Our association with media and entertainment companies across the value chain (content creators, aggregators, distributors, marketers, etc.) leaves us undoubtedly generating tremendous value for companies building analytics capabilities. C-level executives are embracing ground-breaking data analytics capabilities to spark a media and entertainment industry renaissance.

First, the smart devices of today have made content accessible via the internet easier, creating a highly demanding customer base. And many players in the industry are struggling to serve their audiences. These companies will have to uncover deeper insights from the data collected streams. In a way, businesses may track social media to categorize data and draw rational conclusions from the experiences of customers.

Second, we live in a multichannel world where clients quickly adopt connected devices and innovative distribution platforms. Media and entertainment marketers need to understand how their audience interacts across different channels and on different screens. To underline this, marketers need to explore ways to create value from those interactions. Given all of these, the media and entertainment industry must strain each nerve to achieve a real-time, holistic view of how consumers perceive their content, and respond to consumer behaviour and preferences.

In the media and entertainment field, data analytics has tremendous potential to revolutionize the future of content personalization. This will unleash a new age of creativity, help media organizations understand consumers, optimize marketing campaigns and boost support for customers. All of these further enhance customer experience-the media and entertainment industry's spotlight. The timing for a game changer in the media and entertainment industry could not have been better in the same way.

Media companies understand their consumers better with access to increased data and deliver more personalized content and products. Companies create interest in the digital media world by anticipating suitable content (movies, music, videos and games) for various sets of audiences. In addition, media and entertainment companies could also offer consumer-based content based on micro-target channel preferences.

Top of the line stories

In the media and entertainment industry, for example, Netflix has become a big-ticket player among OTT service providers. The success of the business stems from the feedback of the consumer as it allowed it to change the model of product distribution-from rental to streaming media. Netflix analyses data from the network to develop, license and market fresh content – creating huge flexibility.

The company spent 100 million USD on a series of 26 'House of Cards' episodes. Although rumours have pointed to a risky investment, Netflix has already known that it will serve them well in future. The in-depth and fine-grained study of consumer expectations helped sell the show to an objective audience group. The target market was the one for director David Fincher who was trapped with similar programs and fan base. The business was therefore experiencing a threefold increase in the content deal for the 'House of Cards' collection. Since then their revenues have nearly doubled from USD4.37 billion to USD8.83 billion. In fact, the audience analytics capabilities of Netflix attracted the attention of widespread consumers, as they recently overcame 100 million subscribers.

⦿ Advanced media- and entertainment data analytics

The media and entertainment market have become known for its volatile customers. Consequently, media and entertainment data analytics are an enticing bet due to its ability to predict consumer behaviour. Jon Davies, Shazam 's director of EU Music Partnerships explained how the music app was able to predict the best songs from 2 months in advance. A deeper understanding of the data in small steps can be the key to such a successful execution of data analytics. Many businesses in the sector struggle to evaluate, without any purpose, many data sources. Very few companies in the music application domain have been active in developing data analytics capabilities to impact programming, featured playlists, user feedback, and curatorial content decisions. The industry is, therefore, ripe for disruption. However, in a highly competitive environment, businesses who can find ways to deliver products to customers are likely to have a leg up.

⦿ Take digital marketing and content-discovery analytics

Collecting data today is easy-but knowing what to do with it is a difficult task. And the obstacle faces the media and entertainment industry. The ever-expanding volumes of data that businesses produce is waiting to be processed and converted into complex, deep capabilities. Current management techniques do not encourage market leaders to understand the data potentials at their disposal. Essentially, companies will become more able to predict the future in real time with consistent learning environments – across business functions.

Marketing and Sales: Discovering effective marketing channels successfully requires relevant data sets – social media, community, and influencers. These data sources must be established by media and entertainment marketers including publishers, artists, distributors, and content creators. 'Destination thinking' is crucial for the marketing role of data analytics in the media and entertainment field.

Content Discovery: Any business within the industry needs to know the direction the market is heading in. The function of content discovery must analyse market trends to determine which content is to be featured and which is slowly becoming stagnant. Additionally, identifying consumer trends is an essential factor, but it is also important to forecast the lifeline of emerging content. To the content discovery teams in the media and entertainment industry, scenario analysis and content experiments are therefore the most efficient ways.