
20多年前,杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和亚马逊(Amazon)将“飞轮”(flywheel)一词引入了现代商业词典,描述了亚马逊电子商务生态系统内部各要素如何相互促进,推动业务向前发展。
上周二,网飞公布了一份井喷式的财报,显示其用户增长创历史新高,此后,网飞的市值飙升超过400亿美元,如今比以往任何时候都更清楚的是,亚马逊最大的流媒体竞争对手之一也在实施同样的策略。
亚马逊早期高管、后来执掌Hulu和华纳媒体(WarnerMedia)的杰森·基拉尔(Jason Kilar)在推特上写道:“良性循环仍在继续。”
Pivotal Research Group的杰夫·沃达查克(Jeff Wlodarczak)在财报发布后的一份研究报告中,对网飞的飞轮效应持略微不同的看法,但仍是积极的。
他写道:“网飞未来发展的关键在于发挥自身优势,保持订户/每用户平均收入飞轮运转,原因是其规模越大,对同行/内容创作者的影响力就越大,进而促使其产品质量提升(这又能反过来推动订户/每用户平均收入增长),这样网飞就有更多的现金投入到有吸引力的内容上,从而进一步巩固其围绕核心商业模式的护城河。”
以亚马逊为例,其飞轮的运作机制如下:更丰富的商品选择历来能提升客户的购物体验;更好的客户体验会吸引更多的购物者;更多的购物者会吸引更多的卖家入驻平台;更多的卖家则意味着平台能提供更多的商品选择。所有这些要素都将在推动收入增长方面发挥作用,而收入增长可用于投资扩建仓库,加快配送速度,增加客户订单量,或投资于Prime Video节目制作,提高客户参与度。这些新增投资将进一步优化客户体验,促使飞轮加速运转。
再来看网飞的情况:首席财务官斯潘塞·诺伊曼(Spencer Neumann)在财报电话会议中也着重阐述了他对网飞版飞轮运作机制的理解。诺伊曼指出:“网飞的飞轮始于用户参与度,而参与度,连同营收与利润驱动飞轮运转。”
对于派拉蒙+(Paramount Plus)或迪士尼(Disney)等网飞在内容领域的老牌竞争对手而言,尤为令人担忧的是,网飞提高每用户平均收入的关键新手段之一仍处于起步阶段:广告。
在与华尔街分析师的财报电话会议上,网飞高管称,该公司的广告业务刚刚从“爬行”阶段进入“行走”阶段。
值得一提的是,大约两年多前,网飞推出了广告支持套餐,让消费者能够以较低的月费享受节目和电影,作为交换,他们将在观看过程中遇到插播广告。这对网飞而言是重大转变,而且事实证明,颇受观众欢迎;在第四季度,该公司新增的近1900万订户中,约有55%选择了这一广告套餐。在此期间,网飞的广告收入同比增长了一倍,联合首席执行官格雷格·彼得斯(Greg Peters)在与分析师的交流中表示,公司计划在2025年再翻一番。(网飞并未公布其广告收入,但Macquarie Equity Research预测,今年其广告收入将达到约20亿美元。)
网飞一直在加拿大测试自身的技术堆栈以提供广告服务,并计划于今年在美国推出。公司高管表示,这将为营销人员提供更为精准的广告定位,同时使订户接收到的广告内容更加贴合其兴趣。
而这家流媒体巨头正在打造另一个吸引广告商入驻其平台的重要手段:直播活动。从体育赛事到音乐会再到颁奖典礼,直播活动为网飞提供了一种熟悉且颇具吸引力的选项,以吸引那些有意将广告预算从传统电视或流媒体竞争对手那里转移过来的广告商。
即使是那些选择付费观看无广告节目的用户,在网飞直播赛事期间,如迈克·泰森(Mike Tyson)与杰克·保罗(Jake Paul)之间的重量级对决,或是网飞已获转播权的接下来两届女足世界杯,也会穿插播放广告。正如亚马逊在与美国国家橄榄球联盟(NFL)和美国职业篮球联赛(NBA)签订的协议中了解到的那样,这类预约观赛活动能吸引大品牌的广告支出,令广告销售主管垂涎欲滴,并进一步推动飞轮运转。
前Hulu首席执行官基拉尔在推特上写道:“随着网飞团队势不可挡地签署每一项新增的大型体育转播权协议,我相信这将为该服务吸引更多的用户参与,从而降低流失率。如此一来,飞轮便能加速旋转。这无疑是明智之举。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
20多年前,杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)和亚马逊(Amazon)将“飞轮”(flywheel)一词引入了现代商业词典,描述了亚马逊电子商务生态系统内部各要素如何相互促进,推动业务向前发展。
