Why Bango went intergalactic and bought a black hole

Bango, a platform for businesses to manage and monetise digital subscriptions, spotlights the spiralling cost of customer acquisition with a black hole.

As part of its new Gravity Shift campaign, the tech behind Super Bundling has officially renamed a real black hole “Subscriber Acquisition” through the International Black Hole Registry.

The cosmic stunt is grounded in new Bango research showing 46% of subscription leaders describe direct acquisition as a “black hole” for marketing spend. 

With Netflix alone dropping nearly $3 billion on marketing last year, the campaign is meant as a galactic wake-up call, designed to encourage subscription brands to shift their spending from direct marketing to more indirect partnerships and bundle deals.

Stargazers can view the renamed black hole at coordinates RA: 13 33 07.47 / DEC: +44 29 54.7.

Anil Malhotra, CMO at Bango: “As the subscription market gets more crowded, capturing and keeping subscribers is only getting harder. You can’t just keep funnelling money into direct ads and hope subscribers pop out the other side. Netflix alone spent nearly $3 billion on marketing last year. With our stunt, we wanted to spotlight this issue and show there’s a better way forward.”

Devised with tech PR agency Wildfire, the campaign marks a wider ‘gravitational shift’ toward the Bundle economy, with Bango’s tech already helping brands like Netflix, Amazon, Disney, and more connect up and form bundles.

Alex Warren, associate director at Wildfire: “As soon as we had the stat about direct acquisition becoming a black hole for subscription spending, we knew what we had to do. Bango’s marketing team have always taken great pride in launching surprising, creative, and strategic work, so everyone leapt at the chance to do this stunt and leave Bango’s mark on the universe.”