FEATURE: Hopper stoppers

Dubit explores three keys for fostering streaming service loyalty among kids and parents.
October 3, 2024

By: David Kleeman and Adam Woodgate 

In children’s and family media, discovery is just the beginning. Whatever your financial model—subscription, advertising or transaction—you must establish, build and nurture loyalty to convert finders into fans. And with so many platforms available for video, music, games and more, there’s always a temptation to “hop” from one service to another—otherwise known as “churn.”

According to Aluma Insights, nearly half of all families consider themselves “occasional hoppers,” swapping out 1.4 streaming subscriptions on average each year. And an additional 17% describe themselves as “moderate or heavy hoppers” who change two or more. Given the growing role of paid services in family entertainment consumption, this might not seem like a large number—but it has risen by 143% since 2018.

Towards the end of the pandemic, Dubit forecast that families would feel the need to pare back their streaming subscriptions, which had increased during lockdowns in order to provide entertainment and learning while kids were stuck at home.

As it turns out, this cutback didn’t happen to the extent that we anticipated. In six countries we surveyed in 2023 (Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, the UK and the US), only about a quarter of families said they had recently reduced the number of video streaming services they paid for, and more than two-fifths had made no changes. Families with new school-aged children (five to seven) were the most likely to have dropped subscriptions, perhaps because their kids suddenly had a lot less free time.

Looking to the future, only 17% of parents say they plan to drop subscriptions in the next six months, and 48% don’t anticipate making any changes. To some extent, streaming services have become a household necessity. “It’s a bit like a mobile line rental—a necessary utility cost,” said a mom of two kids, ages four and 10.

Nevertheless, in an industry where consumers’ options are reproducing like rabbits, subscription-hopping is an ongoing concern. After all, customer acquisition is very costly at up to US$200 per subscriber.

Should I stay or should I go?

Parents are clear about the attraction of paid streaming services. They want kid-friendly content that’s easy to navigate so their children can manage it for themselves. And they want significant variety so their kids can always find a favorite show or sample something new.

“Content is the thing that makes us change… we had watched everything on it that we wanted to see,” said one mom of a five-year-old.

The downside of a deep library is a “paradox of choice”—families definitely don’t want to spend more time looking for their next show or movie to watch than actually watching it.

Parents are also anxious about the growing cost of subscriptions, so free ad-supported television (FAST) services will likely continue to experience swift growth. We’ve long theorized that when forced to choose between monthly payments and advertising, parents will abandon their anti-commercial views pretty quickly and choose the “free” service.

“My kids are used to ads while they watch YouTube, so it wouldn’t bother them…[but ads are] a bit of a kick in the teeth if you’re already paying,” noted one father of an eight-year-old and a nine-year-old. For kids, there’s one big driver: Can I see what I want when I want it? This builds the case for on-demand services of all types (subscription, ad-supported and transactional). That said, FAST channels—curated collections that require fewer decisions—are attractive to children who feel overwhelmed with options.

Hopper-stopping

What, then, are the keys to stopping the hopping by fostering loyalty among both the viewers (kids) and the bill-payers (parents)? Here are three essential influences:

1. Build trust

Discussing choices around subscriptions, parents emphasized the necessity of trust. They are slow to give it, and very quick to revoke it.

Some key questions they may ask are: “Is the content carefully curated for young audiences?” and “Will we avoid the kind of surprises that can too often crop up on UGC platforms like YouTube or TikTok?”

Streamers must ensure that children can easily and safely navigate alone, perhaps with a “kids” setting to guard against mistakenly wandering into inappropriate content. This will also satisfy producers and distributors—like realtors, they want a safe and appealing neighborhood for their content. Ideally, though, a “walled garden” needs movable walls that allow parents to expand or contract permissions based on age, development and family values.

2. Be indispensable across ages

While children’s content is a big factor in deciding whether to subscribe to a service, broad family appeal prevents churn. Parents decide where to spend their money, and when they drop a subscription, it isn’t necessarily the most expensive platform or the one with less content that they choose to cancel; it’s the one with the least emotional resonance. They don’t want their kids to scream because they’ve lost a favorite show, but they also think about whether the platform sits idle once the kids have gone to bed.

“I dropped Netflix for a bit because there was nothing we were enjoying, but then Squid Games came back,” said a mom of kids ages one and four.

Co-viewing activityy remains high post-pandemic, with both parents and children valuing the shared time that was COVID-19’s one silver lining. A strong selection of cross-generational content can often boost time spent watching together—a key loyalty metric for platforms.

3. Offer off-season content

Generation Z grew up with ubiquitous and on-demand content, while Gen Alpha was born into a world of watching on mobile devices. Today’s young people don’t understand the argument that “you can’t watch it because it’s not on now.” And yet, beyond what’s available on UGC platforms, most content is produced in batches or seasons, leaving long gaps between new episodes.

Every IP needs a cross-platform strategy to sustain engagement for these generations of young people who chase their favorite stories and characters all over the media universe. An “off-season” plan might include behind-the-scenes content, clips, remixes or even testing of future elements designed to keep fans engaged and anticipating the next episode’s release. (Distributors will appreciate that this may boost discovery, hooking new viewers on older content.)

Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha fans want to create content as well as consume it. So an “off-season” strategy should consider UGC gaming and video platforms, because IP owners willing to permit some fan fiction, art and game-building can deepen brand love, loyalty and sharing among their subscribers.

Other factors that may help stop subscription hopping include exclusivity versus windowing versus shotgun distribution; whether episodes are dropped all at once or weekly; and an increasing global outlook and consumption of international content among young people. It’s a Rubik’s Cube of elements that the four key stakeholders—kids, parents, producers and distributors—will need to puzzle out in order to see how interdependent they really are.

David Kleeman, SVP of global trends for games studio and research consultancy Dubit, has led the children’s media industry as a strategist, analyst, author, speaker and connector for more than 35 years.

With 30+ years of media, marketing and market research experience, Dubit’s former SVP of media insights Adam Woodgate provided strategic advice to broadcasters, publishers, advertising agencies, media buyers and content creators worldwide. He also headed up Dubit Trends, the largest global children’s media trends tracker. Woodgate is now VP of research solutions at The Insights Family. 

This story originally appeared in Kidscreen‘s May/June 2024 magazine issue. 

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