fitness content or kids entertainment). If
you’re in this boat, more than 40% of OTT users stream from a Roku, so that’s the best place to
launch your app for TV audiences.

Knowing and preparing for these ins-and-outs will lead to your highest chances of success. And this
intel may also help you decide whether to build your OTT app in-house or outsource the project.

pros and cons: building versus buying

The popular belief around building OTT apps in-house is that you can “control” delivery, updates,
and improvements for multiple code bases much faster than if you outsource the investment. You can
upgrade web platform assets to serve as connected TV front-end experiences and consolidate various
operating systems into your package.

However, this often comes at the cost of time and money in both the short and the long term. You can’t
hope to deliver the product as quickly as you might need when the required skill sets are so specialized
and hard to find. Hiring for these skills full time often results in less experienced staff who don’t have a
suite of app launches under their belt.

The myriad of platforms you may require can often lead to overstaffing your design and engineering
team to accommodate these specializations. Covering so many bases will eat into your budget and
delay your launch.
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On the other hand, partnering with a competent outsource partner will let you customize an OTT solution
for various operating systems using a team of experts possessing the right skill-set. The experience
those teams or individuals bring to the table by having executed similar solutions can be an invaluable
asset to your delivery speed.

Choosing the right mix of skills and a partner to collaborate with allows you to cover many bases more
efficiently, and do it at a lower cost than establishing the entire infrastructure and hiring all the talent
needed to build and market your OTT products on your own.

The follow-up support of an OTT app launch can come in many forms. You can have a rapid response
support team available entirely in-house, fully outsourced, or a hybrid. While both offshoring and
nearshoring represent forms of outsourcing business operations to a different region or country, there
are some significant differences between the two models.

pros and cons: pros and cons:

offshoring nearshoring
In offshoring, your company moves its OTT Nearshoring occurs when companies decide
development to another country where it may to work with teams in countries located closer
be able to take advantage of lower labor and in proximity to their own. UK companies may
production costs, amongst other benefits like nearshore operations to Spain instead of the
having greater availability in other time zones and Philippines, for example.
access to different skill-sets.
This model offers more of a cultural and aesthetic
Less regulated environments do contribute to affinity and better alignment in time zones. Without
lower operating expenses. But organizations that long lag times, the speed to market and the ability to
undergo offshoring soon run into many challenges, run agile projects go way up. You can pick up your
business interruptions, complex cultural phone and reach your outsourcing counterpart at
disconnects, difficulties in project management, almost any hour during the business day.
and hidden costs.
Video conferencing and other real-time
There’s the processing lag of data and information communication platforms become a defacto
when you may be 12+ hours behind. Travel option for US-based project managers looking for
and training costs can also eat up an allocated insight and overall status updates.
expense budget, especially when you factor in
the resource commitment needed by existing
employees to train their offshore counterparts.
Additionally, the compliance costs to satisfy the
complexities of foreign legal and human resource
requirements present yet another challenge.

All these reasons explain why offshoring is

becoming less of a default outsourcing practice.
The alternative – nearshoring – offers more
appealing benefits for companies who want to be
closer both geographically and culturally to their
production team.
16

why not a hybrid approach?

With Zemoga’s headquarters in Bogota, Colombia, we’re situated near enough to our US clients to
allow for a hybrid approach. Our team of 180 staff members work with organizations on-site or remotely
from our offices in New York City, Los Angeles, and Wilton, CT. Then we partner with the best tech
talent across Latin America.

While Eastern European nations are a nearshoring hotbed for the big players in the European market,
organizations based in the US and Canada are increasingly looking towards Latin America for their
design and engineering resources.

LatAm is a natural nearshoring partner for North American businesses beyond the shared geographical
proximity and often similar time zones (if not the same). Many differentiators should put Latin American
production companies at the top of your list too.

LatAm’s rising education levels means it now boasts a:

population with very high English proficiency

booming tech industry
diverse range of growing world-class tech
talent and expertise

This winning combination allows Zemoga to deliver on three fronts:

superior quality, quick time to market, and cost-efficiency.

organizations
based in the
US and Canada
are increasingly
looking towards
Latin America
for their design
and engineering
resources.
17

build better
with Zemoga
The OTT industry is changing
rapidly, but the one constant
of digital evolution is that great
experience + great content
wins. Here’s where we fit in.

hi, we’re zemoga!

Zemoga has been driving innovation in media and entertainment for over 15 years.
Our global team of OTT experts helps companies navigate the media landscape by
providing an understanding of the pitfalls and opportunities of OTT while bringing
transparency to the total cost of ownership.

