A new video streaming platform debuted on the Brazilian market on Saturday. Joining elements from social media, online TV and on-demand content, ZoOme.TV launches aiming at deepening the interaction between channels, influencers, brands and their followers, the new service told LABS.
“Nowadays, everyone uses social media to drive traffic to another place and try to monetize in some way. With fewer deliveries from platforms and low monetization in the few places available to monetize, this becomes each time less interesting for content producers,” explains the founder and CEO Ricardo Kurtz.
Founded in Miami, the platform that has been devised since 2016 and also has the former HBO Bruno Megale as head of ad sales, allows the content producers to make available in their channels formats ranging from videos and series to pay-per-view and lives, as well as messages, stories and videocasts.
In addition to the number of formats, ZoOme.TV has over 22 different segments of content producers, from music to gastronomy. The producer determines whether the content will be charged and what the price will be.
On the users’ side, the main differences against competitors are the micro-payment model and interaction. With a prepaid format, the platform does not make recurring charges and users only pay for the content they want to consume. “Regarding the interaction, ZoOme.TV offers direct communication channels between fans and artists and, depending on the plan acquired, the response of the interaction can be guaranteed by the platform,” explains Kurtz.
“Our target is creators with around 200, 300 thousand followers. They have a huge potential for monetization through advertising and in other formats,” says the executive. “These creators are completely unassisted by the big platforms.”
Kurtz argues that with the micro-payment format, both users and creators benefit. According to him, as users pay less than on other platforms since they only pay for the content they actually watch, this directly values their favorite artists, as the investment paid goes directly to them.
As for the value of each content, the creator is the one who defines both formats and price, starting at BRL 5 cents. “I can put a price to make that content available for 48 hours, for a week, a year. There are several possibilities for customization,” adds Kurtz.
Regarding advertising, the ads on the platform are standardized, with a maximum of 10 seconds of duration. They cannot be skipped by users.
Content creators choose their sponsors and the price to be paid by them. “With that, the monetization of channels can be up to 50x higher than what is received by traditional platforms. At ZoOme.TV the content producer earns 30% to 50% of the advertising revenue shown on their channel. This is our biggest difference when it comes to advertising.”
Kurtz reports that the name of the platform refers to the concept of content personalization. “We really believe in a ‘one-person TV’, the name ZoOme has this idea, to turn people into channels.” According to the executive, the service allows users to create their own programming, receiving only the content they are interested in consuming.
“We believe in content that is increasingly customized, something that goes in the opposite direction of the streaming platforms out there. In a while, [the platforms] will really cost on everyone’s credit card,” he argues.
For the future ahead, the platform is betting on a trend that has been gaining more and more fans in the Brazilian market, live shopping. “Impulse purchase is among the most used mental triggers. In the next two months, we will have solutions of this type. Not for checkout specifically, but to make this kind of sale easier,” the exec reveals.
Kurtz adds that in a first phase, ZoOme.TV will combine purchase and video via WhatsApp Business, so the user can interact directly with the brand while watching content.
“Then, we should enter into some kind of customization of the video itself. We have a partner company in Spain that already does this type of product tagging within the video and directs straight to the store. The third step, then, will be a checkout integration. We have not yet defined whether it will be with an e-commerce partner or if we will add a solution ourselves,” he says, with no further detail regarding a release date for the new features.
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Aiming to reach among 25 million to 45 million subscribers on the platform and 20 thousand channels of content creators by the end of the year, the exec reveals that one of the goals is likely to be achieved faster than expected. “We have already reached a peak of 400 channel orders per hour.”
This Sunday, ZoOme.TV starts its operation in the Brazilian market with 40 content channels and some big names such as the Brazilian sertanejo singer Gusttavo Lima, the first artist to join the platform, and the neobank Next, as a sponsor. “We have already closed a deal with Stock Car, we are going to broadcast all the races live through ZoOme,” he says.
As for other markets, Kurtz does not limit his options. “ZoOme is a Miami-based company. We put it there for geographic reasons, because it is a central point between the west coast, Europe, Latin America. Our partnership with Gusttavo [Lima] also involves Latin America, there is an internationalization strategy of partnering with great latino artists. So yes, we look at Latin America, and not just at it.”
