This is a reproduction of a project report submitted as part of my masters in marketing. The contents have been cherry picked from its original form and some research information has been removed. As technology improves, this paper may lose relevance when applied to more updated standards and developments. Originally written in March 2017.
To remain relevant and competitive within the media landscape, media providers need to be aware of new opportunities and threats to their industry. This paper aims to provide Crunchyroll with a roadmap targeted towards the development of a product that can potentially take advantage of these new technologies.
Target Market & Benefits
Crunchyroll Inc. is an East Asian media licenser and online distributor. Primarily targeted towards western markets, Crunchyroll provides an easy, legal way for enthusiasts of East Asian media to access their favorite content. With companies such as Amazon Prime Video starting to take aim at the anime industry, Crunchyroll’s main niche, it is important that media companies such as Crunchyroll take steps to differentiate their service offerings enough to remain an industry leader
The Digital Avatar Assistant(DAA) functions primarily as a user interface for interactive hands free communication between the user and the internet, focusing primarily on the display of media content. Users interact with a graphical representation (avatars) of their favorite character which appears on their desktop. Utilizing voice commands, the user can ask the character to go to specific sites, look up information, and play media among other things.
The primary technologies that this concept intents to take advantage of is AR/MR and AI. Although VR has generally received more hype and press coverage, industry leaders expect that AR and MR will be the first technology to be adopted en masse, particularly within the next three years (Perkins). AI on the other hand is continuously improving with adoption and integrations being performed right under our noses. The Digital Avatar Assistant will be poised to take advantage of these technologies in a way that can benefit the end-users of Crunchyroll, and potentially the more general online media market as well.
The AI avatar will also have programmed into it response profiles so that it can respond to interactions in a way that is consistent with the character’s personality. As personalities are complex to program, for initial prototypes it is expected that the personalities will be simplified into basic character types common in anime. With the capabilities of the assistant extending to other websites brings the DAA into a realm of functionality similar to current digital personal assistants such as Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s Assistant. And these established personal assistants are also expanding into the realm of smart homes which could be a future option for the development and expandability of the DAA.
Primary consumers of the DAA service will primary focus around East Asian Media Enthusiasts as they represent the core of the customer base of Crunchyroll. Currently this segment uses Crunchyroll as one of their main sources of Anime video content. DAA will benefit the user experience for this segment as typically this segment will hold a high emotional tie to characters. With characters typically only appearing in the shows or occasionally in games and manga (Japanese comics), DAA allows users to interact directly with characters which they may not be able to do through other media. It is expected that this emotional tie will push users to adopt the new feature as it releases.
The secondary potential users of the service are media consumers in general. With personal assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Siri becoming ubiquitous, the level of acceptance of the technology is high. Adding on the additional value that DAA as a personal assistant will allow for levels of customization and interaction not available on Alexa and Google mean that the public will be more attracted to the service as it develops.
Concept rendering of AR interactivity of the DAA. Note floating video player and the avatar interacting with the environment.
Features
The planned features of the service would include the following.
Basic Web Interactivity
Interchangeable AI Avatars
“personality” based responses
Advanced Crunchyroll Interactivity.
Customized video responses
With this list as a starting point, the capabilities of the AI avatar are expected to be able to be palpable to users who are both tech savvy and illiterate. The key features of the product are aimed to allow the avatar to assist in performing web and content consumption tasks primarily on the Crunchyroll website.
Competitive Landscape
The Digital Avatar Assistant functions primarily as a user interface for interactive communication between the user and the user’s web browser; by extension becoming an alternative interface for the user to access internet content. A small graphical representation of a character appears on their desktop, providing a visual identity to the digital assistant, something that similar products such as Alexa and Siri lack. The DAA is also proposed to be multiplatform which is currently not the case with most personal assistants.
Sales & Marketing Strategy
The DAA will be sold as an additional tier to the current subscription plans available at Crunchyroll.com. Users will be able to choose levels of subscription based on how advanced they wish the assistant to be.
The marketing strategy will utilize existing social media channels by showcasing features on Social Media Platforms, providing a product demo platform through a Twitter Chatbot, and through sponsored and partnered content. At the time of writing, the SEO and PPC performance of Crunchyroll is of good health and performs well for its intended audience. Its presence on social media platforms also seems to be steadily increasing with an increase of 1.8% of new likes on Facebook per week. It is assumed that other social media outlets are performing similarly however lack of access to historical data prevents detailed analysis of their performance.
To market the new product, the features and capabilities will be showcased as videos and animated gifs in the form of ads and demonstrative videos. As a new type of user interface, it is key to demonstrate the benefits and capabilities of the product in a clear and concise way to new and pre-existing users. Integration into existing communication platforms is also planned with a merging of some of the capabilities of the avatar into a Twitter chatbot. Sponsored videos with relevant content creators are also planned as a supportive marketing strategy.
Conclusion
The technology present today is unthinkable to those living just a decade ago. How much of this we can take advantage of is still unclear as markets sift through what platforms they are willing to integrate into their daily lives. There are certainly challenges with this type of system as the marketing strategy suggests. Gaining adoption for new technology can be difficult if not impossible when not done at the right moment. The prolific integration of social media into our daily lives provides a good entry point for people to adopt new technologies as they are more willing to adjust their behaviors if they can see a tangible benefit for them within their online social circles. The DAA concept presented here is a seed in its most basic form. It forms the basis of what could be the future of content consumption not only for Crunchyroll but for the industry at large. By having a personal connection with the devices we interact with, it may be possible in the future to be integrated more than we ever were before.