... TV is next in line for a dramatic digital makeover.

“Linear TV is unrivaled in its audience reach, but various forms of digital video are emerging as efficient advertising channels that enable marketers to target and engage consumers on a deeper level,” according to Stokes. “Forward-looking marketers will shift their approach away from planning silos and form a holistic video strategy that integrates TV and digital video into one team.”

The near-exponential growth in video content is attributed to concerted efforts by top web companies. Along with Yahoo and Hulu, Google recently unveiled a YouTube network of over one hundred professionally produced content channels.

Forrester estimateds that 37 million US households currently own a connected device that enables them to watch digital video on their TV screen, compared with less than 25 million in 2010.

Among these connected households, younger consumers lead the way in gizmo-adoption, outpacing  the overall population by nearly twenty percentage points.

Forrester forecasts that connected device penetration will reach 50% in 2016, further opening the fragmentation floodgates of video consumption options.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... consumers "have a propensity to increase their adoption of online content for video consumption, video games, live entertainment and cultural activities".

Which in plain English means that media companies and cultural institutions face stiff competition for incremental consumer spending unless new business models and “ambitious content” are created. 

Bain’s survey of 3,000 consumers in France, the UK, USA, China and India suggests that a high degree of consumer enthusiasm may have limited incremental profit potential for businesses unless new innovative ways for experiencing content are developed.

According to Patrick Behar, head of Bain’s Media & Entertainment Practice in Europe and lead author of the study: “The permanent media revolution continues but media and entertainment companies must pursue aggressive content development and diversification strategies to unlock new consumer spending.”

Bain finds that the biggest shift in the connected content experience will come in video. Half of respondents in the US and UK intend to rely more on search engines to find content, while one-third plan to use their network of friends to choose their favorite “must see TV.”

The latter figure jumps to 45% for consumers in India and China, although lack of infrastructure will limit the ability of many to view video on connected devices, particularly in India.

Fictional programming also lends itself particularly well to such a transition according to the survey, and our increasing connectedness with the internet could also accelerate the development of short formats born on the web.

Both amateur and professional webisodes have attracted sizeable, albeit still limited, audiences online. Thirty to 45 percent of those surveyed in Western markets expressed interest in such formats on connected devices, though nearly two-thirds are not willing to pay. In contrast, approximately three-quarters of those surveyed in India and China expressed interest in webisodes.

“A majority of consumers expressed an interest in iinternet video at the expense of traditional TV channels,” reports Laurent Colombani, head of Bain’s Media & Entertainment Practice in France and co-author of the study.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... run campaigns on these devices, as well as other connected devices participating in YuMe's Connected Audience Network.

Ad units on the home page and search functions will serve up content. When someone clicks on the ad, the creative either launches a static secondary graphic or provides a call to action that leads the viewer to another site or launches an application. 

According to Matt Durgin, director of North American content partnerships for LG Electronics: "The partnership takes advantage of technical innovation. Consumers can click on the ad on the screen, driven by way of the motion remote. This eliminates challenges in navigating the user interface."

The platform will not serve content in live broadcasts, but rather will bring advertising capabilities into the connected device. Moreover, advertisers will have access to real-time reporting and a host of other features.

The LG ad platform, powered by YuMe’s ACE Relevance Engine, manages publisher ad inventory to optimize ad CPMs and supports a variety of ad sales models, including YuMe’s Connected Audience Network.

Advertisers can run campaigns on these devices, as well as other connected CE devices participating in YuMe's Connected Audience Network.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... that's a fourfold increase over the current levels. "Quad play bundling has had a slow start in the US, but we see increased momentum over the next five years," says Piper, who cites AT&T, Verizon and Cox Communications as some of the companies currently offering quad play services.

Right now a surprising 57% of US households are considered "multiplay"; in other words subscribing to more than one entertainment or communication service from the same provider.

AT&T, for instance, says more than 75% of its U-Verse TV subscribers receive that service as part of a bundled offering.

Although "quad play" services will increase over the next five years, the packaging of three service types will remain the dominant bundle, believes Piper.

While many of these packages will initially be discounted offerings to consumers, the true marketing opportunity will come in building a relevant consumer brand that people will trust for all their varied communications and entertainment needs.

Speaking to Marketing Daily, Piper opines that "bundling will certainly be driven by discounting, but branding also plays a key role.

"We have long said that it is the perception of value that motivates customers to churn. The success of the bundle will depend on service provider's ability to 'articulate this value."

