Abstract
Since streaming over-the-top (OTT) services may make recommendations to consumers regarding what to watch, OTT services customize not just OTT original series consumption experiences, but OTT brand personality perceptions. This influences how brand equity and brand loyalty are built for these OTT brands. This study is interested in understanding a) How original series help build consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) toward OTT services and b) How the consumer-based brand equity model can explicate how OTT services build consumer brand loyalty and brand equity. The study includes a structural equation model that demonstrates that original series can be incorporated into a consumer-based brand equity model for OTT services. This offers further implications for creative arts management in building brand equity and brand loyalty.
1. Introduction
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max and other streaming over-the-top (OTT) services offer hundreds of thousands of hours of content stemming from licensed and original video series and movies. Disney + boasts over 7,500 TV show episodes and 500 movies, and Netflix has over 47,000 TV episodes and 4,000 movies (Spangler, 2019). Since OTT services also encompass design, style, and performance, OTT services customize not just OTT original series consumption experiences,but OTT perceived quality, brand personality perceptions, and ultimately brand equity and brand loyalty toward OTT brands. This study is interested in understanding a) How original series’ brand salience helps build consumer-based brand equity (CBBE) toward OTT services and b) How the consumerbased brand equity model can explicate how OTT services build consumer brand loyalty and brand equity.
5.3. Limitations and future studies
This study relied on a consumer panel sample from Qualtrics, which selects participants to take surveys. This was reliant on a United States population, and therefore generalizability is limited here. Additionally, this study only considered a select set of OTT services. Recently, there has been more attention that has been paid to a wider variety of OTT original shows, including The Morning Show on Apple + and Little Fires Everywhere on Hulu. There were more Netflix originals accounted for in this study compared to other OTT brand originals. This data was collected right when other OTT brands began releasing originals. Therefore, this study should be replicated again with a balanced offering of originals from OTT services, which can now be expanded to include Apple TV+, Disney+, and Peacock. This study was also reliant on a United States adult sample, and should be tested against other international populations. Additionally, it is difficult to control for endogeneity issues surrounding whether consumers are driven to subscribe to OTT services for original series, or if original series are an ancillary benefit of subscribing to OTT services.
