India’s OTT market is fiercely competitive, with players scrambling for the attention of a diverse, multilingual audience. Local and global players are not just competing against each other in a country with the world’s 2nd-highest smartphone ownership rate that shows no sign of flagging. They are also adapting to cater to fast-changing viewer preferences influenced by a free flow of highly personalized content that internet giants’ sophisticated algorithms are delivering to devices.
It is in this challenging, uber-competitive landscape that MX Player, India’s no. 1 OTT platform with millions of Monthly active users, operates. Founded in 2011 as a video player, MX Player built a large user base amongst Indian Android phone users with the launch of an OTT platform in 2019. With a strong grip on what Indian audiences seek, the company has since offered a vast and unique library of content in 15+ languages. Some of the Indian content is sourced from the larger ecosystem. The company also produces in-house content that has found considerable popularity in the Hindi heartland. The foreign content dubbed in regional languages adds an element of novelty and has been well-received by audiences countrywide.
Reshaping OTT Personalization
The extremely audience-centric approach has made MX Player one of the top downloaded apps in the country, with a presence on every 2nd smartphone. But complacency is not an option in the Indian OTT arena. So, MX Player wanted to redefine user engagement to draw more users to the platform daily, keep them there for long with compelling content, and convert them to loyal viewers. For this multidimensional exercise, the company chose to go with CleverTap.
MX Player devised a well-thought-out engagement strategy that included laser-sharp audience segmentation, curation of novel content genres, and creative, hyper-personalized messaging. It would use CleverTap’s extensive capabilities to orchestrate and relentlessly hone strategy execution across the country.
Leveraging In-Depth Audience Understanding for Innovative Segmentation
To create a rich palette of segments, MX Player used CleverTap to categorize viewers based on multiple attributes, such as where they lived, hometowns, preferred languages, and the genres and shows they had watched. Subtle nuances were taken note of. For instance, a city-based viewer may want to watch Hollywood action movies in the original English language, but romantic Korean dramas dubbed in their mother tongue. CleverTap’s limitless data-capture records these individual behaviours and enables analysis of data from multiple sources, to help determine their significance in creating or redefining a segment.
This ongoing, meticulous approach to segmentation laid the foundation for the following stages of MX Player’s journey to consistently offer their viewers more value.
MX Player next wanted to classify its rich and varied content library to better grab viewer attention. Personalized playlists have never gone out of fashion, and the company realized that sophisticated content curation is their latest manifestation. It used the real-time data CleverTap provides, the granular audience segments, prevalent content trends, cross-promotion, and variables such as format, category, subgenre, publisher, language, and season. Viewing patterns over 90-180 day periods were also analyzed and all these factors brought together to create bespoke content genres.
The highly tailored content genres, such as “Romance – Top Romantic MXOs”, “Guns and Gangsters – Top Crime Thrillers” for adrenaline seekers, and “Awww Sooo Cute – Korean Dramas” for those looking for something sentimental, span audience preferences and are continuously refined for audience appeal.
Hyper-Personalization of Messaging and Viewer Experience Delivers Robust Results
With the content curation in place, MX Player had to find a way to showcase the new and innovative genres so that every viewer would immediately stumble upon the one that interested them the most. With live insights from CleverTap, MX Player showcases the tailored content genres in a hyper-personalized manner, so a viewer quickly finds and begins watching a piece of content rather than scrolling endlessly and moving on. This clever approach had a significant impact on the click-through rate.
Once MX Player segmented its audience and curated tailored content genres, it set about sharpening its messaging. Earlier messaging and campaigns were mainly in English and uniform. With more information at hand and CleverTap’s advanced capabilities, MX Player now has clever, creative messaging tailored for each viewer. A/B testing is used to determine how users engage with and respond to language and format variations. Accompanied by attractive artwork and witty copy, which is often customized on the go based on viral memes and recent events and trends in popular spheres like Bollywood, the revamped messaging has increased CTR by up to 40%.
Data-led Boost to Audience Connection Garners Recognition
MX Player’s deployment of CleverTap’s wide capabilities has not only improved viewer engagement but also won industry appreciation. Two recent campaigns, besides significantly increasing viewership, grabbed the prestigious MartEquity Silver award.
Doubling Down on Growth with CleverTap
In just 6 months, MX Player’s engagement campaigns fine-tuned using CleverTap have increased in share of contribution by an astounding 5X and are contributing 20% of the overall share. By achieving an increase in the Average daily CTR of 70%, the team has achieved a 12.6% increase in user activation.
MX Player intends to use CleverTap’s full potential in the years to come for some exciting growth and expansion. With success on the AVOD front, it will leverage the platform’s capabilities to drive subscriptions and create a sizeable presence in SVOD. It is also looking to build similar deep audience understanding and hyper-personalized engagement in other markets to replicate its India achievements internationally.
