Will Corry‘s insight: Discuss – nothing in the home beats the TV, and its large screenMilya Timergaleyeva writes …For the last few years we have seen a seismic shift in the consumption of video content. Led by younger demographic groups adopting personal viewing platforms like smartphones, PCs and tablets the threat to traditional broadcast TV has been well publicised.
Despite that shift, one thing remains true; nothing in the home beats the TV, and its large screen, for viewing video, particularly when it’s long form content and particularly when it’s a shared experience.
That fact hasn’t been lost by some in the industry who have been working hard to create the core technological elements to enhance TV with the best of the Web, but to date digital marketers have had few opportunities to exploit the potential.
The dominant, almost exclusive, brand engagement mechanism on TV remains the 30 second spot, but with some new Internet enabled TV platforms now providing PC-like interactivity and access, the industry is missing a trick. If the 30 second spot is inherently superior in long form content we might have seen it on the Web but in fact it’s almost unknown. We have to assume then, that in the world of connected, on-demand, app enabled TV, it won’t have the same dominance. What’s more likely are variations of what we see on the Web but which take account of TV’s inherently ‘lean-back’ and shared experience.
Although the technological challenges have now been solved, until all the relevant industries pull together, the potential of unified web and broadcast will remain undeveloped. It is the digital marketers who need to take the lead, carrying content owners along with them on the crest of almost universal WiFi connectivity, sophisticated lean-back user interfaces (both software and hardware) and HTML5 which can provide a cross-platform development language.
It is the demands of the brands, which ultimately pay for content development, which should be driving content owners, platform and technologists to create new engagement models for TV. It is the potential for those new engagement models that is exciting us at Oregan Networks. We look forward, with anticipation, to a time when the marketing and branding opportunities presented by internet TV connectivity has been fully integrated into the advertising plans and production workflows.
By Milya Timergaleyeva, VP Market Strategy for Oregan Networks