Here's your inside track to all the happenings at the
TV of Tomorrow Show 2012 in San Francisco. From video demos to blogs on iTV and t-commerce learnings to relevant news coverage,
Inside the Screen fills you in on the jammed-pack show.
As a consultant who grows clients'
t-commerce sales, I was excited by the show buzz surrounding t-commerce. Certainly, PayPal's sponsoring role helped but so does the our industry's growing recognition that we've got to generate revenue. T-commerce anyone?
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
An informative, packed first day at The TV of Tomorrow Show 2012 in San Francisco where, my predilection for t-commerce aside, TV shopping was truly front and center. Here are the highlights that landed in my mental shopping cart:
- PayPal is All-In: PayPal announced a raft of deals, most importantly with Comcast and TiVo. During his fireside keynote with Tracy Swedlow, TVOT founder, Scott Dunlap, PayPal’s VP of Emerging Opportunities / New Ventures emphasized that PayPal is all about keeping commerce purchasing simple and safe for consumers. They accomplish this by taking “as many steps out of the process” as possible.
- Let’s Get Shopping on TV: According to PayPal research, users' openness to buy product from TV has surged from just 15% a few years ago to 49% in their latest stats. Per Dunlap, “T-commerce can be as big as e-commerce is today” and comprises the third leg of their strategy stool along with PC/mobile and retail (note their recent retail partner announcement). PayPal is searching for partners to iterate and test.
- T-Commerce & the Single Screen: Mike Fitzsimmons, CEO of Delivery Agent and Mark Wenger from PayPal talked with Arthur Orduna, who announced yesterday his arrival at PayPal in a business development role. Fitzsimmons underscored the success of recent t-commerce campaigns, particularly History Channel’s single screen shopping widget where vs. the second experience, engagement rates were 20x higher and time spent twice as long. And these positive stats have held for more than 7 months.
- Three T-commerce Scaling Trends: Wenger noted that t-commerce growth is and will continue to be the result of three key trends: (i) Breadth of new technology platforms; (ii) consumer willingness to be more active in the living room while watching TV; and (iii) ability to leverage commerce in context of shows and ads.
- SyncTV CEO Chat: I caught up with John Gildred, SyncTV’s Founder & CEO at the show to get the latest on this iTV platform builder. SyncTV – not another ACR company mind you – provides turnkey solutions for companies such as NBCU and Lime TV to enable OTT pay TV and subscription TV services on all the major platforms. Gildred anticipates a trend toward “more packaging of multiple channels” as companies work to provide robust new services. SyncTV is focusing on their core strengths: creating cost sensitive, integrated user experiences to capitalize on this and other trends.
- ConnecTV’s New Social Media Platform: I also had a chance to catch up with ConnecTV CEO Ian Aaron fresh off their launch of a social media platform two years in the making. The platform is supported by over 400 local stations, regional sports nets and cable networks. I found the local station affiliate connection a key differentiating feature as these stations provide both content to the platform and promotion of ConnecTV on their channels. See below for a screen grab.
- Second Screen Wins The Great Debate: I moderated the last session of the day where six great debaters (Scripps’ Channing Dawson, Get This CEO Lisa Farris, Debbie Fitzgerald from CableLabs, Sam Pemberton, Softel CEO, Anne-Marie Roussel of Sharp Labs and Pete Scott from Turner Sports) fiercely debated (really!) the pros and cons of single, second and hybrid screen iTV. I’ll delve into the details later but in the final poll, the second screen team (Scott and Farris) pulled off the win with 67% of the votes. Congratulations!
More from Day Two in my next blog. Check out my tweets for the latest.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
Tampa, FL (PRWEB) June 11, 2012
Will Keller, a leading interactive television industry expert, will be moderating a debate at the TV of Tomorrow conference in San Francisco on June 12.
The session, called The Great Debate: Single-Screen, Second-Screen or Both? will be held Tuesday, June 12th from 5:05 to 6:00 p.m. at the conference, which is located at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
During the debate, three teams, each comprised of two industry experts, will argue their case in favor of their preferred interactive television strategy: single-screen, dual-screen, or hybrid. All three approaches offer innovative opportunities for the television industry to engage audiences and monetize viewers. Each strategy has passionate proponents who will present their viewpoints at the debate, Keller explained.