上周二,网飞公布了一份井喷式的财报,显示其用户增长创历史新高,此后,网飞的市值飙升超过400亿美元,如今比以往任何时候都更清楚的是,亚马逊最大的流媒体竞争对手之一也在实施同样的策略。
亚马逊早期高管、后来执掌Hulu和华纳媒体(WarnerMedia)的杰森·基拉尔(Jason Kilar)在推特上写道:“良性循环仍在继续。”
Pivotal Research Group的杰夫·沃达查克(Jeff Wlodarczak)在财报发布后的一份研究报告中,对网飞的飞轮效应持略微不同的看法,但仍是积极的。
他写道:“网飞未来发展的关键在于发挥自身优势,保持订户/每用户平均收入飞轮运转,原因是其规模越大,对同行/内容创作者的影响力就越大,进而促使其产品质量提升(这又能反过来推动订户/每用户平均收入增长),这样网飞就有更多的现金投入到有吸引力的内容上,从而进一步巩固其围绕核心商业模式的护城河。”
以亚马逊为例,其飞轮的运作机制如下:更丰富的商品选择历来能提升客户的购物体验;更好的客户体验会吸引更多的购物者;更多的购物者会吸引更多的卖家入驻平台;更多的卖家则意味着平台能提供更多的商品选择。所有这些要素都将在推动收入增长方面发挥作用,而收入增长可用于投资扩建仓库,加快配送速度,增加客户订单量,或投资于Prime Video节目制作,提高客户参与度。这些新增投资将进一步优化客户体验,促使飞轮加速运转。
再来看网飞的情况:首席财务官斯潘塞·诺伊曼(Spencer Neumann)在财报电话会议中也着重阐述了他对网飞版飞轮运作机制的理解。诺伊曼指出:“网飞的飞轮始于用户参与度,而参与度,连同营收与利润驱动飞轮运转。”
对于派拉蒙+(Paramount Plus)或迪士尼(Disney)等网飞在内容领域的老牌竞争对手而言,尤为令人担忧的是,网飞提高每用户平均收入的关键新手段之一仍处于起步阶段:广告。
在与华尔街分析师的财报电话会议上,网飞高管称,该公司的广告业务刚刚从“爬行”阶段进入“行走”阶段。
值得一提的是,大约两年多前,网飞推出了广告支持套餐,让消费者能够以较低的月费享受节目和电影,作为交换,他们将在观看过程中遇到插播广告。这对网飞而言是重大转变,而且事实证明,颇受观众欢迎;在第四季度,该公司新增的近1900万订户中,约有55%选择了这一广告套餐。在此期间,网飞的广告收入同比增长了一倍,联合首席执行官格雷格·彼得斯(Greg Peters)在与分析师的交流中表示,公司计划在2025年再翻一番。(网飞并未公布其广告收入,但Macquarie Equity Research预测,今年其广告收入将达到约20亿美元。)
网飞一直在加拿大测试自身的技术堆栈以提供广告服务,并计划于今年在美国推出。公司高管表示,这将为营销人员提供更为精准的广告定位,同时使订户接收到的广告内容更加贴合其兴趣。
而这家流媒体巨头正在打造另一个吸引广告商入驻其平台的重要手段:直播活动。从体育赛事到音乐会再到颁奖典礼,直播活动为网飞提供了一种熟悉且颇具吸引力的选项,以吸引那些有意将广告预算从传统电视或流媒体竞争对手那里转移过来的广告商。
即使是那些选择付费观看无广告节目的用户,在网飞直播赛事期间,如迈克·泰森(Mike Tyson)与杰克·保罗(Jake Paul)之间的重量级对决,或是网飞已获转播权的接下来两届女足世界杯,也会穿插播放广告。正如亚马逊在与美国国家橄榄球联盟(NFL)和美国职业篮球联赛(NBA)签订的协议中了解到的那样,这类预约观赛活动能吸引大品牌的广告支出,令广告销售主管垂涎欲滴,并进一步推动飞轮运转。
前Hulu首席执行官基拉尔在推特上写道:“随着网飞团队势不可挡地签署每一项新增的大型体育转播权协议,我相信这将为该服务吸引更多的用户参与,从而降低流失率。如此一来,飞轮便能加速旋转。这无疑是明智之举。”(财富中文网)
译者:中慧言-王芳
More than two decades ago, Jeff Bezos and Amazon ushered in the term “flywheel” to the modern business lexicon, describing how various components of Amazon’s e-commerce ecosystem feed off one another to propel the business forward.
