Broadband connected TVs with open internet access present an opportunity for businesses and brands to hold a direct relationship with the consumer through arguably the most influential of all the three screens.
Yet there is still the challenge of how to use the medium effectively. This article aims to give an insight many of the key aspects to consider if you want to get into the connected TV market or assess its potential.
Throughout 2009, while most businesses remained focused on the impact of the recession, a slow trickle of internet TVs started to enter the market. There is no standard; they all offer different things – few of which are particularly compelling – that work in different ways and as a result all have access to a limited subset of consumers. At first glance, not a lot to entice investment. Nevertheless it is a trend large brands should follow with interest.
To date, television has been the exclusive domain of broadcasters and pay TV operators. However, with the advent of internet connected TVs, the opportunity exists for brands, businesses and public services (from supermarkets to football clubs, from car manufacturers to local government) to have their own services and a direct relationship with the consumer on the TV.
Within a year or two, the industry will have solved its differences, the numbers will start to grow rapidly and the applications and services will get clever, creative and compelling. Those companies that seize the opportunity are likely to gain significant early mover advantage.
Historically TV has been a Broadcast only medium, with significant wastage. Costs are way beyond most entities, you can’t accurately target your offering, and there is little or no interactivity. In contrast, broadband connected TVs provide the opportunity to target ‘on demand’ services, with interactivity, and at a fraction of the cost. These are three big changes, all happening at the same time and perhaps the stuff that makes and breaks brands.
Being ready to respond rapidly to the new world of internet connected TVs maybe as crucial as it was in having a web site. Whilst now may not be the time to switch the bulk of your marketing budget into TV applications and services, now is certainly the right time to prepare for this rapidly developing future – to develop your strategy and maybe even play with design and conceive pilot services.
So where do you start?
With an assessment. There is little point worrying about the various industry or consumer manufacturer platforms and devices until you know what you want out of TV. For many businesses it will be obvious that TV is a more suitable medium than web or mobile, and for some may even warrant a whole TV channel. For others, TV will be a complementary play to the core business or to a web and mobile play. This initial assessment is key. Your first consideration should be to define objectives. These will be very different for a public service offering, a car manufacturer, a supermarket, or those seeking to monetise a back catalogue of video, games or other compelling assets.
How do you reach your customer? Whilst your own TV channel, in the mould of having your own web site, may be an option, it’s also likely to be an expensive one – only viable if you can drive a significant and appropriate audience. But even if your brand does command its own presence, consumer adoption and usage can still be optimised through structuring your service so that it can also feed into television aggregation services (such as BT Vision, Hulu, Tesco or Virgin Media) and mash-ups, where the service is made up or complemented by a number of partner products and services.
A key challenge here is to identify how your brand offering is discovered. How do you effectively use analytics based on personal usage, habits and preferences, to ‘suggest’ rather than expect consumers to search. A important consideration will be how to successfully use the feeds from community and social web applications. And to identify the triggers to pull consumers into your brand’s world, e.g. widgets or even red button prompts in broadcast service provider adverts.
How do you commercially support the application or service? Whilst advertising offers the promise of free or part funded services, the ‘connected TV’ is fragmented today and though it will rapidly resolve itself into a few winning platforms, it will still take time to gather consumer numbers desirable for advertising. And whilst ‘connected TVs’ offer so many more outlets and opportunities for targeted and tighter managed advertising for the market, there will be a lot of applications and services vying for that trade.
However, there are plenty of other options if you want to avoid or complement advertising in your consumer relationship; subscription, purchase, rental, televoting, sponsorship, gambling and cross-subsidy are just a few of the possible models, with the advent of broadband connections providing a fully interactive path to the TV.
What kind of application or service should you offer? A fully interactive path to the TV will likely dispel the idea that TV is exclusively a medium for broadcast only video. Marrying gaming like functionality with on demand and broadcast TV services we are likely to see some very exciting developments over the next few years. It does require thinking differently and whilst your traditional design agency might not be there yet, there are smaller, new and emerging companies addressing this market.
