Product Project:
“FilmSlate”
An indie-film streaming platform
FilmSlate, an indie-film streaming platform based in the UK has a vision to become the leading streaming service for indie film to showcase the diversity of indie films.
What started out as a newsletter but expanded as subscribers grew to a curated streaming service for film buffs by film buffs.
The Product
Launched as a basic application on mobile and desktop with a single subscription tier and offering 40 titles, FilmSlate offers a 7-day trial, but each day a new film is added to the library and will remain for 30 days only. These films are added by human curation in the spirit of the original newsletter.
Business Goal
The focus is on acquiring and retaining users, with a KPI to improve conversions from 32% to 40% in 1 year. This will be achieved by optimising FilmSlate’s sign-up and onboarding process.
Proposed Feature
Following user and market research, opportunity mapping, user interviews, journey mapping insights and examining data, a “Recommendations” feature, powered by a “Preference Questionnaire” on signup was proposed as an improvement to onboarding to target pain points, jobs and exploit a market gap.
Recommendations aim to increase Annual Subscriber Revenue (ASR), Subscriber Conversion Rate (SCR), therefore supporting the FilmSlate Vision. Recommendations directly improves visibility of indie films, giving another way for users to discover content without frustration of infinite scroll, supporting FilmSlate’s Mission.
Recommendations drive loyalty (Gallo, 2023), and provide personalisation which is a basic customer expectation and a standard across business (Grieve, 2023). They alleviate the frustration of scrolling (Carmona, 2023) increasing satisfaction.
Enabling preference inputs during signup demonstrates personalisation, addressing a common complaint across over 40% of subscribers (FourthRev, 2023). Increasing user satisfaction will boost FilmSlate growth and loyalty (Bain & Company, 2015) (Khoros, 2023).
Watch my feature pitch (10:30 minutes) or read on to find about each of these steps in turn.
Sections:
Research, Ideation and Validation
Includes product pitch and strategy video above (10:30)
Design and Development
Includes product demonstration video (8:30)
Market, Pricing and Launch Strategy
References
Research, Ideation and Validation
User Research
User Data
Data provided by FilmSlate gives important insights:
3 main user segments identified: “Indie Addicts”, “Cinephiles” and “Genre Fans”
Majority of users are ages 25-34
Sign-ups are greater on Laptop and Mobile than TV
Watch-time is greatest on TV
Younger ages watch content on Smartphones and Laptops
User Feedback indicates 3 main pain points:
The sign-up process is clunky and slow,
Signup and onboarding do not reflect my tastes and interests,
It’s hard to discover new indie films.
User Empathy & Value Proposition
I developed an Empathy Map to understand FilmSlate’s users including what they see, say, and hear; their pains, gains and goals, and other general elements about who they are so that we can start to build both a Value Proposition canvas and develop Personas.
Conclusions*
Indie Addicts comprise 40% of subscribers, most aged between 18-34, and enjoy any genre. As they likely work close to the indie film industry, they may be exposed to thoughts and opinions in the market, including alternative recommended streaming services, film advertisements, personality voices and personal opinions. Their interest may lead them to access content illegally if they have a specific piece of content they want to watch. Mostly they want to watch indie movies that match their tastes and engage and share their thoughts on online.
Individuals with an age range of 25-34 are likely to earn approximately £30,000 yearly (Girling, 2022) and have a young family. A family-aged individual with an average salary and busy life will have little time to relax after working professional hours and organising home and family matters. 10 to 12 hour days are common on film sets. (Trojans360, 2023). Most watch-time is on TV. They want to quickly find content on familiar platforms that appeals to them. They want to avoid spending time choosing films as this generates frustration (BBorud, 2021), but instead crave a personalised experience (PWC 2021).
*Some insights are from example data provided as part of exercise.
Persona
Problem Statement
Most users across three segments are professionals within the age range 25-44; family age. They want to discover films that match tastes, relax, and indulge their passion on demand, usually while commuting or after work.
Spending time selecting a film generates frustration. Users feel the need to subscribe to many services to find content matching tastes. Services often focus on specific genres, trending content or have too much choice.