Now, after Netflix’s market value surged more than $40 billion following a blowout earnings report on Tuesday that revealed record subscriber growth, it’s clearer than ever that one of Amazon’s biggest streaming rivals is doing the same.
“The virtuous cycle continues (invest to earn engagement -> lower churn -> better cash flow -> investment -> engagement …),” is how Jason Kilar, an early Amazon executive who went on to run Hulu and then WarnerMedia as CEO, put it in a tweet on Tuesday.
Jeff Wlodarczak of Pivotal Research Group had a slightly different, but nonetheless positive, take on Netflix’s flywheel in a research note following the earnings report.
“The key for NFLX going forward is to press their advantages and keep the subscriber/ARPU flywheel going,” he wrote, using an abbreviation for average revenue per user, “because the larger they get the more leverage they have over their peers/content creators, the better their product gets (allowing them to drive subscriber/ARPU growth), the more cash they have to spend on compelling content and the bigger the moat grows around their core business model.”
At Amazon for example, the flywheel worked something like this: More selection has historically led to a better customer experience; a better customer experience attracts more shoppers; more shoppers attracts more sellers; and more sellers leads to more selection. All of those components then play a role in propelling revenue growth that can be invested in warehouses that foster faster delivery speeds and increased customer ordering, or into Prime Video programming that leads to more customer engagement. Those additions result in a better customer experience that spins the flywheel faster.
Back to Netflix: Chief financial officer Spencer Neumann also highlighted his own spin on how Netflix’s version of the flywheel works on Tuesday’s earnings call. “The flywheel starts with engagement,” Neumann said. “It’s engagement, revenue, profit, and it drives the flywheel.”
The scariest part for Netflix’s legacy content rivals like Paramount Plus or Disney is that one of Netflix’s key new levers to increasing ARPU is still in its infancy: advertising.
On the company’s earnings call with Wall Street analysts, Netflix executives described the company’s ad business as just now progressing from the “crawl” phase to the “walk.”
As a reminder, Netflix introduced an ad-supported tier a little over two years ago, allowing consumers to pay a lower monthly fee in exchange for having ads interspersed in the shows and movies they watch. It was a big change for Netflix, and it’s proved popular with viewers; some 55% of the company’s nearly 19 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter joined via the advertising tier. Along the way, Netflix doubled its advertising revenue year over year, and plans to do so again in 2025, co-CEO Greg Peters told analysts on Tuesday. (Netflix doesn’t break out its advertising revenue, but Macquarie Equity Research predicts it will hit around $2 billion this year.)
Netflix has been testing out its own tech stack to serve ads in Canada, and plans to roll it out in the U.S. this year. Company executives say it will lead to better ad targeting for marketers, and more relevant ads for subscribers.
And the streaming leader is forging another big lever to attract advertisers to its platform: live events. From sports to concerts to awards shows, live events give Netflix a familiar and compelling offering for advertisers looking to move ad budgets over from traditional TV or from streaming rivals.
Even for subscribers who pay for no-ad tiers, Netflix still shows commercials during live events—like the blockbuster Mike Tyson–Jake Paul match, or during the next two women’s World Cups, whose rights Netflix has secured. And these types of appointment viewing spectacles, as Amazon has learned with its NFL and NBA deals, attract the type of big-brand ad spending that make ad sales leaders drool. And propel the flywheel further.
“With each additional big sports licensing deal the Netflix team inevitably signs, I do believe it will result in even more engagement for the service and thus, lower churn,” Kilar, the former Hulu CEO, tweeted. “Such that the flywheel can spin faster. Smart moves.”