How do you design and build for TV? Screen layout, the use of a remote control and most of all consumer expectations of TV are very different to that of a web site. Internet and PC web sites have grown with us, we see every development as an improvement. TV on the other hand is already established, it responds instantly, there are no “hour glasses” or pauses to let the service catch up with what’s going on – consumer expectation will be high and could impact brand image. Simple and robust core value added services may be a better start than excessive innovation early on.
Which TV platforms should you target? Philips NetTV, Samsung, Sony & LG with Intel & Yahoo, Panasonic Vieracast, Apple, Fetch TV, Canvas…these are just a few of the options here in the UK and probably not much different in other countries. As a consumer though, I don’t want to buy a different TV or box for every person in my family just to get all the different services. Neither do brands want to have to redevelop their service on every platform and device to get to all consumers. Not least because redevelopment will soak up all the budget and creativity will be dragged down to the lowest common denominator of platform or device capability (unless you’re rich enough to build different offers on different platforms). So why doesn’t the TV industry get together and agree on one platform?
Here in the UK there is a BBC-led initiative called project Canvas that hopes to do just that; to set standards for broadband TV which will create a single platform with an open business model – so helping to get all services on all devices. This has been picked up on by the DTG (Digital TV Group), the body here in the UK that set the standards for broadcast TV, with a ‘Connected TV’ programme of work (CTV). Today when we swap our TV from one manufacturer out for a new TV from another manufacturer, it’s the existing DTG D-Book standards that mean you still get continuity of service. The idea behind Canvas or CTV is that when you swap an internet connected TV from one manufacturer out for a new TV from another manufacturer you also get continuity of broadband services.
The CTV/Canvas work is not the only entity pushing this agenda, but it does stand a good chance of succeeding in the UK and perhaps setting out a stool for wider global initiatives, as it is favoured by the UK Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs – BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five). Such standardisation will be a significant boost to ‘connected TV’ adoption, and will appreciably benefit brands ready to capitalise on this emerging market.
So where does that leave us? That Television is evolving to a brand proposition is clear, with 2010 likely to see significant change. What is not so clear for most businesses and brands is how to steer through the options and derive a strategy for the impending opportunity. Brands need to plot their course carefully across this exciting and challenging new landscape – and for early mover advantage, begin their learning journey now.
Television – the new Web
Broadband connected TVs with open internet access present an opportunity for businesses and brands to hold a direct relationship with the consumer through arguably the most influential of all the three screens.
Yet there is still the challenge of how to use the medium effectively. This article aims to give an insight many of the key aspects to consider if you want to get into the connected TV market or assess its potential.
Throughout 2009, while most businesses remained focused on the impact of the recession, a slow trickle of internet TVs started to enter the market. There is no standard; they all offer different things – few of which are particularly compelling – that work in different ways and as a result all have access to a limited subset of consumers. At first glance, not a lot to entice investment. Nevertheless it is a trend large brands should follow with interest.
To date, television has been the exclusive domain of broadcasters and pay TV operators. However, with the advent of internet connected TVs, the opportunity exists for brands, businesses and public services (from supermarkets to football clubs, from car manufacturers to local government) to have their own services and a direct relationship with the consumer on the TV.
Within a year or two, the industry will have solved its differences, the numbers will start to grow rapidly and the applications and services will get clever, creative and compelling. Those companies that seize the opportunity are likely to gain significant early mover advantage.
Historically TV has been a Broadcast only medium, with significant wastage. Costs are way beyond most entities, you can’t accurately target your offering, and there is little or no interactivity. In contrast, broadband connected TVs provide the opportunity to target ‘on demand’ services, with interactivity, and at a fraction of the cost. These are three big changes, all happening at the same time and perhaps the stuff that makes and breaks brands.
Being ready to respond rapidly to the new world of internet connected TVs maybe as crucial as it was in having a web site. Whilst now may not be the time to switch the bulk of your marketing budget into TV applications and services, now is certainly the right time to prepare for this rapidly developing future – to develop your strategy and maybe even play with design and conceive pilot services.
So where do you start?
With an assessment. There is little point worrying about the various industry or consumer manufacturer platforms and devices until you know what you want out of TV. For many businesses it will be obvious that TV is a more suitable medium than web or mobile, and for some may even warrant a whole TV channel. For others, TV will be a complementary play to the core business or to a web and mobile play. This initial assessment is key. Your first consideration should be to define objectives. These will be very different for a public service offering, a car manufacturer, a supermarket, or those seeking to monetise a back catalogue of video, games or other compelling assets.