“We’ve designed The Great Debate not only to be a fast-paced, opinionated session but also to help the iTV industry better understand key strengths and weaknesses of single-screen, dual-screen and hybrid interactive television strategies,” said Keller. “We’re fortunate to have three great debate teams comprised of iTV veterans ready to argue the merits of these respective strategies.”
Panelists will include Channing Dawson, Senior Advisor, Scripps Networks; Lisa Farris, CEO, Get This; Sam Pemberton, CEO, Softel; Debbie Fitzgerald, Principal Architect, CableLabs; Peter Scott, VP of Emerging Media, Turner Sports; and Anne-Marie Roussel, Head of Strategic Investments and Partnerships, Social Media, Sharp Labs.
The two day TV of Tomorrow event is held every spring and is the international gathering place for executives, technologists and creatives working in the interactive and multiplatform television industry. For more information about the TV of Tomorrow conference please visit thetvoftommorowshow.com.
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About Interactive TV Commerce
Interactive TV Commerce is a boutique consulting firm operating at the intersection of television and commerce. The firm develops interactive television sales strategies that increase client sales by driving viewers to act.
Will Keller, president of Interactive TV Commerce, has advised leading companies such as AMC Networks, A&E Networks and United Airlines on interactive TV commerce and marketing strategies. He is the industry’s go-to-expert for innovative t-commerce strategies.
Interactive TV Commerce maintains offices in Tampa, FL and New York, NY. For more information please visit: interactiveTVcommerce.com.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
TVOT has announced the schedule of sessions for the TV of Tommorow Show 2012. See 2012 Show Schedule.
I'll be moderating a rousing debate panel on "Single- vs. Dual-Screen iTV". Here are the details.
WHAT: Sixth Annual TV of Tomorrow Show: The Great Debate: Single- vs. Dual-Screen ITV.
In this year of non-stop political discourse, TVOT sets the stage for a friendly debate between two parties not often covered by the major news networks: champions for single-screen in-program and in-ad interactivity (EBIF and smart TV) and champions for dual-screen in-program and in-ad interactivity (tablets, mobiles and laptops)
The debate, which will also include the views of a third party, will be divided into four hot topics.
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Swing Viewers
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Technological Edge
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A Strong Economy
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Future Vision
WHO: Panelists include:
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Channing Dawson, Senior Advisor, Scripps Networks (The Single-Screen Party)
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Lisa Farris, CEO, Get This (The Dual-Screen Party)
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Debbie Fitzgerald, Principal Architect, CableLabs (The Single-Screen Party)
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Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce (Moderator)
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Pete Scott, VP of Emerging Media, Turner Sports (The Dual-Screen Party)
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Sam Pemberton, CEO, Softel (Third Party)
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Anne-Marie Roussel, Head of Strategic Investments and Partnerships, Social Media, Sharp Labs (Third Party)
WHY: The single-screen party has recently been on the defensive against an onslaught of dual-screen campaigns (funded by a variety of sources), but has charged back with some innovative applications while benefiting from connected-TV buzz at CES. Here's your chance to get heard and make your opinion and your vote count!
WHEN: June 12, 2012, 5:05-6:00 PM (first day of show)
WHERE: Forum Room, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco
Register for TVOT 2012
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
With The Cable Show in high gear, I started the day early and went straight through to closing. Here's a snapshot of key iTV points made by one or more industry experts during the day.
1. Putting viewers in control of how they engage logically leads to giving them a choice of screens on which to engage. Softel's CEO Sam Pemberton underscored this during my one-on-one meeting with him as well as in his demo at Imagine Park of their just launched MediaSphere Bridge Ecosystem, a cool new take on engaging viewers on multiple screens.
2. Viewers sometimes just want to have fun. A&E's Jennifer McNab-Bauman walked me through a surfeit of engaging, fun games for their networks. Nothing too serious but an easy break for someone during the day. And the Softel interactive ad demo featured - what else - a simple game for ad viewers during a Coke commercial (just a demo).
3. All is not equally social. The most intriguing stat of the day was from SocialGuide founder and CEO Sean Casey who pointed at that while sports programming constitutes just 2% of all live programming, their stats show it drives half of all social TV dialogue. See my video below of a portion of his demo. Steve Miller over at AccuWeather is focused on greater integration of social media into the company's weather apps using geo-targeting capabilities.
