Success Stories (U24: D1)

 Success Stories (U24: D1)

Learning Outcome 1 (U24): Understand the products that are produced within ad across media industries 

Crunchyroll

Crunchyroll is an American publisher, distributor, production company and licensing company who focuses specifically of Anime, Manga and Dorama (Japanese TV shows). The service is accessible globally and has the largest streaming catalogue of licensed anime and TV shows. However their FULL library of shows and films are only accessible in the US. The company was founded in 2006 and now has over 100 million account users worldwide. Crunchyroll only has three levels of subscription which ranges from £6.50 a month for their most basic offer, £7.99 a month for their second best plan and then £79.99 a year for their highest plan. What each plan offers is below.

Fan - £6.50 a month	Mega Fan - £7.90	Mega Fan (12 month plan) - $79.99 a year
No ads	No ads	No ads
Unlimited access to their library	Unlimited access to their library	Unlimited access to their library
New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan	New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan	New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan
New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan	New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan	New episodes come our one hour after they’re released in Japan
Stream on 1 device at a time	Stream on 4 devices at a time	Stream on 4 devices at a time
	Offline viewing	Offline viewing
		16% discount on the monthly plans (billed every 12 months)

On top of their streaming service, Crunchyroll also includes a game page where users can browse and download games which styles links to the anime genre. The site also offers a store where users can purchase official perch from their favourite shows, and as well as a new page that displays the latest news about the shows available to stream on their website.

The content available includes crunchyroll original shows, as well as animations from several different anime studios. For example, WIT studio, MAPPA, Studio bones etc. There are varying genres of anime and shows on their website. These genres include:

• Action
• Adventure
• Comedy
• Drama
• Fantasy
• Harem
• Historical
• Idols
• Isekai
• Magical girls
• Mecha
• Music
• Mystery
• Post-Apocalyptic
• Romance
• Sci-Fi
• Seinen
• Shojo
• Shonen
• Slice of Life
• Sports
• Supernatural
• Thriller

By including a large variety of genres on their website, Crunchyroll are able to cater towards large audiences which therefore attracts more watchers to their website. Specific audiences are targeted as Crunchyroll recognise the shows that users are watching, and send new updates on their favourite and most recently watched shows. These news updates can range from news about upcoming seasons/episodes, merchandise and even news about the voice actors of the characters. 

Wider audiences are also attracter for different shows as the front page of Crunchyroll features a ‘Popular’ tab which shows all the popular shows which people are interested in now. In terms of attracting audiences to a specific genre that they may like, the posters of shows and movies shown on streaming websites can really set the genre and mood for a show by using certain conventions such as colour schemes and placement of characters.

(Referenced from Crunchyroll)

For example: 

 Users who are interested in genres such as drama, fantasy, adventure or thrillers, are likely to be attracted to a poster such as this on the from ‘Popular’ page of crunchy roll due to the design of the poster used as the face of the series. The fantasy and thriller is captured by things such as the glowing eyes and the glowing background, as well as the fragments containing moments from the show.

All the content featured on the front ‘popular’ page is there as it prompts people to watch things that others are enjoying. By featuring a variety of shows and genres on the front page, it broadens people's interests and also allows users to keep up with the popular shows that they may be seeing around on social media platforms.

(Referenced from Crunchyroll)

Crunchyroll released their service in 2006 yet it didn’t take off right away. Below shows a graph of the amount of paying subscribers of Crunchyroll premium from September 2012 to February 2021.

(Referenced from Statista)

The graph shows that the number of Crunchyroll premium users steadily increases from September 2012 to February 2017 to which there was a more sharp incline of premium subscribers in November of 2018. This could be the result of Anime shows getting more recognition and becoming more popular with mass audiences as official dubbed shows became more readily available to audiences. This meant that these shows were no longer just for more of a niche audience. These steep inclines of around 1 million paying subscribers continues throughout July 2020 and February 2021. This may be due to the fact that in March 2020, the world went into lock down due to Covid 19, and so more people were sitting at home and streaming content to fill the time in order to keep themselves occupied.

Crunchyroll is available to a large audience as it is accessible on pretty much any digital device. They have their own app available on the app store as well s the google play store. The accessibility of having an app made Crunchroll even more successful as it meant people could watch shows whilst on the go rather than only being able to watch in on a computer. The way of watching and navigating the site on the app is pretty much the same as if you were to use the website.

(Referenced from The App store)

The app still allows premium members to watch offline, as well as keeping the layout of the ‘Popular’ front page, and also a profile page in which users can log in to their accounts and see their watchlist, watch history, and their downloads. This account page is the same for both the app and the website meaning they’re completely synced up so nothing will change depending on if you watch using your phone, then want to switch to watching on your computer.

Multiple methods of accessibility were implemented as this would allow Crunchyroll to be more successful when trying to gather a larger audience as they are catering to a wider variety of needs. Some people may not have a phone but may have a laptop and vis versa, so by allowing the app to be accessed on multiple technology platforms, they are catering to a potential larger audience of users, meaning more people are likely to invest in the app.

Crunchyroll’s advertisements are predominantly online advertisements such as social media advertisements as well as banner and pop-up advertisements on websites. This is because Crunchyroll is an online only service, so they would most likely only be targeting those using online services such as social media and other websites.

 Crunchroll’s online banner advertisements designs consist of their iconic orange colour, their logo along with their brand name, and then a currently popular character from a show, or even multiple shows. The design gets straight to the point of what their service offers, and it also offers new users a 14 day free trial of their premium service. By having a banner or pop up advertisement which audiences can click and be sent straight to the homepage of their website is extremely easy and will most likely result in audiences actually going and creating accounts. Likewise, their social media advertisements attract their target audience through design. By liking certain posts relating to Anime shows and Japanese media, crunchy rolls posts will eventually be plastered on social media users explore pages or feed. By crunchyroll including snippets of scenes from popular shows with heir watermark  in the corner, this would likely attract their target audience as well as make it simple to see what their website/brand is called. On top of this, crunchyroll keeps a link to their website (or to the download page) in their social media bio. This is successful in terms of gathering users as when audiences see their social media advertisements, they are able to go to their profile and click their link to be taken directly to their website, or their download page.

Much like other streaming services, Crunchyroll is also available to download on smart TVs. This in itself can reach audiences as when browsing the apps on a smart TV, people can come across the Crunchyroll app and click on it to see what it’s all about. If after they’ve clicked on it, they find the service appealing, from there they can decide to continue with the free version, or pay for a membership.

In terms of celebrity endorsement, as advertised on Crunchyroll’s instagram page, they do interviews with minor celebrities ranging from singers and actors, to popular content creators and cosplayers. They also interview celebrities such as voice actors from the features shows on their site. By interviewing people relevant to their service and popular people to the public in general, they are able to get the attention of those in their target audience. If people see influencers that they are fans of being interviewed by a brand, or endorsing the brand, they are more likely to want to use the service that the brand offers themselves, so therefore by crunchroll doing this, they are more likely to grow a bigger user base, and attract more potential audiences.

In conclusion, Crunchyroll has succeeded in terms of usage since the pandemic in 2020 due to people being stuck inside. Now, due to the increased popularity of the the content they provide, its likely that Crunchyroll’s usage will continue grow in the future.