How do you reach your customer? Whilst your own TV channel, in the mould of having your own web site, may be an option, it’s also likely to be an expensive one – only viable if you can drive a significant and appropriate audience. But even if your brand does command its own presence, consumer adoption and usage can still be optimised through structuring your service so that it can also feed into television aggregation services (such as BT Vision, Hulu, Tesco or Virgin Media) and mash-ups, where the service is made up or complemented by a number of partner products and services.
A key challenge here is to identify how your brand offering is discovered. How do you effectively use analytics based on personal usage, habits and preferences, to ‘suggest’ rather than expect consumers to search. A important consideration will be how to successfully use the feeds from community and social web applications. And to identify the triggers to pull consumers into your brand’s world, e.g. widgets or even red button prompts in broadcast service provider adverts.
How do you commercially support the application or service? Whilst advertising offers the promise of free or part funded services, the ‘connected TV’ is fragmented today and though it will rapidly resolve itself into a few winning platforms, it will still take time to gather consumer numbers desirable for advertising. And whilst ‘connected TVs’ offer so many more outlets and opportunities for targeted and tighter managed advertising for the market, there will be a lot of applications and services vying for that trade.
However, there are plenty of other options if you want to avoid or complement advertising in your consumer relationship; subscription, purchase, rental, televoting, sponsorship, gambling and cross-subsidy are just a few of the possible models, with the advent of broadband connections providing a fully interactive path to the TV.
What kind of application or service should you offer? A fully interactive path to the TV will likely dispel the idea that TV is exclusively a medium for broadcast only video. Marrying gaming like functionality with on demand and broadcast TV services we are likely to see some very exciting developments over the next few years. It does require thinking differently and whilst your traditional design agency might not be there yet, there are smaller, new and emerging companies addressing this market.
How do you design and build for TV? Screen layout, the use of a remote control and most of all consumer expectations of TV are very different to that of a web site. Internet and PC web sites have grown with us, we see every development as an improvement. TV on the other hand is already established, it responds instantly, there are no “hour glasses” or pauses to let the service catch up with what’s going on – consumer expectation will be high and could impact brand image. Simple and robust core value added services may be a better start than excessive innovation early on.
Which TV platforms should you target? Philips NetTV, Samsung, Sony & LG with Intel & Yahoo, Panasonic Vieracast, Apple, Fetch TV, Canvas…these are just a few of the options here in the UK and probably not much different in other countries. As a consumer though, I don’t want to buy a different TV or box for every person in my family just to get all the different services. Neither do brands want to have to redevelop their service on every platform and device to get to all consumers. Not least because redevelopment will soak up all the budget and creativity will be dragged down to the lowest common denominator of platform or device capability (unless you’re rich enough to build different offers on different platforms). So why doesn’t the TV industry get together and agree on one platform?
Here in the UK there is a BBC-led initiative called project Canvas that hopes to do just that; to set standards for broadband TV which will create a single platform with an open business model – so helping to get all services on all devices. This has been picked up on by the DTG (Digital TV Group), the body here in the UK that set the standards for broadcast TV, with a ‘Connected TV’ programme of work (CTV). Today when we swap our TV from one manufacturer out for a new TV from another manufacturer, it’s the existing DTG D-Book standards that mean you still get continuity of service. The idea behind Canvas or CTV is that when you swap an internet connected TV from one manufacturer out for a new TV from another manufacturer you also get continuity of broadband services.
The CTV/Canvas work is not the only entity pushing this agenda, but it does stand a good chance of succeeding in the UK and perhaps setting out a stool for wider global initiatives, as it is favoured by the UK Public Service Broadcasters (PSBs – BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five). Such standardisation will be a significant boost to ‘connected TV’ adoption, and will appreciably benefit brands ready to capitalise on this emerging market.
So where does that leave us? That Television is evolving to a brand proposition is clear, with 2010 likely to see significant change. What is not so clear for most businesses and brands is how to steer through the options and derive a strategy for the impending opportunity. Brands need to plot their course carefully across this exciting and challenging new landscape – and for early mover advantage, begin their learning journey now.