FilmDoo

Market

Target market

The entertainment industry is going through a substantial period of disruption as consumers find new ways to access content through a variety of devices and media. According to Digital TV Research, global Over The Top (OTT) TV and video revenues will reach $51.1 billion in 2020; a massive increase from the $4.2 billion recorded in 2010 and the $26.0 billion of 2015.

By 2019, 72 percent of all Internet video traffic will cross content delivery networks, up from 57 percent in 2014. The Video on Demand ("VOD") market is considered one of the fastest growing verticals with the VOD market expected to grow at a rate of 30% per year, overtaking cinema box office by 2017. In the UK alone, consumers will spend £1.31 billion on streaming and downloading in 2016 (23.7% more than 2015), compared to £956 million on DVDs (includes Blu-ray), a 16.3% decline to below the £1 billion mark for the first time since 1994.

Yet over 80% of global film revenue comes from just 6% of films. This is driven by marketing in-balance and the power of the 'Big Studios' to dominate the physical theatre and wider online distribution. We believe there is significant potential to promote the remaining 94% of content to a wider audience via VOD and targeted marketing. Furthermore, we believe that there is huge potential to widen the distribution of European content as at present only 10% of European language content is shown outside the EU.

Within Europe the content struggles especially hard to get a wider audience online outside its home territory. Only approximately 47% of European films exhibited in cinemas between 2005 and 2014 were made available on VOD by the end of 2015, compared with 87% in the case of American films. This leaves an opportunity for targeted platforms, such as FilmDoo, to work closely with the principal rights holders to give a wider exposure to such content and to be the first truly global platform to reach international audiences.

Characteristics of target market

According to figures provided by the BFI, in the UK alone total spending on documentary, international and independent films was £1.153 billion in 2014. FilmDoo is initially targeting those identified as those who watch films outside their own culture, which is estimated to be around 6.5m in the UK, 2.8m in Australia and 32m in the USA, highlighting an unfulfilled but valuable growing niche market for FilmDoo. Once FilmDoo expands into content beyond films (e.g. shorts and TV) and also cater to ethnic communities, these global markets become significantly larger.

FilmDoo's target market is clearly defined, individuals who watch international films, are aged 20-45, university educated, English speaking, have higher than average disposable incomes and love to travel. Additional segments targeted by FilmDoo include ethnic groups and specialist segmented communities, such as the LGBT community and film school students, which are significant on a global scale.

Marketing strategy

FilmDoo has a diverse strategy for reaching its market that can be divided into the following key categories:

1. SEO - FilmDoo has demonstrated significant capability, through it proprietary technology, to rank highly for a number of key organic search terms. FilmDoo is currently ranked in the first three search results for a number of key search terms predominantly in the LGBT, Asian and Italian film search terms, which is currently driving significant traffic.

2. Referral Programs - FilmDoo is rolling out an affiliate program, which already includes FilmDebate, MoviesOverTheRainbow and Vodzilla. Building an affiliate program we expect will also assist with improving our SEO rankings further.

3. Partnerships - FilmDoo aims to partner with organisations who share our target demographics to connect to their networks.

4. PR and content marketing - FilmDoo will leverage PR to raise our profile. This will be assisted by content marketing to be seen as being thought leaders and which should also improve our SEO rankings.

5. Social Media - FilmDoo is growing its social media presence (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram) to promote our brand to a wider audience. FilmDoo intends to also work with filmmakers and actors as influencers to leverage their own social media following as and when we release their films. FilmDoo will also try to develop viral videos to drive brand awareness.

6. Events - FilmDoo already presents at a number of films festivals and events including Cannes Film Festival, Raindance and Edinburgh Film Festival. FilmDoo intends to increase the number of events it presents at. FilmDoo also intends to speak at universities and film schools.

7. Gamification - FilmDoo's new website design, to be launched over the coming months, utilises a number of principles from the games industry to promote user loyalty and referrals.

8. Working with ethnic & community groups - FilmDoo will aim to work with community and language groups to promote language specific content to their communities.

Competition strategy

The VOD is a fast growing market with a number of competitors established including Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Prime, Mubi, Fandor and others. Whilst Netflix, iTunes and Amazon Prime are certainly competitors, their focus is on the mass market.

Whilst Mubi and Fandor are more direct competitors, FilmDoo is differentiated to them and other similar platforms through having a focus on international and independent mass market, with a particular emphasis on leveraging community and curation.

We aim to compete through some of the following:

1. Unique content - Over two years, through our long developed relationships with filmmakers, sales agents and distributors, we will focus on gaining access to content on an exclusive basis, which will make it harder for other competitors to acquire this content and to provide a strong foundation for us to differentiate from other players and to appeal to users.

2. Product differentiation - We believe that our site is different to every other VOD platform in the market and we have a number of innovative ideas to stand apart from every other competitor in the market.

3. Community focus - As FilmDoo also has a strong social community focus, we believe this will increase the stickiness of users compare to other sites.

4. Tech focus - We have achieved significant growth in recent months driven by a very successful SEO campaign. We are further rolling out our SEO to include wider terms.

5. A great team with strong governance and lean operations.

6. Truly international platform - We have launched globally and now have active users from over 125 countries, which makes the platform one of the first truly global transactional platforms offering content in a variety of languages to a global audience.