Moodica
Take your brain on a vacation.
SUMMARY
Co-founded and launched Moodica, a streaming service for oddly satisfying videos. Took the service from concept to market, garnering millions of viewers across web, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV and over 100,000 hours of streamed video.
THE VISION
In Nov 2016 while at Warner Bros. Digital Labs, I teamed up with VP of Product Rob Kamphausen to pitch Moodica, a never-before-seen kind of video streaming service. Rob had described his vision as “the yule log for everything.” We wanted to capture the magic of the oddly satisfying videos that were growing in popularity across the web, like food prep videos on Facebook, ASMR fan sites and meditation Youtube channels.
Warner Bros. already had a video streaming infrastructure in place, but like all content companies, often hit the challenge of pricey licensing fees. With Moodica, Rob and I pitched how we could capture an untapped audience of passive video viewers with exceptionally cheap video content. With the CEO and senior leadership’s support behind us, we were off.
A NEW KIND OF VIEWER
2016 was a time when intense political discourse seeped into nearly all online conversation. Oddly-satisfying videos were bringing stressed people a kind of peace, and we were finding validation for our concept everywhere we turned.
Our goal was to generate unprecedented amounts of passive video watching engagement, and then roll out with monetization in the form of native ads that mimicked Moodica content.
GROUND-BREAKING UX
Off the bat, we knew that Moodica’s UX would have to optimize for a passive viewer . We couldn’t just mimic traditional streaming UI’s as seen on Netflix or Hulu that focused on narrative, star-driven content. We needed to turn Moodica into a rabbit hole of laid-back discovery.
I worked alongside ultra-talented UX Ahra Cho, who spearheaded a unique UX that encouraged endless discovery and put artists’ work at the forefront. You can see it in action in the videos below.
For our MVP, we chose to roll out on platforms that factored in passive user behavior and requirements for audience scale:
Web, for user acquisition opportunities
Apple TV, to reach a modern CTV audience
Amazon Fire TV, which offered us promo opportunities
HYPNOTIZING CONTENT
Working alongside our legal team, I secured international trademarks and video licensing rights for the service. I led the team in discovering and reaching out to artists and orgs around the world to find the hypnotic content that kept users glued to their screens, leveraging data from our video streaming, social media and customer support reports to guide licensing decisions. .
Over the course of the project, I cut deals with over 40 content creators and developed relationships with charity organizations, hotels and in-flight entertainment vendors who were interested in being part of Moodica’s unique distribution.
Travel Journalists
Digital Artists
Filmmakers
Stock Footage
Non-Profit Partners
Youtube ASMR
THE RESULT
Over the 18 months following launch, Moodica garnered millions of viewers around the world across web, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV, who streamed over 100,000 hours of video a quarter. Users wrote in to make content requests, share photos of their work stations with Moodica playing and even just thank us for providing a place for them to focus, find creativity and relax. It was a wonderful journey.
WBDN shut down their DF streaming division in 2018, taking Moodica along with it. Even today, I still receive emails, tweets and messages from fans who miss the service.
KUDOS
Product • Rob Kamphausen
Design • Ahra Cho • Mikhail Belstar • Jeff Huang • Bobby Lin • Konrad Klinkner
Engineering • Eric Sun • Rob Kamphausen • Arthur Carey • Dave Levinson
Marketing • Mike Cucinotta • Joe Schumacher • Claire Lew • Dan Acton •
Content • Sam Cecil • Nandita Vijayaraghavan • Ahnmin Lee
