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The purpose of this paper is to determine, rank and form composite relational factors that impact the millennial consumer’s mind-set when they opt for an access-based subscription of an over-the-top (OTT) platform service. In the competitive rising Indian market of OTT platforms, there is a need to understand what factors drive the subscription of a service for a company strategizing to build up on their customer base or for a company seeking to retain its customers.

The approach includes determining factors that impact the buying behavior of the consumer and have them ranked by the survey participants in order of their importance as a factor in considering a subscription of an OTT platform service. Questionnaire as a method is used for primary data collection in this research. Using “purposive sampling,” participants of the survey were determined based on their age group and current or historic consumption of at least one OTT platform service. The survey was conducted for the millennial viewership from Tier I and Tier II cities that have good internet connectivity over their mobile phones.

The result of this research is a ranking of factors based on their importance as perceived by the millennial consumers and then form composite factors, which have similarities in responses.

This research enables the consumers of the information to dwell on the factors that prove to be of comparative importance to the consumer and plan/forecast their strategies and further research studies accordingly.

A research along similar lines has been conducted for US-based OTT platforms. However, this research is specific for Indian consumers and platforms and holds significance because of growth in the Indian OTT market.

Extant literature in Video on Demand (VoD) has taken the consumer perspective; however, the stakeholder perspective is largely neglected. This paper aims to fill this gap by understanding the strategies to enhance the experience and engage customers from the supplier’s point of view. The purpose of the study is to identify and analyse strategies adopted by over-the-top (OTT) platforms that ensure consumer loyalty in the VoD space.

Using a qualitative approach and inductive qualitative design, the authors interviewed 16 industry experts associated with OTT platforms in India and people handling various marketing-related positions. Data collected included topics related to industry landscape, the value created for a customer, consumer experience, engagement and platform stickiness. Thematic analysis was used to find meaningful semantic elements.

This study has found that consumer experience, content differentiation, consumer sense-making and engagement and platform extension as value enhancers as the key strategies been adopted in the Indian context, thereby leading to a platform’s stickiness.

This research offers insights to policymakers of content, digital platforms, media practitioners and managers that are drawing consumers influenced by platform strategies.

This research provides insights to content policy makers, digital platform leaders, media practitioners, and managers who are influencing consumers through platform strategies.

The research could help entrepreneurs and marketers understand the perspectives of stakeholders in the VoD industry in India.

The study encourages researchers to explore the concept of stickiness, which may or may not be equivalent to loyalty. It is important to focus on quality, frequency, and regular reminders to help customers return to the same platform in the short term.

Millions of dollars are being spent by over-the-top platform (OTT) providers to produce content for the Indian market. These circumstances highlight the necessity for a solution that attracts and maintains customers, enabling OTT providers to generate revenues and profits. This study explores the underlying gratifications (e.g. informative; connectivity) obtained from over-the-top platform (OTT) attributes (e.g. global content; regional and cultural content) through consequences (e.g. create awareness; related to reality).

Means-end chain theory uncovered gratifications consumers fulfill through the use of OTT platforms. The laddering technique explores the linkage among attributes, consequences and gratifications that influence OTT platforms' consumers' consumption patterns. In total, 27 interviews were conducted in India, and participants responded to questions regarding attributes of OTT platforms, consequences and gratifications in a one-on-one interview procedure. Hierarchical value maps were built to better understand customer selection of OTT platforms based on the replies.

The results suggested that six attributes of OTT platforms (for ex-global content; regional and rural content; rating before watching) were associated with the four consequences (for ex-create awareness; related to reality; saves time), which were associated with four gratifications, which are informativeness, connectivity, social enhancement and productivity.

The prospective function of OTT services in the entertainment and media business has grabbed consumer attention. However, limited literature focuses on identifying gratifications consumers gain from OTT attributes. Through these findings, managers and practitioners can gain insights regarding strategies to increase OTT adoption and help develop a loyal consumer base.

COVID-19 preventive measures disrupted the media and entertainment business ecosystem, increased over the top (OTT) consumption, brought new OTT players, thus increased competition, and shaped consumer behaviour and habits. Despite this knowledge, in-depth insights into OTT's consumer behaviour, new usage habit and strategies used by subscription-based OTT platforms to maintain resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic are unknown. This paper aims to fill the two gaps in the extant OTT literature.

This study used Eisenhardt's multiple case studies approach to derive the strategies used by the top-performing subscription-based OTT platforms in India. Moreover, a purposive semi-structured Google survey was used to explore consumers' OTT experience during the pandemic. This study analysed data using NVivo 12 (survey) and MS Excel 2010 (case studies).