I am a family age professional working in film. I am trying to discover and watch films that match my tastes to relax and feed my passion while commuting or after work. But I waste time searching for content and subscribe to many services to find matching tastes, because services either focus on specific genres, trending content, or have too much choice. I feel frustration at not being able to access and consume my passion or reliably relax when I want.
Market Research
I conducted research across competitor streaming platforms to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats with regards to onboarding. These included both industry giants like Amazon Prime and Netflix in addition to direct competitors in the indie-streaming market: Mubi and IndieFlix.
Researched onboarding processes and found data that implicated methods that increase user conversion. Areas to target included: Recommendations, Trial Periods, Sign-Up Process, Gamification and others.
Other areas of research included:
Supported platforms
Geographical reach
User Experience
Indie Film representation
Pricing strategies
Reputation among users
Trial offerings
Conclusions
Independent Films are increasingly popular (Brody, 2023). Mubi, FilmSlate’s closest competitor has 8 million subscribers and $134 million in revenue (GetLatka, 2023), but relies on curation without recommendations (Stoa, 2023). Customers complain about time choosing films (Carmona 2023), and 80% of Netflix usage is recommendations (Meltzer, 2022). The opportunity exists to relieve customer frustration that competitors overlook.
The streaming market is crowded. Larger companies favour quantity as customers value breadth of content (PWC, 2021). Content exclusivity is unlikely against the financial might of streaming giants. Smaller services have targeted defined user segments to gain market share (AGoodMovieToWatch, 2023) and offer festival insights (IndieFlix 2023) or curated libraries (MUBI 2023). Despite being a recognisable name, only 3% of UK respondents ‘like’ Mubi (Kunst, 2023), presenting potential opportunities for entering the market.
Most services operate across expected platforms. Onboarding is quick and easy. They offer cross-device access, and are available across many countries. These are industry standards driving customer expectations. FilmSlate must align with these.
UX is a common weakness (Diaz, 2023) as services utilise a similar UI approach to bring familiarity to users. Indie film services fall into the trap of using the same interface and experience to streaming giants. FilmSlate should respond by crafting a superior, personalised experience to distinguish itself.
Opportunity Solution Tree
I developed an Opportunity-Solution tree including assumptions and experiments targeted at the 3 main user-reported pains with their FilmSlate experience.
Validation - Achieving Product-Market Fit
Market Viability, Feasibility and Desirability were use to validate and prioritise ideas.
Market research of impact on user conversion indicated impact and effort of proposals.
Combined information from market and competitor research to indicate market viability of ideas.
Conducted user interviews and secondary data to attain levels of desirability.
Considered size of technical team combined with available timescales and research of idea proposals to understand feasibility.
Conclusions
The “Recommendations Engine”, including a Signup preference questionnaire, a launchpad to drive new users to content, and an algorithm that tracks user behaviour addresses pains within analysed user segments. All reported desiring a personalised experience and difficulty discovering new content. Creating a recommendation engine is technically feasible in the time and financial constraints (Crowdbotics, 2023). Recommendations account for 80% of competitor Netflix’s usage, demonstrating social and market value, and user expectation alignment (Meltzer, 2022).
Competing ideas and reasons for exclusion are below:
Social Features:
Too time-consuming for a small team to compete with direct competition Mubi (Private Equity Wire, 2014).
Other social platforms as alternative products exist (Stirling, 2017).
Search and Filter
Less relative desirability
Filter is an uncommon UI feature in streaming services and risks over-complication.
Customisable UI
Less relative impact on user pains.
Accessibility concerns
Personalised signup visuals
Low organisational impact.
Three Lenses
Impact / Effort Matrix
User Testing Insights - Low Fidelity
I tested a Low-Fi Prototype V1. Key insights are below:
As little text input during Signup as possible – TV remote entry is frustrating.
Appreciated option to skip non-required steps in SignUp (Preference entry).
Want to know what recommendations are based on.
Seldom submit reviews.
Alignment checker was not understood.
Indie addicts care about Directors and actors as well as Genres for personalisation.
Other features to consider: Search, Watch List, Options (Language/Subtitles).
