The Entire World is Watching: Why 2020 Is the Year of Streaming

Although we don’t yet know what future historians will write about this year, one thing’s for certain: 2020 is the year of streaming. Between the success of new competitors and a mass stay-at-home movement brought on by COVID-19, consumers have more reason than ever to put on their PJs and binge-watch everything in their queue.

To discover if consumers still care about Jim and Pam when they can indulge in new favorites, Braze teamed up with mobile analytics experts Apptopia to look at the numbers. Together, we analyzed eight months of data to identify trends in the industry, the influence of popular content on overall growth, and what kind customer engagement tactics have the largest impact on success. We also dove into metrics from March 2020 to figure out the immediate effects of COVID-19 on the streaming space to help contextualize future growth.

While some of the findings were predictable (turns out, people really love Game of Thrones), there’s a lot that surprised us. Some of the top things we discovered:

• We continue to see week-over-week increases in streaming sessions, which accounted for a 30.6% overall increase in March.
• Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty proved to be the most effective content for growth during the eight months we looked at, dominating all other shows by almost three-fold.
• Top performers were 1,051% more likely to send action-based messages to their consumers and up to 300% more likely to send messages on mobile-native channels.
• The top ten most downloaded, time-spent in app, and in-app purchases (IAP) lists broken down for the global, US, and European markets.

To dig into further, download the report.

Appendix

Looking for the next show to light up your life? Here are some recommendations that aren’t Tiger King:

• Degrassi: The Next Generation on YouTube or Amazon Prime Video
• 90 Day Fiance (and its spin-offs) on Hulu
• Dare Me on the USA app
• Schit’s Creek on Netflix and the Pop app