RockWater Roundup Podcast Por RockWater Chris Erwin arte de portada

RockWater Roundup

RockWater Roundup

De: RockWater Chris Erwin
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Chris Erwin and Andrew Cohen quickly break down Media x Commerce and Creator Economy news. From digital video and social audio to livestreaming, NFTs, sports betting, and more.2022, Chris Erwin, RockWater Industries LLC, RockWater Roundup Podcast Economía Finanzas Personales Gestión Gestión y Liderazgo Política y Gobierno
Episodios
  • Riches in Niches and the 40% of Non-Whites (2022 Prediction)

    Riches in Niches and the 40% of Non-Whites (2022 Prediction)
    Feb 24 2022
    We’re in the midst of not one, but two, once-in-a-generation paradigm shifts: the “Streaming Wars” and the “Audio Wars”. And industry players are spending big on "land grab" strategies to own tomorrow's consumer. But in 2022, we expect the deal flow to evolve, where streaming and podcast platforms will:Expand their audience acquisition efforts beyond “core” consumers and into underserved communities (e.g. BIPOC, LatinX, AAPI, Women, Gen-Z, etc)Generate incremental audience reach, while increasing platform stickiness and deepening monetization by onboarding passionate affinity-groups (e.g. sports fans, true crime fans, kids & families, etc.)These two goals share one solution: specialized content creators dedicated to valuable niche verticals. There’s a lot to break down here, so we've split up this analysis into a 2-part episode.  Today we walk through how the next phase of the “IP Wars” -- across both video and audio -- will be impacted by a renewed emphasis on studios and production companies that cater to underserved / multicultural audiences. Then on our next episode, we’ll break down the role of creators that cater to passionate affinity-groups.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteEmail us: rounduppod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Chris Erwin:So Andrew, you just wrote a beast of a piece that is our first 2022 prediction. And that is that the IP wars will evolve to prioritize specialized creators that super serve distinct communities. I will say, look, the feedback I got from some of our readers is how long did it take to write this thing? Andrew Cohen:Well, we wrote a long one about the IP wars and M&A in the fall. And I guess had a lot more to say. There's a lot going on. So excited to get into it. Chris Erwin:It's funny, every time you and I talk about an outline for our predictions, we're like, all right, let's try and get this down to two pages. And then it comes out five times the size and we're okay with it because it's good content. Andrew Cohen:I appreciate the leeway. Chris Erwin:All right. So let's set this up for our listeners. We are in the midst of not one, but two once in a generation paradigm shifts, right? The streaming wars and the audio wars, which we've written extensively about in 2021. Both markets are undergoing transformational growth. So for example, the OTT video market is projected to be worth 218 billion by 2026, that's a 19% CAGR from 2020. And then in terms of audio, monthly podcast listenership is expected to hit 164 million by 2023. That's a 41% increase from 2021. So as a result, both industries are undergoing land grab spending sprees, operating on a similar principle, spend aggressively on IP and talent that will attract and retain audiences in an effort to win market share today while each market is in its formative stage, and consumers are developing their routine. Those who do this successfully will become the default destination for generations to come when the market is fully matured. Chris Erwin:So there's a few different deal examples I'll quickly walk through here. I think we had initial like 30 deals on this list, but we got it down to four. So on the video side, we're seeing studio and production company M&A, we saw Candle Media acquire Moonbug Entertainment for three billion in November of last year. And then we've also seen interesting IP and talent deals on the video side as well. So I think ViacomCBS paid $900 million to expand and the universe of South Park Studios. That includes in creating more content and then moving into different mediums like gaming, film, TV, and much more. Chris Erwin:And then on the audio side, again, studio and production company, M&A, we saw Amazon acquire Wondery for 300 million back in December of 2020. And then similarly, also some IP and talent deals are ramping up. Spotify signed Joe Rogan to an exclusive distribution deal for what was initially reported at as 100 million by The New York times. But which I think just out this morning or yesterday, I think the updated estimate is that it's a $200 million deal. Pretty impressive numbers here, Andrew. Andrew Cohen:For sure. And definitely think looking forward, this land grab is far from over. Definitely do not expect the deal flow to disappear in 2022 when it comes to the IP wars, but we do expect it to evolve. So we wrote about it in the piece and we'll talk about today. So we expect both streaming and podcast platforms are going to do two things. One is that's expand their audience acquisition efforts beyond kind to these core consumer groups and into what we consider underserved communities. So that's BIPOC, Latinx, Asian Pacific, women, gen Z, all of these other communities. And two, they're going to want to generate incremental audience reach while increasing platform stickiness ...
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    10 m
  • Birth of the Ownership Economy: 2021 Year In Review