4. The increasingly rapid evolution of the TV experience in terms of the engaged customer is powered by multiple trends. comScore's Joan Fitzgerald underscored this by citing three key drivers: (i) a vast increase in consumption of online video (see her slide); (ii) rise of social media, specifically usage while watching TV; and (iii) penetration of mobile platforms (smartphones and tablets).
Five iTV Themes from The Cable Show - Day One
Six iTV Themes from The Cable Show - Day Three
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
I'll be reporting and tweeting from The Cable Show for InteractiveTV Today. So if you can't make it, be sure to check out the site's coverage along with my blogs and tweets. For those of you heading to Boston, here's the scoop, including details on interactive TV sessions of interest.
WHAT: The Cable Show 2012.
WHO: A cast of thousands, including TBS superstar Conan O’Brien, NBA Commissioner David Stern and Time Warner Cable Chairman & CEO Glenn Britt.
WHEN: May 20-24, 2012 (with Monday - Wednesday the key days).
WHERE: Boston, MA. Register now.
WHY: Learn by walking the show floor (get your appointments going now), networking at different events and attending educational sessions. I've listed sessions that might be of interest for those of us focusing on t-commerce, social TV and dual screen interactivity.
- Putting the You in UX: Media Gets Personal: Monday, May 21; 11:45 AM - 12:30 PM; Imagine Park.
- Dispatches from Screenland: Television Strategy, Technology and Market Dynamics: Tuesday, May 22; 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM; Room 153BC East.
- Submit Your Application: Business Strategies for a New Era of Cable Interactivity: Tuesday, May 22; 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM; Room 153BC East.
Second Screens: Making the First Screen Interactive and Fun: Tuesday, May 22; 2:15 PM - 3:00 PM; Imagine Park.
- It’s Nice to Share: Television, Social Media and Second-Screen Apps: Wednesday, May 23; 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM; Room 153BC East.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
Think of this month's issue of Inside the Screen as your interactive TV primer for the upcoming Cable Show in Boston, which I'll be covering as press for InteractiveTV Today. Click here:
I've included blogs, articles and upcoming events on t-commerce, dual screen successes and interactive advertising. You'll also find information on mobile commerce which has a lot to teach those of us focusing on television shopping.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
Gilt Groupe Founder Alexandra Wilkis Wilson Discusses the Transformation of E-Commerce
Who: Harvard Business School Club of New York with Gilt Groupe Founder and Chief Merchandising Officer Alexandra Wilkis Wilson.
What: Gilt Groupe is a shopping website that has branched out considerably from its initial insider access to clothing, home decor, gourmet food and wine, travel, and experiences at up to 60% off retail.
Why: Gilt's connection with customers holds lessons for those of us working on television commerce (t-commerce) initiatives. Wilson will discuss:
- How Gilt Groupe is positioned to succeed
- Growth of men’s e-commerce
- Launch of Vente Privee in the United States
- Consolidation of deal-of-the day sites
- Her new book By Invitation Only
When: Thursday, May 10, 2012, 6:30 pm registration and reception, 7:00 program.
Where: SYPartners, 218 West 18th Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues, 10th floor, NYC.
Cost: $15/Members; $40/Nonmembers & Guests; please register by 3pm on May 9th. Click here to make a reservation
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
Here are my 5 key interactive television marketing observations from the Cable Interacts: Crossroads For Innovation conference in NYC (4/5/12), produced by Craig Leddy of Interactive TV Works:
1. MSO Regional Ad Interactivity Becoming Routine: Comcast's Mike Ortman noted that Comcast Spotlight has completed 1,700 campaigns (EBIF) with 4.5 billion impressions and is currently available in 15mm HH and 50 DMAs. Average interaction rate stats: RFI 0.08%; linear to VOD 0.19%; remind / record 0.19%, this last feature proving very popular with programmers and movie studios. Similarly, Time Warner's Chris Faw noted that they have lit up 30 markets with 7.5mm homes and delivered 2.5 billion impressions. Albeit impressions are not the same as interactions but in terms of interactive engagement, I'll take the Comcast percentages. We're a long ways from Canoe Ventures' national ad vision but at least the above efforts keep advertisers engaged and learning.
2. Many Familiar Interactive Advertising To Do's Noted: Platform standards (yes EBIF is alive); scale to attract national advertisers; ability to plug into agency systems; need for greater experimentation by advertisers; lack of business model, particularly one that doesn't disrupt current revenue streams.
