Ishmael Brown breaks down five trends reshaping media and entertainment from interviews with 350 industry experts. Subscriber churn averages 17% annually, 65% of companies partner with influencers, and 99% are investing in AI and automation, yet many still run manual processes.
Hey, hey, hey, trailblazers. I'm Ishmael Brown from Salesforce Marketing. Today we're going to talk about what's happening in my favorite industry. But first, do you think you can take a guess as to what it is? And remember, Shh. Don't tell the other industries. Media entertainment, much like all industries, are experiencing rapid change linear to digital. New ad supported models, subscriber churn, data, data and oh, did I mention data. Tossing in some web3 and user generated content. Wow, that's a lot of change. On top of this, audience expectations are changing, demanding even more seamless and personalized experiences. So I'm going to give you the top five trends Salesforce has seen after we interviewed 350 media entertainment experts globally. So let's get right into it with trend number one. Trend customer expectations have soared in recent years. Today's customers expect highly tailored and personalized experiences from any industry and media and entertainment is no exception. That is even more true for subscription based companies. And let's talk about it. We all love a good show to binge watch. For me, it's, you know, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Ted Lasso, and my absolute favorite, Stranger Things. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is companies provide an excellent subscriber experience because the competition is extremely fierce. And customer churn is a major challenge for this industry. In fact, media and entertainment companies report an annual average customer churn rate of 17%. And we're going to keep this party rolling with trend number two. As media and entertainment industry seeks to avoid customer churn and navigate economic headwinds, diversifying revenue streams are even more important. And although advertising remains the dominant revenue stream, media entertainment companies are diversifying fast. And that makes sense because 21% of companies are unsure about the future of their ad spend, which directly impacts the industry. And to keep growth, companies are investing across other lines of businesses, including commerce, subscriptions, live experiences and licenses and rights management. I'll be honest with you, I absolutely love buying collectibles from my favorite shows. They're basically taking up the non existent space in my New York apartment. Okay, so let's get right into it because there's no possible way, and I mean no possible way, to do a trends report in this day and age and not talk about user generated content and the exploration of web. Three possibilities alongside diversification. Media entertainment companies want to keep consumers engaged with relevant and even more compelling content in order to increase the average revenue per user. And one way the industry is doing this is by finding ways to partner with content creators instead of competing with them. In fact, we found 65% of media entertainment companies are actually partnering with influencers. Media entertainment companies are also exploring the possibilities of Web3. Yet while most companies say they have Web3 strategies defined, only 38% have fully implemented. Industry leaders are seeing increasing competition as the top hurdle, with the changing customer expectations and behaviors also being a significant concern. Increasing costs, notably the skyrocketing cost to sell advertising, is seen as the industry's second biggest challenge, with the goal of doing more with less. Media and entertainment companies are under extreme pressure to streamline operations now. And for our fifth and final trend of the day. You could have been anywhere in the world, but you decided to spend the time with me and that means a lot. 99% of many entertainment companies are investing in ways to boost operational efficiency. Automation, AI and data integration are seen as key ways to getting there. But along this journey, there's still a long way to go. 38% of production processes and 39% of churn prediction is still generally described as being manual. In their pursuit of efficiency, media and entertainment companies are recognizing that automating certain manual tasks can improve employee productivity while allowing them the space and the capacity to focus on more business critical activities. To take advantage of these new business opportunities, harmonizing and unlocking data from various departments and systems is delivering a whole new world of insights. Industry decision makers rank improved data quality, real time data access, access to accurate reporting, and implementing AI is their top priorities when it comes to their data management strategies. And get this, 69% of respondents said a single view of the customer is critical to their success, but only 11% say they have. That's a huge opportunity. Not small nor medium and definitely not big. A huge opportunity. Media companies are seeking trusted solutions to unify their data, ones that allow them to segment and activate audiences to fuel the improved customer experiences. I've been talking about all of the data and yes, I mean all of the data points to continued change throughout the media and entertainment industry leaders will have to continue to grapple with these five trends to save on cost, increase productivity, and make bold decisions that will be pivotal to leading the way. If you want to learn more and dive even deeper into these trends, be sure to click the link in the description below if you want to learn more about the industry Insights report. And for even more information on Salesforce, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Thank you for tuning in. Until next time.
