Quibi Can Turn It Around By Doing This
Credit: The Playlist
"The fall of Quibi: how did a starry $1.75B Netflix rival crash so fast?" wrote Adrian Horton in his recent article for the Guardian.
The short answer: paying the wrong people to create content.
Quibi's initial idea was intuitive — publish produced (professional) short-form content. Gen-Z is obsessing over short-form video content on platforms like TikTok. It has 50M active users. This model has also proven to be profitable. TikTok is projecting revenue of over $500MM this year. It makes sense that produced content would be a hit as well. That's where Quibi executives and particularly its founder, Jeffrey Katenzberg, missed the mark.
Here's where executives and founder Jeffrey Katenzberg miss the mark. Katzenberg models Quibi on the entertainment model of yesteryears: celebrity appeal. One example is Quibi shelling out $6MM to Reese Witherspoon. Don't get me wrong. I love her as much as the next person in Legally Blonde. However, no one is rushing to hand Quibi their money as she narrates a nature documentary.
The data backs this up. 70% of teenage YouTube subscribers say they related to YouTube creators more than traditional celebrities.
Spending money doesn't change the fundamental laws of supply and demand. There is a ton of content out there, but the next generation of consumers want content by people they understand. 40% of millennials believe their favorite creators understand them better than their friends.
Living at the intersection of this supply and demand curve is where Quibi can find success. They just need to adopt the new entertainment model.
The new entertainment model is focusing on influencers. YouTubers like MrBeast giving money to his fans. The new generation is obsessing with learning the latest TikTok dance from Addison Rae or paying for bath water (yes, this happened).
Quibi has $400MM in the bank. They can turn it around by adopting the entertainment model of the future. Give influencers money to produce original content for them. Give influencers more money if the content succeeds.
In the Attention Economy, content creators have less time than ever before deciding if a TV show will be a hit. Movie executives didn't use silent movie stars to build the next generation of talk-films. Quibi executives shouldn't use the A-list stars of yesteryear to build the next generation of content. Short-form video content is the future. If Quibi wants to be that future, their first call needs to be to MrBeast.
Jeremy Ross Miller's tweet inspired this post.