This study derived seven resilient OTT strategies; competitive low pricing, enhancing customer experience, launching innovative service plans, content localisation, strategic collaboration, flexibility in technology adoption and proactive sales promotion. Consequent to adopting these strategies, consumers' usage of OTT evolved from occasional to habitual. Convenience, ease of accessibility, risk of contracting COVID-19, variety and quality of content, online reviews and affordability drive consumer preference for OTT. Also, this study revealed consumers' varied OTT experiences.

The contribution is two-fold; the derived strategies for maintaining resilience and the in-depth insights into habit formation and consumer behaviour during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study is valuable for media and entertainment stakeholders like streaming service providers, OTT services, cable operators, etc.

The case study illustrated strategic, marketing, financial and operational challenges faced by Netflix in India's growing SVoD market. This case is appropriate in courses such as Strategic Management, Business Strategy, Marketing Management and International Marketing for postgraduate MBA students, other graduate-level management programs and undergraduate-level students. The case was developed to raise awareness among students, to understand the complex nature of the technology-driven industry, to survive in the highly competitive market, to set up a company that serves the huge Indian market. This case delves into the dynamics of marketing on the Indian market, characterized by unorganized players such as local cable television; torrent downloads and organized and established players, low digitalization rates, language barriers, low internet penetration, lack of infrastructure, price-sensitive consumers. Due to up-gradation in technology, internet penetration, an increase in smartphone users, and the market has undergone a notable amount of change, due to a lot on new entrants, competitions, substitutes. The case states various obstacles, for a multinational company while entering the market such as India and how they are required to strategize, mold their marketing mix, need to analyze en-cash their strength, overcome their weakness, take maximum advantage of opportunities and modify their strategies to face huge challenges. The specific learning outcome of the case will help students to understand the strategy that multinational companies can adopt to sustain, compete in emerging countries such as India and within that emerging market such as streaming videos on demand (SVoD). This case will help students to understand the importance of internal and external resources, which help multinational companies to make strategies based on these resources. The case study offers learners the opportunity to explore the strategy in a dynamic environment. This case also highlights the critical issues that should be addressed by multinational companies when entering into a foreign market. The case highlights the importance of analyzing the competitive environment in which it’s going to compete and sustain. It can be used to introduce Ansoff’s growth matrix, internal and external factor analysis and porter’s five forces in the delivery of course for both regular and executive programs. The case should be offered in the middle term periods of the course. Additionally, the case could be used in marketing courses to indicate the importance of scanning the business environment in marketing activities for any organization. The case illustrates the strategies that companies can undertake to expand the market, introduce new products, as per the requirement of business environment and concerns linked with innovating approaches to support the organization to satisfy a larger number of price-sensitive consumers from varied backgrounds.

Netflix has been optimistic about the potential growth of the Indian market. It will grow slowly and gradually and become profitable. The SVoD market in India has been price sensitive. There are no plans for cheaper prices. Netflix had a long way to go. The pricing model of Netflix was a hurdle in its growth, but the future of Netflix in India was bright. There have been numerous challenges in terms of government regulations, pricing structure and an increase in the number of competitive players on the market. Netflix believed that Indian audiences enjoyed “Bollywood” film productions but watched low-quality soap opera content on television. Television audiences were a massive untapped market for their brand of original, exclusively produced content. Can Netflix come up with a marketing and growth strategy, or else they might be looking to lose market share and revenue. Should a new product such as Amazon and MI fire stick be introduced in the existing market like their competitors? Should they enter the existing market with existing products, or should they seek a new market in India, such as the rural market, the Pyramid market, the Tier II market and the City III market? Should they diversify into a new market with new products? How Netflix should plan its market communication if it wants to launch a new product or if it wants to reposition its existing product. Netflix had to rethink its strategies and also needed to address these issues so that they could travel smoothly on Indian roads. High marketing budget and aggressive promotions helped Netflix India to make a profit in its first year.

Postgraduate MBA students, other graduate-level management programs and undergraduate-level students.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

The learning outcomes of this study are as follows:1. Analyze the pricing strategy followed by Netflix in India;2. Examine the challenges faced by media companies, including over-the-top (OTT) service providers, in developing content for target consumers in emerging markets; and3. Evaluate the dynamics of the Indian OTT industry and understand the effect of external and internal factors on the growth of Netflix in India.

This case discusses the dilemma faced by Netflix in India regarding pricing and content. Netflix was accused of hurting the religious and political sentiments of Indians by broadcasting bold shows such as Sacred Games and A Suitable Boy. Netflix is caught in a dilemma between its pursuit to achieve its target of achieving 100 million subscribers from India versus continuing its profitable high pricing strategy. Another key dilemma is regarding the streaming of attractive bold content which may occasionally hurt the religious/political sentiments of some Indians or stream only safe content which may be deemed as boring by its young target audience.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Marketing courses in Commerce and Business Management streams can use this case.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 8: Marketing.

