Paramount+ Phase II

On August 31st, the Paramount+ with Showtime bundle launched phase two, integrating for an all-in-one viewership experience while expanding distribution across all O&O platforms to double the reach. Phase one metrics demonstrated the bundle’s strategic value, illustrating clear advantages over BAU including a +13% improved LTV, +11PP Trial-to-Paid Conversion Rate, 19% improvement in in Paid Churn and +5 hours improvement in Average Monthly Hours per Active Subscriber Household.
  

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In support of phase two, we debuted a targeted, multi-channel marketing campaign designed to drive awareness, subscription and engagement that produced strong results. The first two months delivered 458K Total Bundle Starts, 6X YOY, with strong results across all channels including a 16% Take Rate, +11 ppt YOY. In terms of engagement, Showtime content drove 36% of consumption for bundle subscribers despite only representing 6% of content on the platform.
  

A conversion rate of 22.6% on the Showtime bundle web upsell page performed +631% higher than default, and bundle subscribers proved to churn out less than non-bundle subscribers. Advertising of bundle campaign creative outperformed US ad benchmarks, ranking in the top 20-40% across all key metrics, with messaging clearly understood.
  

MARKETING CAMPAIGN

The phase two go-to-market strategy identified five key beats from September through EOY, with two limited time offers interspersed with evergreen pricing periods amidst seasonal campaigns for Halloween and the holidays.
  

Strategies were honed based on audience set, with the primary opportunity being to upsell current subscribers by showcasing tentpole programming along with the bundle’s intrinsic cost-savings benefit and its ease of use as a single streaming destination. We found that Paramount+ subscribers who view original and exclusive content spend 3X more time on the platform than other subscriber households, and a key trigger of interest to subscribe is the promise of exclusive originals and the appeal of discovering new content to watch.
  

Additionally, we aimed to drive further acquisition amongst “super subscribers” including net new and win-back audiences by demonstrating the bundle’s unique value as a combination of the two brands since studies found 31% of these audiences cited a “streaming service that can be bundled with other services” as one of their key needs. Meanwhile 69% of US consumers ages 13 – 64 who are current SVOD subscribers are open to adding or replacing a new streaming service.
  

For the launch we refreshed our creative suite to showcase the integration of Showtime content within the Paramount+ platform, touting the catalog’s breadth and depth, while prominently featuring promotional prices. Since creative testing revealed price to be one of the most important areas of focus for consumers across all audience sets, our approach was to unify the upgrade price across tiers to create a consistent message, with a clean execution of “just $3/mo more” to add-on Showtime.
  

  

MEDIA OVERVIEW

Across the funnel, the campaign delivered ~$13.4M in paid and owned media value, +9% versus planned. Upper funnel awareness media produced 438.6M IMPs on a $12.1M Spend, with top channels including Meta, Roku and Amazon. While lower funnel performance media generated 224M IMPs on a $1.3M Spend with top channels being search, display and social.
  

CONSUMER & PRODUCT INSIGHTS

From September to October, awareness increased significantly, with 83% of people ages 18-64 now aware of the Paramount+ Showtime bundle, according to a general population study – up 11 points. NFL Sundays spiked daily numbers, driving 14% of all starts. Total Bundle Subscribers increased 14X YOY to 840K, with 180K Upgrades by existing customers.
  

Overall bundle subscribers spent 32M Total Hours streaming, with 55.5% of active subscriber households consuming Showtime content. Top categories included live TV, films, original series, and dramas.
  

We found that the Showtime upsell experience had a higher click-through rate than the default flow. When compared to the purchase flow across other devices, the bundle campaign upsell had a 31% CTR for the “Try It Free” CTA.
  

  

CHANNEL BY CHANNEL SUMMARIES

To drive adoption, we activated a 360 campaign across the entire marketing and communications funnel. The power of Paramount Global O&O was utilized to raise awareness, producing 203.8M Linear IMPs and 160.4M Digital IMPs, with key linear placements including FBI, NFL, Ink Masters and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
  

Showtime marketing drove 212M Total IMPs with paid support across CBS Sports, title marketing and partners such as Roku, Playstation and Pluto TV. Joint retention and lifecycle efforts drove 16% of upgrades (27K) via dedicated email and push notifications, while expansion across OTT and partnerships like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Roku drove 50% of starts and 46% of upgrades.
  

Dedicated on-site promotions resulted in stronger performance than default vehicles. Product marketing such as iOS Custom Product Page had a 33% Download Conversion Rate (+1440%) while an In-App drove 3.79M IMPs and 22.6% Upsell Conversion. On-product curation centered around the Showtime hub, branded homepage carousels and other thematic carousels like the Peak Screaming Collection for Halloween.
  

Due to a more efficient CPA, paid media drove 74% more starts YOY, with search being the starts and upgrade driver across all performance marketing channels.