We put together a wide range of experiences across multiple disciplines, from Strategic
Consultation, App Creation, and Content Discovery to Monetization, KPI Monitoring/
Reporting, and ongoing customer support.

we’re really good at…

Zemoga provides dedicated OTT engineering and design talent to leading US
companies so they can get their OTT solutions off the ground. We fill talent gaps
across what are often the hardest to fill roles in their organizations. Short term, long-
term, on-site, and near shore. If there is a void, we can fill it. And our OTT app experts
will seamlessly integrate into your project team.

we’re committed to better processes, better

solutions, better efficiencies, better design, better
people. It’s simple; we just Build Better.

we design with the platform and the user in mind

Zemoga creates custom solutions for programmers

and distributors looking to leverage the latest
technologies and platforms. We’re platform- Zemoga supports
agnostic and know how to go through every stage
of the product life-cycle to deliver on time and in all major Connected
budget. TV and mobile
Our full-stack team can support any technology out
platforms, including
there and provide support on the implementation Roku, Amazon
of a full end-to-end solution, along with an expert Fire TV, Apple
strategy team that can guide the implementation
of a profitable and sustainable solution. Our TV, Android TV,
experience is industry-proven. Samsung Tizen, iOS,
Android TV/mobile,
and more.
18

meet our proprietary framework: zTV

Our longtime experience delivering on leading platforms like Roku, Apple, and Google led us to design
and develop a custom framework accelerator we call zTV.

zTV is a proprietary set of modules that expedites the time to market for your channels, regardless
of the platform. zTV has a common set of features in the framework that can be leveraged by our
staff to increase development velocity when delivering standard requirements like content navigation,
discovery, and video players.

Using the best practices from our leading partners, we maximize performance on all devices and
almost completely remove the risk of certification pitfalls.

great user experience + great content always wins

Zemoga’s in-depth knowledge of mobile and in-home media consumption behaviors — combined with
expertise in attracting and retaining an audience through digital channels — allows us to help our
clients achieve their OTT dreams.

We’ve invested aggressively in partnerships, platforms, and people to support this new digital age of
media consumption. Still, success ultimately depends on your user’s experience of discovery and how
much they enjoy your customer journey. Crafting bingeable user experiences takes a robust and user-
friendly UX. That’s why we specialize in OTT UX development.

Content creators and digital publishers are transforming the TV experience as we know it. So let Zemoga
help your brand navigate and take advantage of this new marketplace the right way.

Ready to discuss your

goals? We are!

ott@[Link]
19

stats backed by facts

Study: U.S. SVOD Buyers Study: Partnering, Streaming Video Services

Average 3.4 Services: Aggregation, and Bundling in Made More Original Shows
[Link] Video Services: Than Broadcast or Cable in
[Link] 2018, Report Says:
com/study-us-svod-buyers-
average-services/ report/partnering-aggregation- [Link]
bundling-video-services streaming-video-original-shows-
spending-2018/

OTT Market to surpass PWC Global Entertainment & The Future of OTT Is in
US$200 billion by 2024 Media Outlook 2019-2023: Tailored Experiences, Says
[Link] [Link] Android TV:
com/2020/01/29/ott-market-to- industries/tmt/media/outlook. [Link]
Editorial/Featured-Articles/The-Future-
surpass-us200-billion-by-2024/ html of-OTT-Is-in-Tailored-Experiences-Says-
[Link]

This is how Netflix’s top-secret YouTube’s recommendations The Future of Direct-to-

recommendation drive 70% of what we watch: Consumer (DTC) Video
system works: Services – Analysis &
[Link]
[Link] Forecasts, 2018-2022:
youtubes-recommendations-
how-do-netflixs-algorithms- [Link]
drive-70-of-what-we-watch/ we-do/syndicated-reports/future-
work-machine-learning-helps-
direct-consumer-dtc-video-services-
to-predict-what-viewers-will-like analysis-forecasts-2018-2028/

Real-time relevance and Research: Content Variety, Percentage of U.S.

predicting purchases: Ease of Discovery and Original Households With Multiple OTT
Programming Key in OTT: Subs Has Jumped by 130%
[Link]
Since 2014:
time-relevancy-predicting- [Link]
com/research-content-variety- [Link]
purchases/203572/
ease-of-discovery-and-original- percentage-of-u-s-households-
with-multiple-ott-subs-has-
programming-key-in-ott/
jumped-by-130-since-2014/

The State of OTT Video OTT TV Revenues To Surge, The most important buying
Viewing: Top Devices Approaching $120 Billion By factors for video-streaming
and Platforms: 2022: services:
[Link] [Link] [Link]
charts/2017/32415/the-state-of-ott- com/press/press-releases/ott-tv- most-important-buying-factors-
video-viewing-top-devices-and- revenues-to-surge-approaching- for-video-streaming-services/
platforms 120bn-2022
Jimmy Fallon and Seth NBCU’s Peacock will have
Meyers’ late-night shows will no more than five minutes of
stream early exclusively on ads per hour, even on the free
Peacock version
[Link] [Link]
com/2020/1/16/21069452/ com/2020/01/16/nbcus-peacock-
nbc-peacock-jimmy-fallon- will-have-no-more-than-five-
seth-meyers-shows-exclusive- [Link]
streaming-nbcuniversal-late-night