Feeding Your Binge Customers

It was announced today that Australian television broadcaster SBS was to launch a new channel: SBS2. The channel is directly aimed at the 16-39 year-old audience.

Football

It will include coverage of the local A-League soccer (football) plus provide a “dramatic departure from traditional television scheduling.”

News

One part of this is to schedule a 15-minute evening news bulletin with 30 second news headlines integrated into the other shows. It seems today’s younger audience don’t want to watch a traditional 30 minute news bulletin. This makes perfect sense that this relic of past mass media dominance would succumb in an instant, mobile world where news is everywhere and always available.

Binge Content

A more significant part of the scheduling is that for three key programs all episodes of that series will be instantly available on the internet once the first episode is aired on the TV channel. It seems that this age bracket of 16-39 want to binge on their TV content.

And, as SBS director of TV and online content Tony Iffland suggests, “This is how they like their television.” And, they’ll head to Bit Torrent and download it anyway. Finally, a TV executive who’s willing to acknowledge the reality of today’s TV viewing habits in our digital world.

Binge Customers

This raises an interesting issue for us all with regard to our customers. It suggests it might be useful to extend your customer avatar to include the ‘binge customer’. The one who wants it all and right now. Do you have a ‘binge’ offer?

Whilst most of us don’t like to admit we ‘binge’, particularly with it’s health connotations relative to drinking and eating, it is a new way of consuming and interacting with the world.

Immersion

Perhaps to soothe your soul you can switch the term ‘binge’ for ‘immersion’. Immersion is what scientists do in unravelling the great problems of the world. They think, eat and sleep their chosen challenge.

Consider learning to ski (or anything) if you only went for a weekend every so often. You’d get so far and then have to retrace your steps when you came back. Instead, if you dived deep and skied for an entire week your improvement in skills, performance and knowledge would be more dramatic.

This analogy is useful because it points to the power of your ‘binge customer’. They’re likely to go much deeper into your content and be a more passionate enthusiast. Instead of only offering bite-size chunks, it might be time to also offer an all-you-can eat menu. And, give your customers the choice, do you want it drip-fed or poured down your throat?