On Wednesday afternoon, the story broke that Quibi, a streaming provider that tried to reinvent the way we consume media folded after failing to find a buyer (story HERE). The streamer, which raised $1.75 billion before launch, never found an audience for it’s bite sized TV episodes that were meant to be watched on a mobile phone.
There are lessons to be learned here. Let’s look at a couple.
Stars don’t always guarantee eyeballs: There were A-listers being showcased here. Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, Chris Hemsworth and the list goes on and on. On paper, this should have reeled in the subscribers but it didn’t. This is because…
The idea behind the product can’t overshadow what your offering: It never seemed like the shows were the draw with the platform. It was like the marketing wanted the fact that you were using Quibi to be a bigger deal than what you were actually watching and that can’t work. You can have the coolest TV in the world and it doesn’t matter if you’re only enjoying it alone.
They tried to “set it and forget it”: After Quibi’s initial marketing blitz they just seemed to fade out. We stopped seeing advertising for it’s programs and the only time we ever heard about it was when the bad news broke. They simply let us forget about it.
That can’t happen.
No anchor shows:: Quick! Name 2 show on Quibi. Most of you can’t. Every streamer needs their “House Of Cards” or “The Boys” to draw people to the platform. Quibi never had that.
There just isn’t anymore money in the budget: We originally tried to cut the cord. But now we’re paying for half a dozen services and we don’t want to pay anymore. Enough is enough.
Listen, this was a tough mission but it was doomed from the start. I watch TV all day but I never felt like I was missing anything with Quibi.
At this point all we can do is learn and move on.