Meeting audience content needs means striking a fine balance between serving users with content you know they love and content they did not know they needed. It’s about reconciling viewing habits and content appetite with data insights, writes Showmax executive head of content Tracy-Ann van Rooyen.
Any content business committed to serving the needs and interests of its customers has to endeavour to understand that audience intimately.
Content strategy today involves a combination of qualitative and quantitative insights, reconciling human relationships with data-driven information.
Fortunately, modern data tools give content professionals a range of options when it comes to extracting statistical trends from the content we create – gaining an aggregated insight into the deeply personal viewing choices that users make on our content platforms.
Data power
As one of Africa’s leading content businesses, Showmax is deeply involved in this field of content programming and curation. Viewing data is mined from regional channels such as Maisha Magic, Africa Magic, Zambezi Magic, Abol TV and Maningue Magic, as well as insights from major film festivals, such as the recent Johannesburg Film Festival.
Data is derived from highly specific audience behaviours which help content planners understand how best to serve users – when, where and how – to allow the ultimate viewing experience. It’s audience centric, and optimises content discovery so that users find value in their time on platform, finding content when they want it and how they want it.
Audience polling also plays a vital role, because we hear directly from our audiences on what they loved about The Real Housewives of Lagos, for instance. These audience dips drill down into plotlines, characters and locations, and we can gain valuable insights on the user experience. We test widely and gain valuable insights into how best to drop shows – whether three times a week is optimal for a particular show, or whether it might sustain daily flighting. All these opinions are underpinned by data and overlayed by what we call “audience need”.
Motivations
Audience needs are the fundamental motivations of individual users for watching content. It might simply be to escape, to see the hero succeed, to access a darker side of themselves, or to see uplifting depictions of their own culture; to see themselves.
Audience research can map the motivation against the outcomes. What made a user watch a particular show, and were their needs were potentially fulfilled? How many other viewers felt the same way?
Streaming services compete for audiences’ attention in an overtraded attention economy. As we come to understand what kinds of content grabs interest, we must move quickly to produce, license or acquire it – be it a celebrity court case, a sports event or a telenovela. Being relevant and topical is precious in today’s content market.
Global citizens
When building a content business in Africa, there’s a unique balance to master. Yes, hyperlocal stories are king —they speak to our daily lives, our languages, our humour. But at the same time, African audiences don’t want to feel isolated. We want content that reflects our roots and who we are whilst staying connected to the global conversation.
The content mix is integral to the curation of the platform. The local story must be able to sit comfortably next to the international one. We are not out to create a dichotomy of African vs the world, but to build on the understanding that Africans are global citizens – and our content is world class.
At Showmax we believe we have unmatched local appeal, but we also deliver on our customers’ international aspiration and their African esteem.
Local values
Authenticity also means tailoring content to suit the culture of particular audiences. The continent is certainly not a homogenous, one-size fits all environment and subscription video on demand (SVOD) providers must be sensitive to audience tastes and sensibilities. After all, we are curating a viewing space that everyone must feel comfortable in. However, on the edge of that, there is always an opportunity to introduce new ideas and ways of storytelling that can surprise and ignite engagement.
On the flip side, the need to address societal issues – single parenting, HIV, gender, the cost of living, etc – is also understood as an audience need when commissioning content. Africa’s young people are especially interested in issues of identity. The content bouquet can also be developed accordingly – guided by data and of course, powered by ‘trending’ topics.
At Showmax, we are focused on telling these stories especially with localised formats that we can tailor to a viewing segment or territory. A show like Date My Family, for instance, resonates with young people entering a new dating environment, while still trying to reconcile the customs and traditions of their family.
From the intriguing drama in Kovu, the brotherly challenges in Reckless, to the no holds barred mediation in Udungu by well-known media personality Dina Ligaga, Showmax is growing its reach in East Africa with new and authentic story-telling that reflects and confronts social issues.
These kinds of shows do more than entertain. They open the door to meaningful conversations about the issues shaping our ever-evolving society. But navigating that space isn’t always simple. There’s a delicate balance between igniting debate and truly serving the audience. And that’s where data becomes invaluable- guiding us, grounding us, and helping us make the right creative choices.
At the heart of everything we do is a simple but powerful goal; to tell stories that resonate—stories that reflect who we are, where we come from, and where we aspire to go. And when those stories connect, when audiences see themselves on screen and feel understood, that’s when we know we’ve made a difference. Today, I’m proud to say the data doesn’t just support that—we’re living it. And that, to us, is success.
