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Consumers' Puzzling Perceptions of Scarcity in an Age of Abundant Viewing Choices

Streamers - particularly younger people - routinely believe that they are running out of content to watch. What this means for marketing to today's impatient American consumer.

By David WyldPublished 2 years ago 8 min read
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Consumers' Puzzling Perceptions of Scarcity in an Age of Abundant Viewing Choices
Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash

Introduction

For those of us “of a certain age,” we have a perspective that well, younger people today just can’t appreciate. Growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s, watching television meant watching what was on TV live, at the moment. In the days before the first VCRs and DVRs were still a long, long way away, those of us in major metro areas in the U.S. had 3, 4, 5...maybe 6 or 7 TV channels to choose from. If one lived in rural areas, you might be lucky to get even 1 or 2 channels. How did we ever survive?

Fast forward a bit in time to the 1990’s and the early 2000’s. The Web was new, and our choices of what to watch for video content - assuming you had the Internet speed to do so - was expanding rapidly. Yet, with all there was suddenly to read, to scroll, and to watch, DirecTV marketed its DSL service - think a fraction of the speeds most of us experience today - as a way to avoid reaching the feared point of the "End of the Internet."

A recently published report shows that today, a substantial portion of younger consumers perceive that they too have reached the "End of the Internet" in regards to streaming content. This must make the folks in the fancy boardrooms at Netflix, Amazon, Disney, Discovery, and HBO extremely frustrated and confused these days. After all, on any single streaming platform, there is more content than any human being could ever watch in his or her entire life! And yet, consumers - particularly younger one - are increasingly believing that they are running out of movies and TV series to watch. One has to ask the obvious question: Why? The more important question then becomes what can the streaming companies do to counter this growing perception out there to better capture and retain their audiences.

By Mick Haupt on Unsplash

The Perception of Scarcity

Recently, the consumer data analysts at CivicScience surveyed Americans on a question that on the surface, one would think would be ludicrous. This is whether one perceives that you indeed are running out of things to stream on your particular streaming services. And yes, their findings (in their report, Gen Z and Millennials Say They’re Running Out of Content to Stream) show that a surprising number of consumers feel this way, despite the fact that every streaming service offers a wealth of offerings. And even more importantly, these companies are spending billions of dollars annually, both presently and into the future, to produce even more content specifically to augment their streaming content.

As can be seen in Table 1 (U.S. Streaming Consumers Who Believe That They Run Out of Content to Watch), CivicScience’s research found that over half (52%) of all U.S. consumers who watch streaming content say that they frequently or sometimes run out of content to watch! At the same time, just about 4 in 10 streamers report that they never run out of content. So, even if it might be technically impossible for a person today to say that they have reached the “end” of their streaming possibilities on any one streaming service, let alone multiple ones that they often subscribe to simultaneously, the perception of running out of content has to be of significant concern to these media companies today, especially as streaming has become a $250 billion dollar in annual revenue market today!

Table 1: U.S. Streaming Consumers Who Believe That They Run Out of Content to Watch

Source: CivicScience, October 2021 (Used with permission)

The question then becomes yes, why does this perception occur so frequently among streaming users? As can be seen in Table 2 (U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Viewing Preferences by Type of Content), Americans' streaming viewing habits are generally split between watching movies and TV series, with “other” content (e.g. sports, news, music, etc.) only representing a small fraction of total viewing. And as

Table 2: U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Viewing Preferences by Type of Content

Source: CivicScience, October 2021 (Used with permission)

Table 3 (U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Likelihood of Perceiving They Are Running Out of Content to Watch by Preference for Watching TV Series of Movies from Their Streaming Services) shows whether one prefers streaming movies or TV shows really doesn’t influence the feeling that one is running out of things to watch.

Table 3: U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Likelihood of Perceiving They Are Running Out of Content to Watch by Preference for Watching TV Series of Movies from Their Streaming Services

Source: CivicScience, October 2021 (Used with permission)

What does strongly influence this perception of content scarcity is age. As you can see clearly in Table 4 (U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Likelihood of Perceiving They Are Running Out of Content to Watch by Age Group), younger consumers were not just more likely to feel that they were running out of content to watch, they were considerably more likely to feel this way than their older counterparts! In fact, 80% of respondents in the CivicScience research between the ages of 18-29 reported feeling like they ran out of streaming content to watch either frequently (39%) or sometimes (41%). And among 30-44 year olds, over two-thirds perceived that they too would run out of content to watch. However, a majority of older Americans did not feel like they would ever run out of streaming content, with 57% of those between 45 and 54 and 52% of those over age 55 reporting that they never ran out of things to watch.