Prototype V2 Changes
Preference input can include more than genre.
Reasons for recommendations added.
Post-film recommendations replaces review and alignment checker.
Risks and Insights from Mid-Fidelity prototype testing are below:
Recommendation Engagement – Serious
Users may engage with recommendations easily but lack information to make informed decisions. Users require a link between the recommendations and interests selected. Critical issue for value risk. Inclusion of recommendations context should be considered for MVP.
Navigation / Interaction – Serious
A vague UI prevented users identifying how to return to library to access settings. This can be solved either by settings being accessible from film page, or by a clearer “home” button. Clearer home button was cited as the issue, and therefore prioritised.
Users wanted to select more interests. Maximum raised from 6 to 8.
Users were frustrated by navigating long lists. Tabbed interests should be weighed against time constraints for inclusion in MVP.
Redundancy – Minor
Users ignored “Actors”. Users unlikely to change settings soon after signup. While not usability issues, redundant elements are a waste of resources and present an opportunity for pivoting. Further testing required to check if either sentiment is widespread. If confirmed, recommendation context and Launchpads may be included in MVP. This would impact my roadmap and necessitate changes.
Planning Development - User Story Map
Based on priorities of different epics and user goals, I created a story map that split the feature into successive releases to get value released to the user early to have impact and get feedback. Later releases would build on this MVP. All stories included acceptance criteria and were ordered in a backlog.
Measuring Success
Design and Development
To manage the feature through development I constructed a Now-Next-Later roadmap, created a user story map split into iteration releases and defined a metrics framework to monitor the success of the feature going forward.
Watch my product demonstration to senior stakeholders demonstrating how the prototype and roadmap align with strategic business goals and while meeting key customer pain points (8:31).
Value Alignment
Marketing, Pricing and Launch Strategy
Market Positioning
Positioning Statement
“FilmSlate is a streaming service for indie film buffs by indie film buffs that brings new films to viewers daily, across a multitude of devices and platforms. Viewers experience continuous joy as they explore a library that is forever fresh thanks to our manual curation approach to ensure quality. Unlike competitors with large libraries that overwhelm with choice and lack personalisation, busy viewers can avoid the frustration of wasting time scrolling through films thanks to FilmSlate’s modest 30 film library and personalised recommendations. FilmSlate empowers viewers to discover films matching their interests easier than ever by giving context for accurate recommendations powered by a brief questionnaire and an easy-to-use UI.”
Elaboration
FilmSlate needs to position itself as separate from competitors through its personalised experience. While Mubi is the main competitor with a similar library size and curation, they lack personalisation. Personalisation was a common pain across segments, which users crave (PWC 2011) and customers do not like taking time to choose films (Carmona 2023). The positioning statement emphasises these elements. Focusing on recommendations and personalisation drives loyalty which directly feeds conversion goals (Gallo 2023) (Meltzer 2022). Focusing on the experience helps acquire users and reduce churn (Arora 2021). Thus the statement focuses on the user value; joy of films, curated for quality, a personalised experience and reduced frustration of choice paralysis. It targets indie film buffs, and busy viewers for whom recommendations are important.
Marketing Department Brief
FilmSlate aims to acquire and convert new users into paying subscribers. The key differentiator to competition is a personalised experience and respecting users' time.
Busy users dislike scrolling through large content libraries at the end of a hard day;
User-powered recommendations avoids scrolling, saves time, and facilitates discovering films that match interests.
‘Recommendations Context’ clearly communicates why a film appeals at a glance.
User data from our interest questionnaire will inform content acquisition so films on the platform better represent user's interests in niche genres.
Human curation combined with FilmSlate's value of shining the spotlight on lesser-known films ensures quality content avoiding the mainstream, to appeal to Cinephiles.
Modest 30 film library with a new film daily means there’s always something new for the indie addicts.
Stream content across devices (TV, Computer, Mobile)
Audience:
“Indie Addicts” enjoy all genres. Mostly 18-34 years old.
Context = young families, busy professional lives, and working in a related field to film.
