“All Killer, No Filler. We have killer content. No filler – those hours of looking for something to watch are gone,” Sasha Mackie, senior director of marketing – streaming, studios & networks, Australia and New Zealand, proudly told Mediaweek, championing Warner Bros. Discovery’s newly launched platform offering in Australia.
Max, launching on Monday, enters a saturated streaming service market with a mix of international and local competitors.
Netflix, launched in Australia back in 2015, currently reigns supreme in Down Under claiming over 30% of the local SVOD market based on revenue and the most app downloads for video-on-demand service, more than double that of its homegrown rivals in 9Now and Stan, according to Statista.
For Mackie, senior director of marketing for streaming, studios and networks for Warner Bros. Discovery Australia and New Zealand, Max has a three-pronged approach to cut through streaming offerings – strong content brands, competitive pricing and a strong understanding of their market.
“Australia is a saturated market. They’re not asking for another service, but they certainly want a better one.
“We know the research. Currently, Australians are spending 42 minutes every day looking for something to watch.
“With Max, you don’t have to spend 42 minutes searching for the gold content because it’s all absolute gold. It’s House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, Succession, The Last of Us, Harry Potter, DC, Friends and The Big Bang Theory. It’s all incredible premium content.
“The 42 minutes, which is 11 days a year, searching is gone and you can go on holidays. There’s your time back.
“We’re not saying we have the most content. There’s already an explosion of volume. Australians aren’t saying they want more. They want the best.”
Working with a tried-and-true partnership
Charged with making sure Australians know Warner Bros. Discovery is offering the best with Max are media agency EssenceMediacom and creative agency Special, who were respectively appointed earlier this year.
The agencies are no strangers to working with each other as they are currently partners on Uber and Uber Eats accounts, which Mediaweek has previously covered.
For Mackie, this existing partnership between the agencies did not play a direct factor in appointing them to the respective roles, but she acknowledged that “it definitely helps.”
She recalled the pitch process as transparent and quick, aside from costs, for her the main criteria were fit, chemistry, and strategy. “I came out of the pitch from EssenceMediacom and I could absolutely speak to that strategy. I knew we could own it; we knew the challenges that we had to work through.
“Same with Special Group, we wanted to make sure that we came at it from a different place. We wanted to be a brand coming in as the customer champion, so that is what they responded to and that’s absolutely what we wanted to go with.
“But they’re also great people, and who doesn’t want to work with great people.”
Mackie also revealed she held an offsite with the agency village including Warner Bros. Discovery’s social agency Present Company to create and build a strong bond between the three.
“We had an agency village offsite before work started in January, where we all got clear on how we wanted to behave and move forward together. They hadn’t done one of those before, I’m a big believer in them.
“Along with Present Company, our appointed social agency, they have meetings without us and then they come back with joint resolutions or recommendations. It is a strong team between the three of them and I’m super proud and so excited by the strength that we have within those.”
EssenceMediacom and Special launched the campaign for Max last week across TV, cinema, digital, social, OOH, radio, earned media, influencer, social and content, centred on poking fun at the current over-saturation of streaming products available.
‘Top three is exactly where we want to be’
For Mackie, success is both a global and local goal. “What has been said is that we want to be one of the top three streaming services.
“We know that in Australia, an average Australian has 3.2 subscription services. So, we want to be one of those three. People aren’t adding and adding and adding to four, five or six subscription services.
“For us, the top three is exactly where we want to be.”
“We’re coming out strong. We’re coming out with our best tentpole and we’re launching with The Last of Us, which you can only see on Max.”
Along with a massive nationwide campaign is a big budget to boot and the eyes of the industry and consumers on Mackie.
“Pressure is a privilege. It all reflects in the opportunity and, personally and professionally from a business perspective, all of this comes with a lot of privilege and pressure.”
Mackie said she’s excited to bring Max to Australia because it offers a solution to a clear consumer pain point. She added: “We are coming in as a customer champion on a mission to bring in a new dawn, which is the end of filler frustration.”
Top image: Sasha Mackie