Table 4: U.S. Streaming Consumers’ Likelihood of Perceiving They Are Running Out of Content to Watch by Age Group

Source: CivicScience, October 2021 (Used with permission)

By Isaac Smith on Unsplash

Analysis

The CivicScience research concludes:

“Given the large volume of content on any one of the streaming platforms mentioned, further research might explore what may be influencing young streamers to feel a shortage exists – whether a lack of variety in content offerings and/or a number of other factors, including finding relevant content to watch and streaming habits.”

As a management consultant and professor, I can safely say that survey research such as this (and they certainly are seeing similar results in their own internally-conducted research) must be a “DEFCON 1-level” concern for the streaming industry! If younger consumers, which are, by definition, the future, perceive a scarcity problem, when there is in fact an abundance of content available to them - an ever-growing abundance that represents a significant investment for the streaming companies - then you have a very real problem! And it is one that could be a significant drain not just on current subscribers, but pose a reputational risk both for the individual companies and for the entire streaming industry (i.e. Younger consumers thinking: “Why should I subscribe to X streaming service? They don’t have much to watch - and really none of them do!”).

By Mollie Sivaram on Unsplash

From this analyst’s perspective, this is both a marketing problem and a UX (user experience) issue - both very significant! Yes, the streaming companies - Netflix, Amazon, Disney, HBO and other players - need to do a far better job of not just advertising what they have to offer for consumers to choose from on their respective platforms, but to constantly and emphatically remind them of such. They do need to perhaps better tailor their marketing message to niche audiences, and then convey that whatever your particular viewing interests, they have plenty of offerings - both new and old - that will appeal to you.

While marketing “better” and “more” can help combat this widely held - and no doubt, concerning - misperception among consumers, the streaming services definitely have a UX problem that significantly contributes to this perception of scarcity. When you click on your favorite streaming app, what you find all too often today is something that, well, is less than optimal for the user (no matter how “good” such an interface may look and feel to headquarters staff members!). How titles are displayed on your screen, how you find categories listed, and how you search the streaming service’s library of content ALL need to be improved, across ALL platforms.

By Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

This is where major work - and investment - needs to take place. ALL the streaming companies need to rethink their user interfaces to not just be more user friendly and intuitive, but to make them as simple as possible for real people to use. The easier one can not just find a particular show, movie or series one is interested in or to peruse an entire genre, the better. However, streamers should make a very real effort at making ALL their content more easily discoverable to their users, no matter how sophisticated a searcher they may be. All of this should be done by listening and working with end users to develop better user experiences for all!

In the end, all of this is existentially important for the streaming companies, as if this misperception continues to grow - particularly among younger consumers, the growth of both individual streaming providers and the entire streaming industry - and their futures - may indeed be in question. While those of us of a certain age may be amazed at today’s world of seemingly unlimited on-demand content, both within streaming services and even more beyond them on YouTube and other platforms, this perspective is not the frame of reference for younger people today. As such, marketers will be continually challenged going forward to to convince younger consumers - who have come of age in an era of seemingly limitless content and ever-increasing choices - that they can find what they want - easily and immediately - on their streaming platforms of choice. Otherwise, they will first change streaming platforms to satisfy their need for content to watch, and in the long term, they may well move on to what might come next beyond the Neftlix’s, Amazon Prime’s, Disney+’s, and Discovery+’s that dominate the marketing and consumption of video content today.

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About David Wyld

David Wyld is a Professor of Strategic Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, publisher, executive educator, and experienced expert witness. You can view all of his work at https://authory.com/DavidWyld.

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About the Creator

David Wyld

Professor, Consultant, Doer. Founder/Publisher of The IDEA Publishing (http://www.theideapublishing.com/) & Modern Business Press (http://www.modernbusinesspress.com)

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