You’ve probably never heard of Quibi. That’s because it stopped before it even started. This, despite having raised $1.75 billion from investors.
And these aren’t rookie investors. The list speaks for itself:
Alibaba $100 million
Goldman Sachs $50 million
JP Morgan $50 million
Google $50 million
Yet, the content streaming platform that was touted to be the next big thing vanished without leaving a trace- after almost $2 billion was pumped into it, celebrities like Steven Spielberg, Sophie Turner and Liam Hemsworth were signed on, and the project was helmed by the golden duo of Jeffery Katzenburg and Meg Whitman.
When a mammoth project of this sort tanks- despite a star cast with decades of experience- it’s intriguing to understand why that could be.
You can’t ascribe any one reason to a project of this scale, but it’s curious that a $1000 million company spent a total of $63 million on ads.
The big chunk of this advertising budget was consumed by traditional Super Bowl ads. The core consumer base of the streaming service wasn’t watching these ads. Quibi tried to reach its customers on a platform where they weren’t present.
Quibi shut shop in less than 6 months.
