What is Cool2vu? Cool2vu is an online multimedia video streaming service offering Korean drama/celebrity news to users in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, India, Europe and Latin America.
Launch U.K.’s SyQic acquired Maaduu, a Korean drama streaming website in September 2014, and rebranded it as Cool2vu on 23 January 2015. Further expansion into North America and Australasia is planned for the second half of 2015.
The name “Cool2vu was chosen because our video content is, quite literally, cool to view! Also because the name is short, memorable and appealing to our target demographic globally.”
Who’s who... Jamal Hassim, group chief executive; Steve Elliff chief financial; Mike Kennet, chief technology; Graham Fowke director, product, sales and marketing
Headcount Approx. 40
Offering includes... In Malaysia: 44 dramas (60 mins each), 20 video news, 112 music videos, five cooking videos. Indonesia: 44 dramas (60 mins each), 20 video news (5 mins), 112 music videos, five cooking videos. Philippines: 21 dramas (60 mins each), 20 news video (5 mins). Singapore: 22 drama (60 mins each), 20 news video (5 mins). New content is published at an approx. rate of two episodes a week.
Top three titles Princes Prince, Who Are You School 2015 and Orange Marmalade (based on the number of page views, since 23 January 2015)
On the cards User Generated Content (Korean entertainment theme); news/articles on K-Pop/K-Drama, fashion, beauty and food; and content vignettes
Wishlist Lifestyle magazine content, including fashion and beauty, food, travel, music videos and competitions; possible subscription membership model; increased functionality to promote and encourage user engagement
How many hours of content do you plan to acquire annually? “Nil. We will add further content through strategic partnerships not through the purchase of single titles from content providers.”
Business model Free usage, ad-supported. “We expect ad revenue to increase substantially as the service enters new markets and the user base continues to grow. In addition to ad revenue, our strategy is to cross sell the platform’s content to our core telco customers to generate additional revenue. There are also plans to start generating e-commerce revenues from retail purchase transactions within our service.”
No. of users 140,000+ users in 181 different countries with an ave...
What is Cool2vu? Cool2vu is an online multimedia video streaming service offering Korean drama/celebrity news to users in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philippines, India, Europe and Latin America.
Launch U.K.’s SyQic acquired Maaduu, a Korean drama streaming website in September 2014, and rebranded it as Cool2vu on 23 January 2015. Further expansion into North America and Australasia is planned for the second half of 2015.
The name “Cool2vu was chosen because our video content is, quite literally, cool to view! Also because the name is short, memorable and appealing to our target demographic globally.”
Who’s who... Jamal Hassim, group chief executive; Steve Elliff chief financial; Mike Kennet, chief technology; Graham Fowke director, product, sales and marketing
Headcount Approx. 40
Offering includes... In Malaysia: 44 dramas (60 mins each), 20 video news, 112 music videos, five cooking videos. Indonesia: 44 dramas (60 mins each), 20 video news (5 mins), 112 music videos, five cooking videos. Philippines: 21 dramas (60 mins each), 20 news video (5 mins). Singapore: 22 drama (60 mins each), 20 news video (5 mins). New content is published at an approx. rate of two episodes a week.
Top three titles Princes Prince, Who Are You School 2015 and Orange Marmalade (based on the number of page views, since 23 January 2015)
On the cards User Generated Content (Korean entertainment theme); news/articles on K-Pop/K-Drama, fashion, beauty and food; and content vignettes
Wishlist Lifestyle magazine content, including fashion and beauty, food, travel, music videos and competitions; possible subscription membership model; increased functionality to promote and encourage user engagement
How many hours of content do you plan to acquire annually? “Nil. We will add further content through strategic partnerships not through the purchase of single titles from content providers.”
Business model Free usage, ad-supported. “We expect ad revenue to increase substantially as the service enters new markets and the user base continues to grow. In addition to ad revenue, our strategy is to cross sell the platform’s content to our core telco customers to generate additional revenue. There are also plans to start generating e-commerce revenues from retail purchase transactions within our service.”
No. of users 140,000+ users in 181 different countries with an average session duration of 40 minutes primarily on mobile. In Asia specifically (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines): 90,000 users with an average session duration of 25 minutes
Expected take-up 500,000 accumulated users worldwide by 25 December 2015
Target users Primarily urban females, aged 18-34. Locals with an interest in K-Culture (as opposed to expatriate Koreans)
Social media “Our social media campaigns run mainly on Facebook and Twitter, as well as Instagram and YouTube. We post four times a day every day on FB, a combination of content updates, reviews of dramas plus Korean food and cooking. We also tweet four or five times a day, trailing and commenting on content and opening discussion threads.”
Content/tech partners ViKi, Arirang, Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Priorities include “To define and develop an ad structure that is different for mobile/tablet than for PC, such as fewer adverts for mobile than PC and start to generate ad revenue”
Challenges “The scaling and versioning of the service/content for mutliple markets, cultures and languages; growing user numbers; optimising SEO aspects; introducing advertising; and leveraging social media to achieve viral proliferation”
The best things that has happened to OTT in Asia... “Phablet development improving mobile user experience, reduced cost of phablet/smartphone devices and reduced data tariff rates”.
Greatest impact on OTT in Asia “The rapid roll-out of 3G/4G wireless services leading to a growing demand for access to video content over the internet, the global growth in mobile video streaming and the expected proliferation of smartphone sales.”