A Look into Netflix and Prime Video’s Brand Architecture
This is initially written for assignment of a course I enrolled a few months ago. The course I took that required me to do this assignment is Marketing Analytics online course by University of Virginia Darden School of Business. I feel like publishing my analysis here instead of letting it rot in my personal drive.
Background
Streaming service is one business that is currently emerging. Two of most popular streaming service brand is Netflix and Prime Video. Netflix is a subscription-based streaming service which offers online streaming of films and television programs, including in-house production and non-Netflix-produced films & TV programs. Prime Video is an Internet video-on-demand service by Amazon that offers television shows and films for rent or purchase and selection of films produced by Amazon Studio.
According to a recent survey of 500 people in the US, HighSpeedInternet.com found that Netflix and Amazon Prime were the most popular streaming services in the country. Also, at this time when people have to self-quarantine themselves and stay at home, usage of video streaming services are increasing. With their seemingly similar offer, I want to explore more on the actual differences they have by analyzing and comparing their brand architecture.
According to BrandXpress, brands play a role in terms of communication and identification. They offer guidance, convey an expectation of quality and so offer help and support to those making purchase decisions. Brand can also be utilized to differentiate one product with their competitors.
To help constructing the brand properly, the common used framework is brand architecture. Brand architecture helps to connect product features and attributes to the emotional connection of brands with their customer. It also helps to identify aspects of consumer responses need to be influenced by marketing action.
To create each brand architecture, I implemented lesson that I already learned through the course and conducted desk research by looking up through online articles or brand analysis that have been done before.
Brand Architecture: Netflix
The brand pyramid for Netflix is presented below.
Netflix has various features for their users as stated in product attributes in the brand pyramid above. With multiple subscription plans offered, users are more flexible to choose the plan that is suitable to their condition. Users gain exciting experience from the multi-profile and skip intro feature. One Netflix subscription package can be enjoyed with up to four users. Instead of having all the preferences mixed up, multi-profile feature allows each user to have personalized and distinctive watching experience. Netflix also has original production that is quite good and popular, so Netflix users have access to exclusive Netflix originals. Compared to Prime Videos, Netflix has fewer collections, but more recent and up-to-date.
With the product benefits explained above, Netflix gives various emotional benefits for their users. Netflix users can have personalized experience despite sharing the account. With the exclusive content offered, Netflix users feel special. They also gain enjoyment and delight from the recent and exclusive collections of Netflix.
Based on emotional benefits analysis above, Netflix can be identified as someone who is young, stand out, understanding, and addictive — Netflix’s brand personality. Young people tend to like something new and exclusive. With their exquisite user experience that is personalized depending on the users, it perceives Netflix as an understanding brand. Its exclusive original contents make Netflix stand out among others. But with their various collections, especially on TV shows, it makes Netflix addictive. With these personalities, the brand core of Netflix is entertainer.
Brand Architecture: Prime Video
The brand pyramid for Prime Video is presented below.
Prime Video has various features as listed in the brand pyramid above. Prime Video is considered affordable with their competitive price and free 2 days of shipping for Amazon products. It also has lots of film collections, much more compared to Netflix. Among their collection, Prime Video has more in older films, giving their users access to classic collections that may be hard to be found elsewhere. Prime Video is easy to access on smart house technology, attached to Amazon’s product in that kind. Prime Video is also safe for children due to its parental control feature.
Prime Video gives several emotional benefits from their product benefits. Prime Video users can enjoy tons of movies plus free shipping with affordable price, making it economical. Users also gain control, especially parents who have children who also watch on Prime Video. Users also feel beneficial by using Prime Video, since they not only gain access to many film collections, but also cheaper cost on shopping at Amazon.
Based on emotional benefits analysis above, Prime Video is considered as someone who is basic, reliable, and old school. They may have tons of collections, but they are no different from their competitors, even Netflix. With more of their classic collection, Prime Video can be considered as old-school. Prime Video can be considered as a family person, with its safety for children and smart-house-technology friendliness. But with their bunch of collections and, again, free shipping bonus, Prime Video can be considered reliable, where people can gain ease on watching videos and shopping. But this additional facility, which is free shipping, makes Prime Video distracting. It distracts people from using Prime Video for its main function. With these personalities, Prime Video brand core is hero.
Time to compare!
Netflix and Prime Video are practically the same product. Both provide on-demand video streaming services with tons of movies and shows collection. They also provide subscription-based plan instead of purchasing ala-carte video. They are also compatible on many devices that people commonly use, so compatibility is not an issue for them both. To make them different from each other is the role of brand personality that is presented through their non-basic product feature.
Looking through their brand architecture, it is pretty clear that Netflix and Prime Video target different market segments. Netflix’s target market is individualistic young adults. Personalization seems to be Netflix’s main value proposition. Netflix has multiple subscription plans with different prices, so people can enjoy Netflix in their various personal conditions. Speculating that an account might be used by multiple people, Netflix has multiple profiles within one account, so a user’s watching activity will not be mixed up with others. Beside personalization, Netflix also offers high-quality original production that is popular, making people want to use Netflix.
On the other hand, Prime Video targets the family market. It is shown through its extensive collection of movies, even more than Netflix. It also has a bunch of classic content, making Prime Video can be enjoyed for older generation. Amazon is currently developing and leading on smart house technology, and Prime Video is absolutely attached there, so maybe in the future Prime Video is more likely to be enjoyed in home TV rather than Netflix. Smart house technology is also getting popular nowadays. But due to being Amazon’s product, Prime Video offers their user facilities to shop at Amazon with free 2-days shipping, something that Netflix can’t offer. Actually, not a few Prime Video users sign up for this bonus. This shows that most of Prime Video customers purchase Prime Video not for their main offer, but more for the free shipping. This is why one of Prime Video’s brand personality is ‘distracting’.
Based on the analysis above, I can say that Netflix’s brand personality is more prominent compared to Prime Video, although they serve different market segments. Netflix has reached the top-of-mind awareness. People associate video streaming and TV shows binge-watching with ‘Netflix’ first thing. It is also clear that the strong brand personality of Netflix came from their unique features as listed above. The features that make Netflix special is not the main feature, people can still use Netflix without these features. But these features give excitement for users, making them even more satisfied.
References
Allconnect. (2020). Netflix vs Amazon Prime Video. https://www.allconnect.com/streaming/netflix-vs-amazon-prime
Farrington, R. (2020). Amazon Prime vs. Netflix: How Do They Compare?. https://thecollegeinvestor.com/20686/amazon-prime-vs-netflix-compare/
Houck, T. (2017). Netflix Target Market. https://prezi.com/p/ml8rzkjbuhc9/netflix-target-market/
iModerate. (2015). Brand Wars Streaming Service. https://www.slideshare.net/asrossow/brand-wars-streaming
Perry, N. (2020). Netflix vs. Amazon Prime Video. https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/netflix-vs-amazon-prime/
Whitney, L. (2020). Netflix reigns over Amazon Prime Video, Hulu and Disney+ as most popular streaming service. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/netflix-reigns-over-amazon-prime-video-hulu-and-disney-as-most-popular-streaming-service/
Netflix — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix
Prime Video — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Video
