July 8, 2017
Last week, we had the opportunity to assess market needs and
discuss solutions for the industry at the TV of Tomorrow Show in San
Francisco. This conference brings together all types of companies in the TV/
broadcasting world - from ad agencies to law firms to
cable system operators and content providers. A big focus of this year’s show
was the intersection between OTT, advertising and personalization of the
viewing experience.
The pay-tv industry has seen a plethora of cord cutting in
the past years. The headlines paint
a dire picture of this trend however, statistics show that 82% of TV viewers
have a traditional pay TV service and a majority of all TV viewers have both
pay TV and at least one SVOD service. Nevertheless, this phenomenon has created unprecedented
growth in OTT content. Roku alone has more than 4,500 OTT channels available on
their service. A big question that has stumped the industry is how to make
money in this new environment. Traditional media buying based on a GRP is not
going to work anymore. The user experience is changing and both the advertising
world and the way content is distributed and navigated need to change along with it.
The OTT environment has created an “ad free” viewing
experience, but how do content providers/distributers still generate revenue? Does
the “magic bullet” involve fan-focused, personalized user experiences? Jennifer Dorian of Turner touched on how Turner
Classic Movies is finding success by focusing on their “fans” and creating
special events around them (inviting their fans on a Classic
Movie Cruise and developing red carpet events),
thus creating loyalty not only to the content but to the brand. Augmented
reality ads are showing promise by
interactively involving the viewer in the “advertiser’s world.” Blockchain
technology is being looked at to transform this
new advertising environment, and in a couple of years ATSC 3.0 will personalize
the viewing experience even more by allowing the content to “react” to the viewer
by scaling it across all devices and giving the viewer options on how to watch
the content.
Before the viewer can be targeted for an ad, they have to
find the content. Users want a seamless, easy-to-use navigation interface that
will personalize the viewing experience for them and help them find the content
they want to watch. The new UX needs to be frustration-free and able to
identify the best viewing options across a sea of content sources.
The takeaway? There is a lot of opportunity that has arisen
based on this new viewing environment. Bringing the “person” back into
“personalization” to drive brand viewership while creating an interactive and easy-to-use
user experience is a challenge to the industry. Alticast, for one, is ready to
take it on!
Posted by Jill OToole at 1:01 AM