“With OTT you have the possibility of having your cake and eating it too,” says Michael Lantz, CEO of Accedo, speaking about the growing importance of adopting a hybrid-monestisation approach for streaming services. He continues: “It’s about finding ways of maximising total revenues by personalising monetisation models for different consumer segments. That to me is hybrid monetisation.”
Accedo – a video solutions provider – recently announced the launch of hybrid-model support for its SaaS platform Accedo One. According to the company, the inclusion of the feature represents an industry first for a product solution which delivers hybrid business models for OTT services. The updated solution will be commercially available from early 2023.
The ‘no-code’ platform gives companies the tools needed to design and manage a branded video service, across all major platforms. Accedo says the solution enables service providers to get to market faster by reducing the complexities of execution, and allows them to expand their services by integrating new features in-line with customer preferences.
Lantz elaborates on the update to the SaaS: “Other companies have the approach of enabling either advertising or subscription models in their product. This means their customers are limited to offering either an ad-funded service or having it be subscription-based.
“What we can do is offer the possibility of combining them into one service. We can also create multiple tiers within an advertising model. In one service we can create different authentication models, and can structure different tiers with different prices set for varying levels of ads.”
Lantz draws parallels between the growing acceptance of hybrid-monetisation within the OTT space to the traditional monetisation of broadcast channels. He says: “If you go back 20 years, most Pay TV channels had advertising and were paid channels, offered in some sort of package via the Pay TV operator.”
Despite the exceptions of free-to-air channels (which were ad or license funded) and the limited instances of purely pay channels, the vast majority came under a hybrid-monetisation model. He believes consumers will accept hybrid-monetisation as long as they feel they are receiving sufficient value from the content, and the cost – both in terms of time spent watching ads, and the money spent on subscription fees – does not exceed that value
Lantz clarifies that, while Accedo does offer an end-to-end solution to build and manage video services, the company does not operate every component of the supply chain but instead works with select vendors to offer its customers a bundled price.
He remarks: “It is not end-to-end in the sense that we do everything ourselves, but instead in the sense that the customer can buy everything from us. There is one agreement you sign with Accedo and we will make sure everything works. We find and work with vendors who complement our offering”
The company works with measurement companies to provide analytics – such as Conviva, Commscore and Nielsen – as well companies to provide a video platform (such as Brightcove) and a payment customer management platform.
He also mentions that, because of Accedo’s focus on UI, it is well placed coordinate an end-to-end solution which involves partnering with several vendors: He says: “Since our central focal point is the UI, we need to work with everyone to make sure we’re compliant with everyone in the industry. That enables us to be a very natural speaking partner to bring this sort of product together in one piece.”
