ViacomCBS launches Paramount+, the rebranded and expanded version of its streaming service CBS All Access, this week. The question, of course, is how well it will compete in the crowded streaming video landscape. Examining the Paramount+ pre-launch marketing approach indicates that ViacomCBS has taken lessons from previous SVOD launches and has made the right marketing moves to set Paramount+ up for success.
Driving awareness among Gens X & Y
If you watched Super Bowl LV, you must have seen at least one or two Paramount+ ad spots. The service commanded four spots (of a six-episode ad sequence) during the big game, thanks to the fact that its owner, ViacomCBS, also owns the network that aired the event. These ads featured a wide range of characters and personalities from across ViacomCBS’s family of brands. Paramount+ was clearly banking on nostalgia (particularly among Generations X and Y) with the suite of familiar faces featured across these episodes. Plus, every spot ended with three key facets of Paramount+: live sports, breaking news, and a mountain of entertainment. Not only did the new service get its ads in front of the nearly 100 million viewers of the Super Bowl, but it repeated these key messages across the often-humorous spots to drive recall.
During ViacomCBS’s Feb. 24 investor presentation, the company said that the TV campaign, accompanied by social media and digital marketing from across ViacomCBS, was projected to reach 95% of Americans aged 25-54 (aka, Generations X and Y). Like the Paramount Mountain TV spots, the Paramount+ pre-launch social media strategy focused on using nostalgia to connect with Gens X and Y. According to Mintel social media monitoring, its most-engaged social posts announced revivals of titles such as “Frasier,” “Rugrats” and “The Real World.” Paramount+ boosted these social media posts (i.e., paid to show them as sponsored content in non-followers feeds) in order to maximize their visibility.
Many of its social ads targeted Millennials with a different approach, appealing to those who are parents of young children. In late February, according to Pathmatics/Mintel, Paramount+ ramped up its Facebook and Instagram ad spending, with the top ads featuring “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run,” which will debut exclusively on the service.
ViacomCBS’s paid social efforts helped make clear something that the Paramount+ Mountain TV spots did not – that the service would have brand new content, in addition to all the familiar faces. In fact, this omission was the primary weakness of the Super Bowl ads, in my opinion.
Early sign-ups
ViacomCBS was smart to learn from other streamers that used pre-launch, discounted annual subscriptions to boost early subscribers. While Disney+’s success was the result of many factors, its early sign-ups were impressive, and that was likely due in part to the service’s pre-launch offers. Paramount+ is not (as far as we’ve detected) targeting specific groups with different pre-launch offers, as we saw with Disney+, but it is offering a very attractive 50% discount on its “mountain of entertainment,” including on its entry, $4.99 per month tier. News and industry publications, primarily, are spreading the word about the pre-launch offer, which they picked up from the investor event. The offer also lives on paramountplus.com.
Pairing this offer with heavy awareness marketing should help build a strong foundation of users that are basically guaranteed not to churn out for a year. That gives Paramount+ a full 12 months to prove its value. Plus, consumers appreciate a discounted annual rate for streaming video: Mintel’s research finds that 75% of consumers would purchase the annual option if their favorite streaming services offered a discounted annual rate.
Removing hurdles for CBS All Access customers
Unlike some streamers, Paramount+ has the advantage of an established base of subscribers at “launch,” thanks to its millions of CBS All Access subscribers. Paramount+ seemed to sever ties with CBS All Access in its awareness marketing by treating itself as a brand new service, rather than a rebrand, but communications to the existing base of subscribers were, of course, much different. According to Mintel ePerformance/eDataSource, CBS All Access started driving awareness around the Paramount+ rebrand in customer emails in late January, with a footer featuring the new brand name and the family of familiar brands that will be part of the service.
On Feb. 25, following ViacomCBS’s investor event, CBS All Access shared a more detailed email with customers, alerting them of what to expect at launch on Mar. 4. The most important feature of this email is in the first sentence: “your CBS All Access subscription will switch automatically to Paramount+.” Assuming the change is as seamless as implied, the automatic update will help Paramount+ avoid customer frustration by eliminating any work on their part.
That’s not to say that all CBS All Access customers will be satisfied, since there are some complicated elements of the rebrand. The main complication is spelled out later in the same email, where customers are notified that the $5.99 per month Limited Commercials plan won’t change until later this year, when a $4.99 per month tier, without live local CBS content, will be the only ad-supported option. Removing the local content likely helps ViacomCBS keep the cost of Paramount+ down, but there will surely be customers who valued that content, who won’t be happy to pay $9.99 per month to get it.
No wireless tie-ups
Streaming services such as Disney+ and Discovery+ are reaping the rewards of partnering with Verizon to offer free subscriptions to its qualifying wireless and Fios customers; HBO Max enjoys similar synergies with AT&T wireless and internet. So far, Paramount+ hasn’t announced such a collaboration. While this may cause Paramount+ to grow a little slower than some of these competitors, when we start to see the subscriber counts from Paramount+, we’ll want to keep in mind that its subs have all elected to pay for the service, rather than getting it free from another provider.
ViacomCBS is setting up Paramount+ for success with its pre-launch marketing moves. It has conveyed the service’s wealth of content, and leaned into the popular shows and celebrities that its target audiences enjoyed in the 90s and beyond. With live sports and news, Paramount+ blends the benefits of a vMVPD with a traditional SVOD. That the service will offer major sporting leagues and events is, presently, an attractive feature of Pararmount+ that helps differentiate it from other SVODs. ViacomCBS will likely unleash marketing blitzes around tent pole sporting events during the year, and this approach may also apply to the new Paramount films launching on the service 30-45 days after their theatrical release. Of course, Paramount+ will have the benefit of running ads on ViacomCBS-owned networks and websites during these blitzes. ViacomCBS will also keep the momentum for the service going by utilizing Pluto TV to drive viewers to Paramount+, as it has done with Showtime. Paramount+’s early marketing—as well as the potential to continue driving interest around original content, big film releases and major sporting events—suggests that the service could do very well, despite the crowded marketplace.
Emily Groch is Comperemedia’s Director of Insights, Telecommunications. She pairs her deep knowledge of marketing within the telecommunications industry with Mintel’s consumer research, trends, and competitive marketing intelligence to build timely, meaningful stories for Mintel and Comperemedia telecom clients. Emily travels throughout the US and Canada to present industry marketing trends and insights to major TV, Internet, and wireless service providers, and their advertising agencies.
Industry Voices are opinion columns written by outside contributors—often industry experts or analysts—who are invited to the conversation by FierceVideo staff. They do not represent the opinions of FierceVideo.