An exploratory study of marketing promotions and managerial implications on OTT aggregator platforms (Airtel xstream)

Abstract

In early 2022, Airtellaunched the streaming super app Airtel Xstream, which gave users the access to over 15 OTT streaming services, including SonyLIV, Eros Now and Lionsgate and a repository of more than 10,000 content across English, Hindi, and regional languages. While the product is innovative, increases user ease and accessibility, the marketing of it can be focussed either on the product or the content. Based on several in-depth interviews, FGI and secondary literature review, we realised that while the product features are at the heart of increasing user delight, the user would assess the value addition of subscription in terms of content offered and that the diversity in content and OTT platforms would be the trigger for consumer acquisit ion, eventually leading to product growth. It is in this context that the following parameters would gain significance: what kind of content is advertised, what parameters would be considered for choosing the content, and if there is subscriber preference for diverse OTT platforms. We developed hypothesis to test our understanding and prepared questionnaire accordingly, to identify what factors would increase the subscriptions for Airtel Xstream. Experiments and surveys were floated and regression and Anova tests were conducted on obtained data to validate our hypothesis.