Today, tentpole content is released differently, but it's largely marketed the same way. To make dollars work smarter, marketers must tailor strategies to viewer behavior and preferences, owning the streamer's journey across multiple touchpoints.

It’s an unsolved industry mystery: does one model – binge or episodic – work better than the other? Since the dawn of the streaming era, content providers have tried to answer this question, experimenting with release strategies to attract and retain streamers.

Netflix, the pioneer of the binge model, is the latest service to test its distribution model. Rather than ditching the binge model altogether, Netflix split Stranger Things’ and Ozark’s latest season into two halves, releasing them a quarter apart. It’s a new approach intended to retain subscribers’ interest when they’re done watching that show.

While the effects of Netflix’s experiment remain to be seen, a larger problem exists – services are marketing their titles the same way, regardless of their distribution model and the unique challenges and opportunities each model presents.

The Binge Model

The binge model, where all episodes of a season are released at once, offers streamers a chance to devour content and lose themselves in the world of the characters. For services, it drives addiction and strong daily engagement, potentially bringing in higher average revenue per user. However, this engagement can dwindle quickly. Users may finish a series sooner and, if a service cannot offer relevant recommendations after, the risk of churn rises significantly.

It’s no surprise then that binge titles often see peak viewership on the first weekend, with sharp declines every weekend thereafter.

The Strategy: Marketers can curb drop-off and extend a binge title’s shelf life by owning three touchpoints along the streamer’s journey: pre-premiere, premiere week, and post-premiere.

1. Pre-premiere: Tease trailer a few weeks before release to drive excitement and capture pre-release sign-ups. Incorporate Tune-In Reminders so users get a notification when the show releases.
2. Premiere Week: When the show releases, create a splash on the Roku home screen through high-impact takeovers, extending your campaign across screens to maximize sign-ups and engagement.
3. Post-Premiere: For binge releases, acquisition and retention strategies should go hand-in-hand. Serve personalized recommendations to users after they binge a title.

The Episodic Model

The episodic model, where episodes of a season are released on a weekly basis, creates “water cooler” moments for streamers, giving them time in between to discuss cliffhangers and thick plot points. For services, it brings streamers back to the channel each week, sustaining viewership over time. However, daily engagement is fleeting and after users finish an episode, they may seek out competitor services or different forms of entertainment altogether.

While an episodic release can drive buzz and viewership over time, there are cohorts of streamers that will engage in binge behavior whether a service offers it or not. For weekly releases, sign-ups typically peak during the first and final weeks, proving that some viewers will wait until a series’ finale to binge all at once.

The Strategy: Marketers can prolong the shelf life of episodic titles across four touchpoints in the streamer’s journey: pre-premiere, premiere week, post-premiere, and finale.

1. Pre-Premiere: Generate buzz early and maximize sign-ups with video. Use Tune-In reminders closer to launch to emphasize the “show is coming” and encourage weekly viewership.
2. Premiere Week: Boost day-of reach with cross-device media and fuel searches and streams with high-impact takeovers. For example, an SVOD service ran a Homescreen Takeover to promote a returning tentpole, with the Homescreen Takeover driving 47% of streaming hours during premiere week.¹
3. Post-Premiere: 88% of Roku audiences felt they could still catch up after missing the first couple of episodes in the series. Keep display always-on to capture new subscribers and drive engagement amongst existing ones.²
4. Finale: 35% of Roku users prefer to wait until a series is over to watch all at once.³ Use the finale as an acquisition opportunity, leveraging a high-impact unit to make your title hard to miss.

Overall, Roku believes that content providers can benefit from deploying different strategies to market to various streamer behaviors. “For popular titles, weekly drops are meant to maximize sign-ups and build buzz over time”, says Lana Li, senior manager of media and entertainment ad marketing at Roku. “Series that release all episodes at once encourage bingers to watch in bursts, potentially growing engagement and average revenue per user (“ARPU”) for rising ad-supported tiers.”

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¹ Roku Internal Data, 2022 

² Roku Survey; October 2021, Oct. 19 – Oct. 25, 2021; 696 respondents

³  Roku Survey; October 2021, Oct. 19 – Oct. 25, 2021; 696 respondents