Oh Quibi

If there is any product that we expected to thrive during this pandemic its Quibi.

An original short-form video content streaming platform that allows you to automatically flip between landscape and portrait presentation modes with both orientations factored into the creative process. This was the headline feature and one it hoped would capture the streaming community.

Commercials

At first glance, I worried about Quibi’s commercials

Investment — A $1 billion in star power and content production

Monetization — $4.99 (with ads) or $7.99 (ad-free) for shows that last 10 minutes or less.

I previously wrote a post on this 5 months ago before Quibi launched and as time has passed it looks like my hunch was right. Quibi is now struggling to acquire customers

Here is a link to previous article in case you missed it — Quibi content strategy

Key Stats

-Quibi plans to upload 7,000 videos on the platform in the first year.

-Average video length is 10 minutes

-$100K per minute content cost (As they actually shoot content in both portrait and landscape and stream both)

-From a content perspective Quibi will have to spend $7 Billion on content in Year 1

-Quibi have raised $1 Billion which would lead them to a $6 Billion shortfall

-For Quibi to be profitable they shall need 1.4 Billion (1 402 805 611) subscribers in the first year (assuming all opt for the $4.99 option)

-Just to put it into perspective Netflix had over 167 million paying streaming subscribers worldwide as well as over 4.6 million free trial customers.

The problems don’t just end with the commercial model but here are a few other issues

Management

The service, the brainchild of the DreamWorks Animation co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and the former Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman.

*DreamWorks and HP are stellar organizations but not organizations that you can associate with short-form content.

*DreamWorks has made a name for itself in long form animated content with hits such as “The Bee movie”, “Shrek”, “Transformers” and “Saving private Ryan”. These movies have gathered billions of dollars in box office revenue but the transition from long form to short form its not a quick and easy one.

Its head of brand marketing, Megan Imbres, departed in April — another high-profile executive exit after the departures of the head of daily content Janice Min and Tim Connolly, the head of partnerships and advertising, last year.

Content

In an age of User Generated content : TikTok and YouTube have emerged as short form content kings and queens and millenials cannot get enough of it. If you have a short form content platform and do not have some (if not all) the TikTok and YouTube content stars then you are doomed from the start.

Below is a list of the TikTok accounts with the most followers

A quick search on Quibi’s content shows a clear lack of YouTube and TikTok stars

No TV app

Watching video’s is still a lean back experience.

If you have a video platform with videos that are 10 minutes long then best you have a TV app so your users can sit back on their couch and enjoy your content. Merely holding phone up for 5 minutes for a video call is enough of a workout so imagine binge watching an entire series on Quibi.

Multi-Profile

There is no option to set up profiles for the other people in your family on a single account and the app is limited to a single concurrent stream, so password sharing is out altogether.

Share-ability

The App features an inherent lack of shareability (the app did not allow screenshots, precluding memes)

Summary

Great concept, Great Technical execution, Single-Platform, Terrible Content

Farewell Quibi