Midia Research：关注用户情绪是后注意力经济时代的重点

原作者：James Batchelor 译者：Willow Wu

如今，所有行业都在为注意力经济的峰后阶段发力——这是上个月Midia Research公司在主题演讲活动中给各个娱乐行业代表传递的核心信息。

该公司的资深分析师兼产品经理Karol Severin表示由于智能手机的出现，现在的用户已经完全不存在娱乐公司可利用的空闲时间了，无法用这个方法获取新用户、得到他们的关注，不仅如此，用户的内容选择也多到眼花缭乱。

单一种服务就会出现这样的情况。比如，在过去，消费者留出两个小时的时间给Netflix，可以看完一部完整的电影。但是面对现在这么庞大的内容库，消费者可能要浪费十来分钟的时间来浏览或选择看什么。所以，我们可以说消费者所获得的娱乐价值减少了。

这种情况还会导致消极情绪的产生——消费者花时间浏览内容不代表他们喜欢这么做。

“评估消费者情绪将是极为关键的，” Severin说。“光是赢得消费者的关注、评估关注度已经不够了。分析用户在使用服务过程中产生的情绪，这一点愈发重要。

Candy Crush Saga（from pocketgamer.biz）

“如果你不这样做，如果没有围绕消费者对你的服务、产品特性或媒体资源的情绪制定基准，你就不知道，随着形势变得严峻，你的行动实际上是会让消费者成为你的忠实用户，还是产生反效果。而且往后一定是越来越困难的。”

Severin给出了两个理由：首先，游戏市场将会迎来另一波的内容服务：Google Stadia、 Xbox的Project xCloud，再加上近期上线的Apple Arcade。

然后还有新的电视流媒体Apple TV+、Disney+和HBO Max，当然，那些你已经在使用的平台肯定也不会忘。他警告说，这股洪流意味着随着信息超载时代的发展，消费者会开始感受到某种敌意。

第二个原因就是经济低迷期即将到来。

“随着消费者可支配收入的减少，我们所谈论的所有影响都将被催化，因为他们将被迫更快地做出选择。”

下一次经济衰退很可能对电子媒体、娱乐行业造成比较大的打击。”原因之一是千禧年一代——Severin认为他们是电子服务行业的核心群体——将会遭遇严峻的考验，来自于他们的生活、职业和财务状况。

“电子订阅尤其容易受到冲击，因为消费者并没有受到合同的强力约束，在没有任何预警的情况下，可能会出现用户大量流失的现象。然后公司就会努力去弄清原因所在——有某种情绪萌生了，并且在我们的眼皮底下变得越来越强烈。”

他还顺便提了一点：提供多种格式订阅及捆绑包的平台将在当下环境中很有前景——这些产品价格低廉，对家庭用户很有吸引力。就比如说亚马逊，他们做的就很好。

Severin注意到提供娱乐的经济已经从根本上改变了，并且还会继续进行下去，所以他放弃了“半空水杯”的观点。从电影到电视到音乐，所有行业的焦点由原来的“拥有（ownership）”转移到了“接触（access）”，像Xbox Game Pass这类服务的出现也意味着游戏行业也将遵循这个趋势。

这就产生了“信息超载时代”，消费者需要帮助才能理解这些过于丰富的内容，因此发行商和平台所有者需要重新思考他们的策略。

“如果说注意力经济峰前阶段的重点是吸引消费者的关注，给他们提供很多内容，那么峰后阶段的重点则是赢得关注，”Severin说。“但是要这么做的话，公司需要调整他们的竞争策略。当下他们做的仍是增加内容。尽管我们已经进入了后注意力经济时代，但他们还在按照注意力经济的战术指导手册做决策。

“这样下去，时间越久，忽视了消费者的情绪，沉浸度指标呈现出的信息和消费者真正感受之间的差距就越大。我们需要用一种新方式来分析沉浸度。

最后，Severin预测说，鉴于任何娱乐平台都有大量可供消费者选择的内容，世界可能要迎来一个“清理杂物的时代”

“人们会重新用探索的方式发现内容。”他说。“但最重要的还是产品质量而不是数量。我这么说并不是因为我个人相比数量更看重质量，而是因为大家现在都不缺数量。

“后注意力经济时代已经来临。增长变得越来越困难，因为实现增长的代价是踩着其他人上去，而其他人也会进行反击。我们以往争取用户关注的方式是提供更多内容，但事实是如果我们想要让用户在使用服务过程中保持积极情绪，这种老办法或许不再是最有效的了。建立、培养和评估积极的情绪将比以前更加重要。”

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

“Winning and measuring engagement is no longer enough”

All industries now compete in a post-peak attention economy. That was the message at the heart of a Midia Research keynote given to representatives of various entertainment sectors last month.

