How to (successfully) localize an SVOD service in MENA
How to (successfully) localize an SVOD service in MENA
The Streaming Lab - MENA #11
Hey 👋 - Yann here.
This is the 11th issue of The Streaming Lab - MENA.
Each Saturday, I analyse 1 topic to better understand the OTT market in the Middle East & North Africa.
Enjoy the show.
This week, I’ll give you 7 steps to localize an SVOD service in MENA:
Conduct a regional market research
Find your new target audience
Understand the competition
Increase your reach
Upgrade your platform
License local content
Promote your service locally
Conduct a regional market research
Today, you have 3 options if you want to learn more about the streaming services that are active in the MENA region:
Do It Yourself
You can subscribe to all the SVOD services available in the region and try to understand their Content, Product and Marketing strategies. But you’ll need to get a good VPN and pay $150+ per month.
Buy market intelligence reports
You can buy reports with forecasts of revenues and subscribers per service. But you won’t get a lot of information about the niche streaming players.
Hire local experts
They will help you understand who are the homegrown SVOD services, the global giants and the international players, their content mix, platform features, and much more.
Find your new target audience
You know who are your subscribers in your own markets, but it doesn’t mean your target audience in Middle East & North Africa will be the same. You’ll have to find your new target audience, how?
The old school Marketing
Look at the demographics and define your user personas. This process can be challenging as the cultural, ethnic, linguistic and religious make-up of the region is highly variable.
The shortcut strategy
Look at the active SVOD services and find out their target audience for the region. You can get a good idea of it by looking at their most watched content.
It’s easy with Netflix as they share a lot of data every week (Last ranking for UAE here).
For the other streaming services, the only way to know the most watched content in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or Algeria is to look at their content offering and their Top 10. You’ll identify their best genres, the origin of the content and more parameters that will help you understand their target audience.
Understand the competition
Before launching your service in the MENA region, you’ll need to answer 2 questions:
How much will you price your service?
The price always depends on your business plan, your platform & content costs, and your objectives.
You’ll also need to take into account the competition. In UAE, the subscription price of the niche services is between AED10.98 (Roya Kids) and AED18.99 (UFC Arabia). Generalists services have a monthly entry price between AED16 (Amazon Prime Video) and 49.99 (Switch TV - Live TV combo).
Will you offer the same price across the region?
Offering a unique pricing in the Gulf, Levant or Maghreb doesn’t always make sense. You can also match your subscription fees with the purchasing power in each country.
Increase your reach
You have 3 main ways to increase your reach:
Telecom partnerships
Delivering content over the internet will help you reach millions of viewers. But what if they don’t have a credit card to subscribe to your service? Signing Telecom billing partnerships with Etisalat, Ooredoo or STC will increase your reach quickly.
OSN+ managed to implement 20 partnerships with Telecom operators in the region.
Super aggregators
Several OTT platforms aggregate other services: StarzPlay (Discovery+, Abu Dhabi Sports, blutv, UFC Arabia), Jawwy TV (Starzplay, Discovery +, Wide Khaliji) or Switch TV (TFC On Demand, StarzPlay).
You can even distribute a selection of your content on another service to increase your brand awareness, like the Smashi TV channel on Weyyak.
Devices
The best way to reach more subscribers is to make sure your platform is available on more devices: Smartphones, Game consoles, Set-Top-Boxes, Connected TV, etc.
But you’ll have to check first what devices are mainly used in the region. For example, Android is the major smartphone Operating System with 75% market share in UAE, 80% in Jordan and 87% in Morocco.
You should do the same exercise with the Connected TVs and other devices to decide if you have to add them on your product roadmap.
Upgrade your platform
Designing your OTT platform for an Arabic audience is important. There are 2 main actions to consider:
Translating your User Interface in Arabic, English and French if you want to reach a maximum of countries in Middle East and in North Africa.
Designing for an Arabic audience is not just about translating. Mirroring is a Must-Have upgrade to target your new audience.
License local content
Even if you are confident about your existing content offering, you’ll need to make sure it resonates with your new target audience. You have 3 possibilities:
Subtitle or dub your existing content
You’ll need part of your content with Arabic subtitles or dubbing before launching your service (Egyptian, Syrian, Standard Arabic, Maghreb, Bedouin, etc.), to make sure your service can reach a maximum of viewers.
License finished content from local creators
You can work with local experts to discover the content available from the Gulf, Levant, Egypt or Maghreb.
Co-produce local content
Another option is to co-produce original content with production houses in the region. The objective is to show your commitment to the region and to invest in content that will be exclusively designed for your platform.
Again, there are local experts that can guide you through this process.
Promote your service locally
Localizing your communication strategy is key to reach your new audience.
You can buy giant billboards on Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai, but I would recommend to start building regional social accounts for the MENA region. It will take time to catchup with the local streaming services - Shahid reached 2.9M followers on Instagram - so you should better start now ;)
Bonus step: setup a local team
Save time with a local team managing all of the steps above.
That’s all for today, 7 steps to localize an SVOD service in MENA.
See you online next week. Until then, enjoy season 2 of Industry on OSN+.
- Yann
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you with:
If you want to learn more about OTT in MENA, I’d recommend starting with my market report:
→ The local OTT ecosystem in MENA: Learn everything about the local streaming services in the region. Get full access here.
License premium FAST & On Demand content on TVToday.
Hire top streaming experts for short-term assignments on OTTpro.