A secondary research method was used to collect data for this case. The authors have made use of newspaper articles and articles by experts published in the public domain.

This case discusses the dilemma faced by Amazon Prime Video in India regarding content. Amazon Prime Video attained success and rapid growth in India ever since its entry into the Indian over the top (OTT) market in 2016. However, the pursuit of attractive and bold content landed Amazon Prime Video in a legal tangle in India. Amazon Prime Video was accused of hurting the religious and political sentiments of Indians by broadcasting bold shows like Tandaav, Family Man, Mirzapur, Family Man 2, etc. Litigations against Amazon Prime Video were filed in the Indian courts by members of religious and political organizations. Protests and online campaigns on Twitter caught the attention of internet influencers in India. The key dilemma faced by the protagonist in this case is whether to continue streaming attractive content that may be controversial and may occasionally hurt the religious/political sentiments of some Indians or stream only safe content that may be deemed as boring by its young target audience.

Undergraduate and postgraduate students studying marketing management and international business courses in business management and commerce streams can use this case.

A secondary research method was used to collect data for this case. The authors have made use of newspaper articles and published articles written by journalists and experts, which are available in the public domain.

This case discusses the hurdles faced by Netflix in India. Netflix experienced rapid growth ever since its entry into the Indian over-the-top (OTT) sector. The aggressive pricing strategies by OTT competitors put Netflix in a defensive position in India. Netflix introduced the low-priced mobile-only plan to attract price-sensitive Indian consumers. However, this was not sufficient. Netflix was forced to reduce the price of all its plans in December 2021. The dilemma faced by Reed Hastings (Founder and Co-CEO, Netflix) was whether the revised price was low enough to hold on to existing subscribers and attract new subscribers in India. Netflix was caught between the rock and the hard place in its pursuit to achieve its target of achieving 100 million subscribers from India versus continuing its skimming-pricing strategy. This case highlights the compound challenges of low household income in India and high-income inequality resulting in a lower available market for multinational service providers such as Netflix. The pricing plans and features of OTT competitors in India have also been discussed in sufficient depth to facilitate analysis and classroom discussion by the target audience.

Undergraduate students studying marketing management and basic marketing courses in business management and commerce streams can use this case. This case can also be used for marketing specialization courses at the undergraduate level.

The demand for over-the-top (OTT) video streaming services has grown manifold in the last few years. With increasing competition in the OTT market, it is vitally important for businesses to understand OTT retail consumers' continuance intentions. This study aims to understand the antecedents of the continuance intention of OTT platforms and distinguish the most essential and best-performing predictor variables of continuance intention.

The study employs an integrated research model based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), flow theory and habit. Data collected from OTT retail consumers (n = 383) using the online survey method are analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results elucidated which TPB antecedents and dimensions of flow experience affect OTT platforms' continuance intention. The most important factors affecting continuance intention were habit, attitude and perceived behavioral control, while the best-performing factors were perceived behavioral control, perceived enjoyment and attitude.

The study is unique in harmoniously integrating conscious cognitive intention, intrinsic motivation and habit of performing an activity to explain OTT platforms' continuance intention.

With over-the-top (OTT) streaming services rapidly transforming the media industry and saturating the market, the authors' study seeks to enrich the goal-directed behaviour model by exploring how perceived risks and descriptive norms influence OTT consumption.

Survey data from OTT subscribers were collected online to assess their risk behaviours. The 353 responses obtained were analysed with SmartPLS, validating the structural equation modelling (SEM) through structural and measurement model verification.

The authors' findings illustrate that descriptive norm, perceived behavioural control, as well as positive and negative anticipated emotion (NEM) and attitude, contribute positively to the desire to engage with OTT streaming services. Interestingly, the authors' study contradicts common assumptions, revealing that subjective norms do not significantly impact the propensity to utilise OTT services. This counterintuitive finding necessitates a reconsideration of prevalent theories and contributes to a nuanced understanding of OTT adoption determinants.

The data gathering for this study were conducted from the perspective of a single nation. Therefore, caution must be exercised when generalising this study's results.

The practical ramifications of this research are vast, providing OTT service providers and marketers with actionable insights to maximise user engagement and navigate perceived risks related to OTT service adoption and consumption.

This study's exploration of perceived risks and descriptive norms enhances the goal-directed behaviour model's breadth, facilitating a holistic comprehension of the constructs shaping OTT consumption behaviours. It would be the first attempt to combine perceptual, affective and behavioural factors and perceived risks to understand the user's predisposition to engage in OTT streaming services.