3. Comcast's Smart App a Sign of Templates to Come: Ortman mentioned that Comcast's app partner Ensequence will be meeting with programmers to gauge interest in a single-screen interactive template that would aim to increase ratings and in-app ad inventory via a standardized template. I've long argued that given the upfront costs in both time and money required to develop iTV apps, a template strategy (whether across a network, programming group or MSO) makes most sense.
4. Learning by Doing: Hans Deutmeyer of HBO spoke in detail of the premium network's interactive experience for Game of Thrones. HBO built off the first season's web experience to create "elegant but not interruptive engagements" for the iPad. Similarly, History Channel's Elizabeth Braiman leveraged the network's e-commerce strengths when developing its single screen shopping widget with Verizon FIOS and Delivery Agent. The result? Per Braiman, "Through the roof engagement levels...7x more effective than clicking through from the web...average of 5 minutes per visit on widget."
5. iTV Attracting Interest From Other Media Industries: Jeffrey Thompson from Conde Nast spoke about his company's increasing interest in leveraging its editorial expertise, advertiser connections and consumer relationships to create cross-media interactive engagement opportunities. Says Thompson, "Brands will help consumers navigate this disruptive period in media." Companies like Conde Nast have a boatload of well known brands. Now to see how those brands meet the challenge of a digital world and, more specifically, how they contribute to rather than confuse interactive television business models.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.
I knew March Madness was truly on when I ended up at a concert sitting next to a work colleague who was watching the game on her iPhone via Turner Sports' March Madness Live app. This was topped only by her admission that she and several other Kentucky Wildcats fans streamed a game during a friend's wedding reception.
Enabling TV Everywhere for sports fans obviously increases viewing. This makes sense given the DVR downside of inadvertantly hearing scores prior to time-shifted viewing. So what overlapping strategic purposes do interactive television marketing and TV everywhere share?
Let's answer that by scoring some college basketball apps.
From Slam Dunk to Blocked Shot
1. Slam Dunk: The ability to watch on the go with the March Madness Live app clearly cues up more opportunities for fans to engage interactively. First, simply because of greater view time and second, perhaps more important, because second screen devices currently better facilitate interactivity (tablets a case in point). At $3.99 for all platforms (kudos on accepting Paypal), this is a slam dunk even if it did entail a lot of squinting on my phone. CBSSports.com continues to score with free on-line viewing when airing games on their network.
2. Field Goal: With the March Madness Live app, I can easily read player shot stats and game stats and see a pic of a player along with some highlight stats. (I would have liked the ability to delve deeper into individual player histories.) Even better I can view the entire bracket at a glance (on the iPad) along with prior results and upcoming matches and game times. This feature drove incremental viewing for my colleague as she wanted to get a jump on who might be playing her team. Verizon FIOS recently launched a widget that enables fans to see and interact with their own and others' ESPN brackets on the big screen. Read the interview with Verizon and Ensequence at [itvt].
3. Blocked Shot: Via March Madness Live, CBSSports.com or NCAA.com fans could variously follow twitter feeds, tweet support for their team, check-in for a GetGlue sticker, take a poll and post Facebook updates. So tick the box in terms of integrating social media with these interactive platforms. But what I really want is to either follow the experts (CBS featured two on their site) or players themselves or join a conversation with my buddies. The first will inform me and the latter will entertain me. Random tweets from across the globe do neither. Facebook gets me closer but not all my friends appreciate college hoops. Time to curate social media. Google+ anyone?
Stat update per Cynopsis Sports: "The March Madness digital viewing experience provided by Turner Sports and CBSSports.com generated $60 million in ad sales, reports Advertising Age. In fact, ad sales for the web streaming of March Madness has increased each year since, and has nearly doubled the $32 million that was brought in 2009, according to the report. The $60 million figure does not include the revenue from the $3.99 fee that the companies charged for March Madness Live, the multiplatform offering that enabled those who purchased it to watch every game of the tournament online, on smartphones and/or tablets."
I'd encourage you to watch a game or two with your mobile, tablet or laptop handy and see if you agree or disagree with the above points.
Will Keller, President, Interactive TV Commerce, is the go-to expert for t-commerce sales strategy and execution. For more iTV insights, subscribe to Inside the Screen or follow him @iTVcommerce.