The tech news feeds for the last few days have been full of reports on ‘Candy Crush’ maker King’s IPO plans and Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of Whatsapp.
What is interesting in both of these cases is the premium that is placed on audience reach, while audience retention is (IMHO) currently not guaranteed. Both companies can boast great user figures, but then what? For King it will be important to keep players coming back to Candy Crush, and redirect any churn to its other titles. Whatsapp will have to make sure its users do not defect to other apps, as switching costs are pretty low.
Creating a strong relationship with their huge user bases will be the key to success in either case. Whether you do it by building characters (like Disney), a corporate mythology (like Apple) or a personal brand (like Virgin), you need to provide the fans with an anchor. Only then will the big numbers pay off.