Delivered by the firm’s senior analyst and product manager Karol Severin, the talk discussed how, thanks largely to smartphones, not only are there no untapped periods of free time that companies can use to reach new audiences and grab their attention, there is also too much content for consumers to choose from.

This can be the case even within a single service. In the past, the two hours a consumer set aside to use Netflix, for example, would be enough for a full two-hour film. But with so much available through digital libraries like this, a consumer can lose ten minutes just browsing or choosing what to watch. In this way, consumers are “receiving less entertainment value for their money.”

This is also “creating negative feelings” — just because a consumer is browsing through your service does not mean they are happy about it.

“It will be crucially important to measure consumer sentiment,” Severin warned. “Winning and measuring attention as such is no longer enough. It is becoming increasingly important to measure what sentiment you’re creating along with the session.

“If you are not doing that, without those benchmarks around consumer sentiment towards your services, product features or media assets, you don’t know whether your company’s actions are actually going to translate into loyalty or disloyalty as the times get tougher. And times will get tougher.”

Severin gave two reasons for his ominous warning. For one thing, the games market is about to be flooded with another wave of content services, including Google Stadia, Xbox’s Project xCloud and the recently launched Apple Arcade.

Then there are new TV services like Apple TV+, Disney+ and HBO Max — “and of course you can’t forget all the ones you already engage with.” This flood, he warned, means consumers will start to feel “antagonised as the age of the information overload grows.”

The second reason is, “The recession is coming.”

“As the disposable income of consumers decreases, all of the effects we’re talking about will be catalysed because they will be pressured into making that choice even sooner.”

The next recession is also likely to impact companies in digital media and entertainment “very strongly.” One reason is that millennials — which Severin described as “the key audience of digital services” — are going to be hit the hardest, due to where they are in their lives, careers and financial situations.

“Digital subscriptions [in particular] are very vulnerable because they are not tying consumers into contracts,” he said. “There can be all these unforeseen spikes in churn without any warning. Companies will be trying to figure out why the churn suddenly occurred — it’s because there has been some sort of sentiment that has been building up and has gone on throughout, under the radar.”

On a side note, he suggested that multi-format subscriptions and bundles are set to thrive in this environment — products that are affordable and appealing across households. Amazon, for example, is set to do particularly well here.

Severin shifted away from the “glass half-empty” outlook by observing that the very economy of delivering entertainment has fundamentally changed and continues to do so. Everything from film to TV to music is transitioning from a focus on ownership to access, and services like Xbox Game Pass mean video games are likely to follow.

This has created the “age of information overload,” with large amounts of content that consumers need help to make sense of, and requires publishers and platform holders to rethink their strategy.

“If the attention economy pre-peak was about grabbing consumers’ attention, giving them lots of content, post-peak will be about earning it,” said Severin. “But to do that, companies will need to adjust how they compete. For now, they’re still throwing in more content. They’re playing by the attention economy playbook, despite us already being in the post-attention era.

“The longer that companies do that and actually neglect sentiment, the larger the disconnect will grow between what your engagement metrics tell you and how the consumers really actually feel. We need to find a new way to look at engagement.”

Finally, Severin predicted that, given the glut of content available to consumers of any entertainment, the world could be approaching an “age of decluttering.”

“Discovery will come back to the forefront,” he said. “But most importantly it will be important to go for quality instead of quantity. I don’t say that just because I’m the type of guy who likes quality over quantity, I say that because everyone’s already got quantity.

“The post-peak attention has arrived. Growth is becoming a lot more challenging because it’s coming at the expense of others, and companies are fighting back. We used to compete for attention with more content, but it turns out that may no longer be the most effective and elegant way if we want to keep positive sentiment within our consumers. Building, fostering and measuring positive sentiment will be more important that even before.”

（source: gameindustry.biz ）