The Cognitive Determinants Influencing Consumer Purchase-Intention Towards Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD): Case of Egypt

Over the past few decades, there has been a significant change, as smartphones and digital devices paved the way for developing new e-business models to articulate and cultivate further magnitudes such as “shared economy”. Video on demand has become one of the most vital shared-economy play-actors. This study aims to provide valuable information to SVoD industry players, marketers, and producers about the Egyptian consumers’ motivations, preferences, and willingness to subscribe to video-on-demand services. In this regard, the proposed research model has been developed based on its nature on an existing conceptual framework named UTAUT2 and only one independent variable called Content Piracy tackling the research’s problem definition. The present study aims to examine and comprehend such factors; thus, the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model was applied to better test and explain the factors impacting the Purchase Intention (PI) to subscribe to video-on-demand services. Subsequently, the factors of Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), Facilitating Conditions (FC), Hedonic Motivation (HM), Price Value (PV), Habit (HB), in addition to Content Piracy (CP) were tested by surveying 133 respondents using SurveyMonkey across multiple online channels. It is noteworthy that this study highlighted a comprehensive comparative analysis of industrial practices originating from multiple subscription video-on-demand platforms and the introduction of “Watchit” shortly after Netflix was promoted as the driving force service provider in the Middle East (Hall & Partners, 2018). According to the findings, All the UTAUT2 constructs mentioned above positively influenced consumers’ intention to subscribe to video-on-demand services in Egypt. However, the added variable of content piracy negatively influenced the intention to SVoD platforms in Egypt. As a result of the examination of the obtained data and revealed findings, the market needs and consumer base of video on demand industry could be dramatically increased if industry players consider the factors impacting users’ purchase intention, particularly with the most significant impact, namely; Habit, Hedonic Motivation, and Social Influence, which are discussed methodically in this study.


Introduction
This research aims to investigate how prepared the Egyptian consumer to subscribe to video-on-demand services in specific, contributing to the high average of the daily viewing time as in Figure 1, implying that there will be a high demand on the SVoD platforms at large. Thus, investigating elements driving consumers' purchase intention towards SVoD in Egypt. Correspondingly, the researchers demonstrated that many scholars had measured the consumer intention towards subscription-based business models and technology acceptance in different industries, using different research models which were included but not limited to the following theories: Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT) (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1973); Theory of Reasoned Actions (TRA) (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975); Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989); Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) (Ajzen, 1991); Theory of Self-Regulation (TSR) (Bagozzi, 1992); Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh et al., 2003); Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) (Venkatesh et al., 2012). Subsequently, the researchers reviewed, evaluated, and criticized the seven theories in order to propose a convenient research framework that best fits the study and add on or integrate if necessary.

Original Theories' Review
The TRA, TPB, and TSR theories address sufficiency issues differently and offer different solutions. Consequently, the ultimate goal of this research is to determine which of the answers is the most significant in the behavioral realm and which hypothesis has the best predictive performance since the behavioral intentions and results are both hampered by internal and external impediments. Leone L. et al. (1999) has conducted a study that compared three research models towards attitude-behavior relationships which are: The Theory of Reasoned Action TRA; (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), The Theory of Planned Behaviour TPB; (Schifter & Ajzen, 1985), The Theory of Self-regulation (Bagozzi, 1992). The mentioned research aimed at studying the capability of each model to determine the predictive power of consumers' behavior in the past towards their intention to buy in the present (Leone et al., 1999). The study's target audience was a group of 240 Italian undergraduate students, whereas 90 responses were provided; hence, the analysis showed that the past behaviors were considered a significant indicator of intention and behavior in the TRA research model. Nevertheless, it is scrawnier towards intention in both TPB and TRS (Leone et al., 1999). The standard variables in the three mentioned theories can be grouped as follows: attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and desire.
UTAUT is considered one of the most comprehensive and all-encompassing technology acceptance theories. The theory has successfully integrated eight persuasive acceptance models, including but not limited to UGT, TPB, TAM, TSR, and TRA, as Cowell UTAUT2 stated that, in addition to UTAUT constructs, consumers'

