Weekly Newsletter: Why you're competing with Disney+ whether you like it or not.

Welcome to CXA's newsletter.

What is this newsletter? It's about marketing, consumer behaviour, AI and will always include useful marketing chart. We're getting this out about once a week.  If that sounds like something you're interested in, please subscribe for free.

In summary:

• Major service providers are working hard to monetise freeloaders
• SEO'ing of everything everywhere all at once is alive and well
• Chart: Hallelujah! There's a new place to advertise in home!

The era of a free internet is over - here's what it means for your brand

CNN reported this week that the era of freeloading for streaming services is over. Reportedly Disney+ and other membership organisations like Costco are actively looking at ways to 'do a Netflix' and remove the ability to share logins amongst family, friends and partners.

Brands in many industries, from travel and leisure to health, insurance, energy and water should... not be worried exactly but be conscious of this change.

Because if Netflix's surge in paid users after making their change is any guide millions more people are about to be outlaying between $15 and $25 per month per service, and there's only so much wallet to go around.

In our view the ramifications for some of the world's best on-demand content asking millions more people to pay up won't only be felt in areas typically thought of as discretionary.

An individual or a family shelling out between $180 and $300 per year per service will result in:

• price point and affordability pressures for every day services such as energy, water, teclo, insurance, local government and more, as well as,
• have the potential to impact payments to these organisations.

We believe this will happen because essentially all these industries have a new set of competition - one which provides almost endless family entertainment.

Service companies may even arguably be at a disadvantage. How you ask? Consider this: a failure to pay the Disney+ bill results in being cut off, a failure to pay an energy, water or council bill results in months of being able to delay payments without the risk of being cut off.

So, to every brand out there you have new competition coming to town and their name is, sing with us now, M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E.

The SEO'ing of everything everwhere all at once is alive and well and you have to be doing it

Search Engine Optimisation is different now, so long live SEO! - that's the cry from many notable internet and online marketing leaders, including Neil Patel. Search Engine Optimisation used to be focused on optimisation of, well, search engines. But Patel argues while this is still a relevant and necessary focus for businesses, optimisation is now a world unto itself across dozens of platforms and services including Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Google Maps, Google business listings, LinkedIn and much more.

Neil also argues that to truly optimise across all these platforms a wealth of information about customers is needed. That wealth of information comes from many places including traditional research and focus groups but also unexpected places, such as the online habits of customers brands want but aren't reaching.

We, as you will not be surprised, agree completely with Neil Patel's view, it is after all why we exist and what our customer research reports and intended to 

Our view is, and has always been, that customer insights no matter where they come from, but particularly if they're from customers showing intent to discover information about your product or service is absolutely fundamental to effectively prioritising strategies and activities for successful customer growth.

Chart: Hallelujah! There's a new place to advertise in home!

'Hey Google, tell me more' is a phrase you might hear soon coming to a living room near you. Ads have arrived on Google Android TV homescreens on some devices, including, happily for marketers looking for a premium audience - Sony TVs.

The Ads appear in a place previously reserved only for the organic promotion of content, and appear when people first turn on their TVs. Brands we've seen appear include skincare, premium auto brands and more.

So marketers rejoice! You now have a new place to advertise that is in home, online and can totally dominate a screen up to 115 inches!