    Birth of the Ownership Economy: 2021 Year In Review
    Feb 10 2022
    2021 was the year acceleration stuck. It was also the year in which the “passion economy” gave birth to the “ownership economy”, which blurs the line between creators and fans into communal ownership. All driven by the Web3 boom. And it reveals a glimpse into a possible future where all platforms are built, operated, funded, and owned by their users, who are rewarded with tokens that are proportional to the value that they’re able to create. Chris and Andrew explain this paradigm shift, summarizing in just 20 minutes the 15 industry articles, 31 podcasts, and 7 industry watch lists the RockWater team published in 2021.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteEmail us: rounduppod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Chris Erwin:So Andrew, it is the end of January and we are recording our first Roundup podcast of the year. I think we've left our listeners hanging a bit. Andrew Cohen:Pros and cons of not being a full-time media company, try our best to turn out excellent content, but not always the most timely we do our best Chris Erwin:We're full-time advisory and just added doing some direct balance sheet investing this year into digital goods as well, trying to have all of... Stay updated on all things content, a little bit of a challenge, but we do our best. So we just published a piece that summarized all of our amazing thinking and all of our articles and podcasts in 2021, it was our year in review and we talked about two key themes. So I'll talk about the first one. And then you could talk about the second. How does that sound? Andrew Cohen:Sounds good. Chris Erwin:All right. So looking back on 2021, one thing that didn't surprise us was sticky acceleration. So we defined this as that there was certain things, dynamics of the economy that were pulled forward during COVID in 2020. These things include e-commerce penetration, content consumption, and content spending. And what we saw in '21 was that this acceleration, it wasn't a reversion back, it was sticky. It stayed with us in 2021, actually continued along it's trajectory. So let me review a few key stats on that front. On the e-commerce front, reminder that in 2020 during COVID e-commerce sales grew 32%, 2021 they grew by another 16%. Incredible. On the audio front in 2020, 52% of consumers said they began listening to more podcasts. Last year, monthly audio listenership was up 7%. Chris Erwin:In OTT video by the end of 2020, 73% of consumers were streaming more OTT video content than they were before the pandemic. Last year in '21, the average number of streaming services per consumer increased 28% year over year. For the creator economy 2020, we saw Cameo grow its bookings by 350% and its GMV by 4.5 times while Only Fans grew its user base by 75% month over month during COVID. But last year in '21, the number of digital creators increased 48% year over year growing the total value of the creator economy market to $104 billion, which we covered in a pretty foundational piece at the end of last year. Chris Erwin:So look, a lot of things I think people had been anticipating were going to happen in the digital content e-commerce economy for a while, got pulled forward during COVID 2020, that stayed the trend last year. But as a result of these macro shifts, capital flowed accordingly, right? So we saw $5 billion of investor capital flow to the creator economy, total telecom, media, tech, aka TMT investments hit $233 billion, 27% year over year increase from 2020 and total content global spending increased 14% to $220 billion. Really some staggering numbers here, Andrew. So that was sticky acceleration, but something else happened here too. Tell us about that. Andrew Cohen:That might have surprised some people that kind of sticky acceleration, but I think we were always bullish that COVID was more of an accelerant than an aberration and I think that proved true in 2021. But I think one thing I could admit that I definitely did not see coming the beginning of 2021 was the birth of the ownership economy. So just take a step back first, we had the attention economy, let's call it 2010 to 2020, where social media incumbents empowered traders to reach and engage audiences at scale and monetize that reach through ad revenue and grant partnerships. Then last year we wrote about this at top of 2021, we were seeing the birth of the passion economy, where immersion creator economy platforms and services were empowering creators to monetize their fandom directly with things like subscriptions, merch, tipping, you name it. Andrew Cohen:And now what we saw in 2021 with the mass adoption and integration of crypto, it allowed creators to drive value beyond merely kind of transacting with their fan communities. And through the implementation of digital scarcity, web3 has enabled creators to ...
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    21 m
  • The US-China $295 Billion Livestream Gap

