Drivers of Zoomers' OTT Consumption - Uses & Gratifications Theory Approach

This paper focusses on the drivers of consumer gratification of consuming content across the Over the Top (OTT) media services among the Zoomers in Tamil Nadu, India. Uses & Gratifications Theory (UGT) is a theory of mass communications, has a long-standing history, explains how people actively make use of media to gratify their needs. Recently, several studies have applied Uses & Gratifications Theory to analyse various motives and the consumer behaviour of social media platforms. Very few studies have been done relating to the Uses & Gratifications associated with content consumption in the OTT platforms. To address this gap, this study based on the Uses & Gratifications Theory, analyses various need factors that influence of consumption of OTT content by the Zoomers (Generation Z). A comprehensive model was built based on the Uses & Gratifications Theory consisting of five needs: cognitive needs, affective needs, personal integrative needs, social integrative needs, and escape. And these were studied to see if they have a significant impact on OTT consumption behaviour. A research questionnaire was designed for the model and was tested by collecting data from 208 OTT consuming youngsters located across various districts in Tamil Nadu. The findings through the PLS algorithm indicate that among the five needs, cognitive, affective and personal integrative and escape needs are found to have a significant impact on consumption gratification. This proposed research model has important implications for the researchers and the marketers to facilitate market segmentation and focus more on marketing areas like personalised targeting of the audience, customer retention, etc.,