Connected TV, mobile video and multi-tasking
Steve Smith PhD, head of thought leadership at Starcom MediaVest Group, discusses some of his experiences at the recent IP&TV World Forum…
I’ve spent the last couple of days at the IP&TV World Forum, which included being on a panel discussing some of the consequences of connected TV, mobile video and multi-tasking behaviour to brands.
The connected TV revolution is an exciting opportunity for brand owners to create uplifting, meaningful and relevant experiences.
It is this relevance that is especially important. As penetration of internet connected TVs builds, then brand owners will be able to use data to more closely address content to a greater number of people, based on their behaviours, locations, demographics, profiles and even attitudes.
It also offers the opportunity to create more granular metrics and so greater accountability to brand owners. Along with these will be the growing demand to include behaviour outcomes around consideration and purchase.
Most TV buyers operate by trading a particular audience. Another consequence of connected TV means the emergence of alternative trading models that take addressability and cross-media exposure into account. In turn, these models will mean a demand for more specialised database and analytics skills will emerge.
A second theme from the panel was growth in accessing video content on mobile devices. The very fact that expenditure on mobile advertising shot up by 157% in 2011 to reach £203 million is evidence of growth in the number of people who use the internet on their mobile devices, and time spent on them. In the UK alone, YouTube receives around three million mobile site impressions per day.
We should therefore expect a huge growth in pre-roll ad spend and more interactive ads sent to mobile devices, that also include innovations such as hot-spots, that can take people to different information destinations, or interact with smartphone apps, such as around location.
Multi-tasking whilst watching TV was a third theme we discussed. 41% of US Google searches during the Superbowl that were related to brands being advertised, came from smartphones. Such multi-tasking behaviour is one more reason why brand owners need to integrate mobile strategy into their campaigns.
Social media is a major reason for multi-tasking. It would be nice to think that people are talking about programming. When they do, they tend to do this around live content, and they are also using Zeebox and Yahoo! ‘IntoNow’ to augment their experience with additional content such as football stats during matches, and extra video content.
In most cases however, people take advantage of mobile devices to catch up and communicate about other things. This competition over time and attention makes it necessary for brand owners to consider when their intended audience is likely to be watching TV. Ads and any call to actions on Facebook need to be simple and quick. Yet it also means brands can provide content on Facebook that relates to television programming they are likely to be watching, thus making their content more discoverable, meaningful and relevant.