    The US-China $295 Billion Livestream Gap
    Dec 9 2021
    Livestream shopping festivals in the US are ramping up during the holiday season. From Facebook and YouTube to even Twitter. And our RockWater team has been participating in all of them. Yet livestream commerce sales forecasts of $5 billion in the US still significantly lag China's sales forecast of $300 billion.  Chris and Andrew therefore analyze the key market drivers explaining the revenue gap.  Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteEmail us: rounduppod@wearerockwater.com--EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Chris Erwin:So Andrew, over the past few weeks, our team has been tracking some interesting activity in the livestream shopping space. So we've seen some holiday livestream shopping specials from social incumbents, like YouTube, like Facebook, and even Twitter. You and the rest of the team have really been digging into some of these case studies to learn more. Andrew Cohen:Yeah. No, we've been having a good time going through watching all of these big, new launches from all the major social incumbents for livestream shopping. And they're all have varying degrees of qualities, all are doing some things right, something's not as right. All in all it's been a big kind of improvement for the US livestream shopping ecosystem. But all of them still remind me of actually a 2021 prediction article that maybe we got right, maybe we didn't get right because the problem that we called out in that article really still seems to be persisting. That's the common theme that I'm seeing across all these streams. That problem is what we're calling the product gap. Chris Erwin:The product and the authenticity gap is part of that. Andrew Cohen:Exactly. Chris Erwin:So let's dive into that. Listeners, if you're familiar with our writings and some of our forecast dating back around 12 to 18 months ago, you've probably heard us talk about this before, but we're going to go through this observation that we cited dating back nearly a year ago. Talk about how it's evolved and then how we think things are going to change in solving this product gap going into 2022. So let's dive in. Chris Erwin:There's currently an authenticity gap in the US livestream shopping market, and it's preventing creators and thus consumers from really adopting the medium. And although the current sales volume in US livestream shopping is low. I think we're looking at some numbers of around 5 billion. The investor interest is quite high at, I think around 220 billion of investments that we've been tracking. So we surveyed around 10 prominent digital talent managers over the past year who represent hundreds of clients that influence hundreds of millions of fans. And the goal is to learn about their initial experiences with livestream selling in the US. And Andrew, I think to our surprise, there's only one manager we spoke to who ever had a client actually participate in livestream selling. And even then it was only one client in one campaign. Chris Erwin:We were surprised to hear that livestream selling is barely on the radar of most major US creators. Despite the fact that all the major social and commerce platforms have been developing products and features to make it easy for them to host livestream shopping experiences. So we asked them why and Andrew, one of the answers that we heard a lot was, and it really stuck out to us is many US creators view livestream selling as an overly commercial venture that will alienate their core fans through perceived in authenticity. And to quote, one manager told us specifically, "My clients don't want to be a walking, talking billboard. You can only ask your fans to do so many things. Pushing too many things, especially when you're doing a ton of brand deals is not a good long term look." Andrew Cohen:Seems like right now, amongst traders livestream selling is kind of being framed as a choice. Choosing either direct to consumer revenues or fan delight, but really at its best, we believe that it's an opportunity to do both. And I was surprised by the sentiment because digital creators are already massively influencing purchasing decisions. The US influencer marketing industry has grown about 50% year over a year since 2016. I think it's currently valued around 14 billion, 44% of gen Z consumers say that their purchasing decisions are based on recommendations from a social influencer. So, and made us ponder, where is this disconnect? How do we bridge this gap between the indirect influence of social marketing and this kind of direct salesmanship of livestream to commerce? And how come one is accepted as organic and natural and is part of our kind of everyday commerce experience and the other one is more distasteful? And I believe and we believe that it's due to a lack of access to sellable product inventory. Basically in other words, it's the authenticity gap, which is a...
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    16 m
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