Conclusion
The statistical analysis findings provided valuable insights into the Egyptian consumers' perspective on subscription video-on-demand services. These findings have practical consequences for video industry practitioners, marketers, advertisers, stakeholders, and local and global service providers. Although the intention to commit piracy as a determinant was not significantly associated with consumer purchase intention, the correlation and regression analysis revealed that habit, hedonic motivation, and social influence are the main drivers that influence the Egyptian consumers' intention to subscribe to and use video-on-demand service. The higher a participant evaluated the above cognitive determinants, the more likely they would subscribe to the service provided. Additionally, the responses to the online questionnaire provided deep insights to understand Egyptian customers' underlying sentiments better. The findings have supported the conclusions made by scholars who were initially cited in the literature review. The following table depicts the inferential analysis' conclusions in which the researcher has built the practical implications accordingly.
This study's professional implications for the video-on-demand industry and marketing practitioners will contribute to analyzing the most significant elements for creating, upgrading, and sustaining SVoD services.
As previously stated, habit, social influence, and hedonic motivation determinants should all be considered because they have the most significant impact on the purchase intention of subscription video-on-demand services in Egypt. Also, while developing SVoD services that shall enhance usability, improve accessibility, and provide rich content, programmers and system designers should strive to reinforce customers' habit of continuously receiving value-added throughout frequent updates and solutions. Similarly, system developers must focus on the efficiency of SVoD platforms and their ease of use from consumers' perspectives, thus designing and developing applications that are easy to access and use. Marketers must retain a complimentary service and reputation by resolving issues and responding quickly to both positive and negative comments to assist customers in making better choices.
Furthermore, marketers should offer more bundles to customers, which will result in a greater utilization rate because customers, according to this study, are concerned about the prices of the service provided. Correspondingly, strategic alliances should be made (Forward Integration) with Telecommunication companies to subsidize subscriptions as part of a bundle, and with Devices Manufacturers/Producers such as (TV, Smartphones, Tablets, and Personal Computers) to market the platform on these devices.
It should be noted that competition is increasing, and thus SVoD customers expect to obtain the best possible high value for the least possible amount of money they pay for the subscription. Subsidizing the service costs would help industry players get a larger market share and attain better customer acceptance of SVoD services.
Finally, practitioners can continuously upgrade SVoD services by assessing and evaluating performance expectancy by providing better solutions that allow consumers to access the content quickly and efficiently compared to alternatives such as TV and effort expectancy. This can be achieved through enhancing flexibility to engage with the platforms and constantly matching consumers' preferences social influence via launching campaigns that target influential people who influence consumers to pay for the subscription video-on-demand platforms to get a premium service, which facilitates conditions through providing compatibility with other systems and delivering thorough orientation about the resources and knowledge necessary to use such SVoD services, hedonic motivation through improving the service level in order to make the process of watching via digital devices enjoyable, price value through formulating new prices tactics that offer a good value for money for consumers, and finally habit through reinforcing new offerings to keep watching SVoD platforms as one of consumers' daily life routine.
In conclusion, the study strongly suggests that using the UTAUT2 model is beneficial for practitioners to analyze and better understand the cognitive determinants that directly affect consumers' purchase intention toward subscription video-on-demand platforms. Subsequently, suppose Egypt's video-on-demand industry has changed in the near future. In that case, researchers can build on the results and conduct a comparative analysis to determine whether the determinants' variance is similar or has changed.

Future Work
Future studies should target lower socioeconomic groups and non-subscribers, and the questionnaire should be expanded to a larger audience. Various dimensions (i.e., consumer satisfaction, trustworthiness, cyber security, and pricing schemes) might be worth investigating and analyzing. Future research should test (Subscription) as an independent variable and (Intention to Piracy) as a dependent variable in order to investigate the influence of subscription on intention to piracy. Future research should collect data through interviews with service providers, content producers, and marketers. Future studies should focus on people who lack such essential resources and gauge their willingness to subscribe to video-on-demand services. Future studies should also investigate moderating or mediating variables.
Finally, according to Sekaran and Bougie (2016), this research was conducted ethically in accordance with the ethical code of conduct in each step of the research process, including data collection, interviews, data analysis, reporting, and, most importantly, the usage of the available information on the internet. Furthermore, the study followed The American Psychological Association (APA) guidelines ensuring that all authors' copyrights were properly cited.