Paramount+ Phase I

The Phase I Paramount+ Showtime bundle launched on September 21st with a month-long limited time offer (LTO). Following the introductory LTO, three additional marketing beats were identified to carry into the new year, with another discount during the holiday season. Creative highlighted in-premiere series and theatricals across both services such as NFL, SEAL Team, Queenpins, and Dexter: New Blood.

Three keys to early success included: special offers, tentpole programming and media investment. The awareness and performance media spend across Paramount+ and Showtime totaled $7.1M. From launch through the end of 2021, the bundle had had a 5% take rate on Paramount+ and 17% on Showtime for 331K total signups, exceeding the year-end goal and lifting the free trial conversion on Paramount+ by 10pts to 75%.

Splits between Essential and Premium plans remained consistent with Paramount+ driving 56% of the former and Showtime driving 64% of the latter, likely due to standalone price and commercial-free service differences.

The news and NFL delivered for Paramount+ whereas nearly 50% of Showtime acquisition was attributed to Dexter. Categorical trends spanned sports, kids, live TV, prime time, and movies. New breakout series 1883 and Mayor Of Kingstown performed well, perhaps indicating content resonance with the Showtime audience. Priority IP including Yellowjackets and Billions drove viewers to signup and watch.

Paid media was the primary marketing driver with a full funnel spend across awareness and performance tactics totaling $7.1M. High impact awareness campaigns included takeovers across Twitter and IMDb along with top performing partners such as Sling TV, Daily Beast, Vox, and USA Today producing 343M IMP at an average $10.40 CPM. Whereas targeted performance media was attributable for 61% of all Showtime bundle starts, with search and social campaigns delivering promising creative results.

As part of the media plan for our Phase I marketing campaign of the Paramount+ SHOWTIME bundle, we activated two influencers. On a $50K budget, they produced purposeful yet organic-feeling content with a clear brand message, driving 3.5M impressions and ~10% engagement rate.

Flighted in the launch window, cross-company inventory delivered 45MM IMPs with a larger number of units at a lower GRP level. Top networks included MTV and BET while key placements ran during the NFL on CBS, Love & Hip Hop and Black Ink Crew Chicago on VH1.

CRM was leveraged as part of the upsell strategy with 2% of starts attributable to email. Social media’s organic “meme” creative conveyed a simple message of friendly partnership. While Customer Care experienced a consistent daily volume of bundle-related inquiries and questions about how to activate the apps were frequent contact drivers.

On the day of launch, Paramount+ and Showtime issued a joint press release announcing the bundle including low, introductory prices. Highlights included coverage from Vulture and TechCrunch, with Uproxx stating, “get two of ViacomCBS’s biggest streamers for the price of one.”

Focus group insights identified future creative opportunities in terms of messaging hierarchy and the importance of emphasizing IP tonnage. Whereas brand studies across Meta and YouTube indicated a positive lift in awareness, with Facebook and Instagram offering promising results in terms of lift in Subscription Intent.