Crave personalised experiences. Recommendations via questionnaire satisfies this, while saving time and stress when searching for content.
Dislikes infinite scroll of most competitors and opaque algorithms. Recommendations context informs decision making.
Genre Fans and Cinephile segments value identifying specifics within their interest areas
Channels:
Paid advertising on social media (Instagram, Reddit, Twitter, Youtube, TikTok)
SEO to target indie addicts and cinephiles looking for their indie fix.
Display ads in film media outlet sites.
Contact video essayists and podcast hosts for promotion; voices are respected by users.
Launch Strategy
Competitors have used announcements to garner hype and awareness of new features (Doig-Cardet, 2022), exploit market contexts like social distancing (Kastrenakes, 2020) or inform users before a disruptive change (Wise & Belcher 2023). Reveals generate anticipation around releases while beta testing occurs to improve acquisition before full launch (Brereton, 2023) as was used by Disney+.
FilmSlate aims to acquire and retain customers; hype and engagement are important for success. Announcements will draw in new and returning users. Meanwhile, Beta Testing is required as features must function sufficiently and meet expectations to drive FilmSlate’s goals. This should be done with 24-35s as a limited but representative sample of trial users. Restricting visibility limits negative impacts of issues before refinement and iteration. Onboarding changes require testing due to the risk of inaccurate recommendations harming satisfaction. This gives time to address issues (Existek, 2023), and allows measuring post-changes; key to gauging conversion impact while also validating the features with their core audiences (Nozinic, 2021).
Recommendations and newsletter features are ready earlier; soft-launching before watch party will give more time for testing the features and their effects independently of Watch Party. Reveals should be spaced out for greater focus with users.
The ability to record and retrieve data will provide the product team with valuable insights into user behaviour and if the Interest Questionnaire and Recommendations features are providing value.
By soft-launching the feature, we can leverage the metrics to determine need for updates or fixes, and value to user. The ability to retrieve bulk or individual data enables measurement of feature health across user segments to check against conversion impact, retention and churn by separating trial users from other subscribers.
Therefore. we will be in a strong position to announce the feature later once impact, stability and security have been assessed.
Pricing Strategy
FilmSlate’s closest competitors, Mubi and IndieFlix employ 7-day free trials followed by monthly or yearly subscription options.
Mubi also offers a tiered model: Mubi and Mubi Go. The higher tier provides a weekly cinema ticket. Notably, Mubi offer longer free trials as an incentive to stay on the platform when a user attempts to cancel their subscription. By showing that Mubi has no ads in either tier they are pressing the point that there are no ads on the platform. Customers may be encouraged to purchase by selecting a tier that is more appealing to their needs; another form of personalisation (Mubi, 2023).
IndieFlix is a larger competitor that focuses on quantity of films. They offer a cheaper flat-rate subscription than Mubi’s monthly or yearly options. IndieFlix focuses on the size of their content library and do not have additional features, therefore have no need for tiers. IndieFlix’s monthly subscription is competitively priced to undercut competitors, including FilmSlate (IndieFlix, 2023).
To align with the competition and maintain a focus on personalisation, FilmSlate should offer flexible subscription length options with 25% discount for an annual plan. User feedback during usability testing also highlighted the desire for this flexibility, noticing its absence in the signup process. Therefore, this simple change could have a powerful impact on acquisition and conversion.
By offering differing flat rates, customers can personalise their payment plans which encourages purchases. Flexibility is important in a crowded market where users must balance payments across many services, often subscribing briefly for specific content (Mohammad, 2019).
Discounts for longer subscription terms entices customers to pay for a longer plan, retaining customers for longer and ensures contributions to Annual Subscriber Revenue (ASR) and a level of customer lifetime value (CLV).
FilmSlate should avoid introducing ads into the platform because our closest competitors do not have ads on their platforms. It creates a problem that users must solve by paying more which is an unethical approach and would harm user satisfaction.
References
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N.Arora et al, McKinsey & Company (2021), “The value of getting personalization right – or wrong- is multiplying”. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
Bain & Company (2015), “Are you experienced?”. Available at: https://www.bain.com/insights/are-you-experienced-infographic/
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