Content Model Canvas vs Business Model Canvas

The Content Model Canvas (the Canvas) is a business model canvas for creative projects: the one-page business plan for your film, series or game. It keeps the grid of the Business Model Canvas, but each block is about your project rather than a company.

What the Business Model Canvas Is

The Business Model Canvas is a strategic management tool that describes, on one page, how an organization creates, delivers and captures value. Alexander Osterwalder, co-founder of Strategyzer, invented it with Yves Pigneur, and it was first presented in the book Business Model Generation.

Its nine blocks describe the customers, the offer and how it reaches them, the costs and the revenue. It can describe a business that already runs, or help design a new one.

The Business Model Canvas is designed by Strategyzer AG (strategyzer.com (opens in a new tab)) and released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (opens in a new tab) license.

The Content Model Canvas is an independent product: it keeps the layout of the Business Model Canvas and eight of its nine block names. It is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Strategyzer AG, Alexander Osterwalder or Yves Pigneur.

Sources

What Changes, Block by Block

Both canvases put the same nine blocks in the same places, and eight of them keep their names: only Customer Segments becomes Audience / Client. What changes is what each block is about: a company in the Business Model Canvas, one film, series or game in the Content Model Canvas.

Block	Business Model Canvas	Content Model Canvas
Value Propositions	The value the business delivers to its customers.	The value of the whole project, not only of its story: for the audience who watches or plays it, and for the people who fund or buy it.
Audience / ClientCustomer Segments in the Business Model Canvas	The customers the business serves, and which ones matter most.	Two groups that are not always the same: the audience who watches or plays, and the client who pays for the project, such as a platform, a network or a distributor.
Channels	How the business reaches its customers.	How the audience finds the project and gets to watch or play it, and how clients hear about it, long before the release as well as after.
Customer Relationships	The type of relationship the business sets up with its customers.	Two relationships to build over time: one with the audience, who can become a community, and one with the clients who buy or distribute the project.
Key Activities	What the business must do very well.	The work that takes the project from idea to release: developing it, making it, selling it, and building its audience along the way.
Key Partners	The partners and suppliers the business relies on.	The people and organizations the project needs: creative collaborators, funders, distributors, and partners who can bring it an audience.
Key Resources	The assets the business cannot do without.	What the project draws on: its team, its rights and intellectual property, its equipment, its funding and its network.
Cost Structure	The most important costs of the business.	What the project costs over its whole life, not only the production budget, including what it takes to reach its audience.
Revenue Streams	How the business earns money.	Every way the project can earn, such as licensing, sponsorship, crowdfunding or direct sales, and the value it builds beyond money, such as a community.

Value Propositions
Business Model Canvas
The value the business delivers to its customers.
Content Model Canvas
The value of the whole project, not only of its story: for the audience who watches or plays it, and for the people who fund or buy it.
Audience / Client
Customer Segments in the Business Model Canvas
Business Model Canvas
The customers the business serves, and which ones matter most.
Content Model Canvas
Two groups that are not always the same: the audience who watches or plays, and the client who pays for the project, such as a platform, a network or a distributor.
Channels
Business Model Canvas
How the business reaches its customers.
Content Model Canvas
How the audience finds the project and gets to watch or play it, and how clients hear about it, long before the release as well as after.
Customer Relationships
Business Model Canvas
The type of relationship the business sets up with its customers.
Content Model Canvas
Two relationships to build over time: one with the audience, who can become a community, and one with the clients who buy or distribute the project.
Key Activities
Business Model Canvas
What the business must do very well.
Content Model Canvas
The work that takes the project from idea to release: developing it, making it, selling it, and building its audience along the way.
Key Partners
Business Model Canvas
The partners and suppliers the business relies on.
Content Model Canvas
The people and organizations the project needs: creative collaborators, funders, distributors, and partners who can bring it an audience.
Key Resources
Business Model Canvas
The assets the business cannot do without.
Content Model Canvas
What the project draws on: its team, its rights and intellectual property, its equipment, its funding and its network.
Cost Structure
Business Model Canvas
The most important costs of the business.
Content Model Canvas
What the project costs over its whole life, not only the production budget, including what it takes to reach its audience.
Revenue Streams
Business Model Canvas
How the business earns money.
Content Model Canvas
Every way the project can earn, such as licensing, sponsorship, crowdfunding or direct sales, and the value it builds beyond money, such as a community.

The Business Model Canvas column summarizes how Strategyzer describes each block (opens in a new tab)

When to Use Which

It depends on what you are planning: a company, or one creative project.

For a company

Business Model Canvas

To describe or design a business as a whole, such as a studio, an agency or a platform: its customers, its offer, its costs and its revenue.

For a film, a series or a game