While bundling services presents an opportunity to retain wavering customers, the practice also presents a greater risk to service providers should a customer find any one of those consumer experiences lacking.

Warns Piper: "When a customer decides to break up, it's generally the entire customer relationship that goes out the window, not just a piece or part. In a survey we just fielded of US households, bundled subscribers were only slightly less likely to 'churn' [quit] than non-bundled. Again, it comes down to branding and communicating a message of value to the subscriber." 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... traditional TV is still by far the most popular medium for consuming video content, remaining so for years to come.

But new technologies and changing consumer behavior patterns are already transforming the TV and video ecosystem — indeed, most of the ecosystem's future revenue growth will be derived from the wide variety of new screens and nonlinear services on which more and more video is being watched.

Urges Booz: "All companies with a stake in the ecosystem must plan now to develop strategies to win a share of that growth and to preserve the value they already have."

To read the full Video Space Odyssey, click here.

Alternatively, view the company's analysis of the future byond US shores: European TV and video scene.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... press a button in the application whilst watching the commercial in return for a digital coupon redeemable locally for a free 20-oz. beverage. 

The technology, SoundPrint, automatically identifies live TV content -- plus any previously aired content from the past five years.

The clunky first version of the application that rolled out in January invited users to tag the identified content to discover what friends watch on TV, initiating a conversation around a shared interest.

The latest version, however, tags the television ad and generates a barcode on users' mobile devices. By identifying the device's "unique identifier", the application will generate one coupon per mobile number.

Moreover, the app now runs on iOS devices such as iPad and iPhone -- and within the next two months the company aims to launch an application for devices running on Google's Android platform.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

 ... applications that run on a PC or an iPad, instead of a scrolling page of links.

The web standards that make these new designs possible, HTML5 and CSS3, have been in circulation for a couple of years now. But as yet few web developers have started to build next-generation websites.

Urges Walid Abu-Habda, corporate vp for developer platform evangelism at Microsoft: "People need to get into it right now. You can either lead or follow. I prefer to lead."

Easier said than done, say some web developers at this week's Microsoft's MIX 2011 show.

According to Jim Kilty, director of software quality assurance at San Diego software firm InnovaSystem, his company is not yet building websites with the new web standards -- despite being "really excited about HTML5."

"It's more like interacting with an application than a web experience, which people equate with something more boring and mundane."

Abu-Habda predictably and loyally disagrees, insisting that next-generation web standards will take off sooner rather than later: "I think it's going to be months, not years. It's not going to be ten years out."

It depends, of course, on how you define "take off".

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... broadcast and cable television -- a battle it can win only if the new service succeeds in inveigling viewers into remaining on the YouTube site for longer periods than at present. Another hurdle will be that of persuading advertisers that YouTube's programming will reach desirable consumers.

On the drawing-board are a series of changes to the site's home page, promoting a range of 'channels' dedicated to topics such as arts and sports. Around twenty of these channels will present several hours of professionally produced original programming every week, while yet more channels will be cobbled from extant site content.

Insiders told the WSJ that Google/YouTube aims to spend up to $100 million on low-cost content designed exclusively for web viewing.

Meantime Larry and Sergey's spokesfolk were coy about commenting on the new venture, seeking refuge from probing reporters with a classic non-sequitur: "YouTube saw incredible growth in 2010 and we're excited about the future," ducked and dived a Google PR hack.

Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that YouTube is now the world's third largest website in terms of unique monthly visitors, generating around $544 million in net revenue in 2010. Projections for 2011 envisage net revs of around $800m.

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

Asia, especially the single-fastest and largest market: China which, according to Pyramid, is set to surpass France as the largest IPTV market by the end of this year.

China Telecom is already the biggest worldwide single provider of IPTV and the research company predicts that over half of all IPTV subscriptions worldwide will emanate from Asia by 2015.

By way of comparison (per SNL Kagan), there currently are 6.9 million IPTV households in the USA. This equates to around 15% of the global total of 46.2 million.

However, other recent reports regarding IPTV growth have been less bullish.

UK-headquartered IMS Research estimates the current global market at around 36.5 million and has hailed IPTV as "the platform of the future." Nonetheless, it is cautious about future growth rates.

The firm calculates that the platform's subscriber growth over the next five years will hit around 70 million - significantly below Pyramid's best guess of 138.6m.

MarketingTomorrow.com will continue tracking forecasts for the IPTV platform. Check-in regularly for updates.
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.

... the introduction of mobile technology. Specifically near-field communication, which uses similar “wave and pay” technology to the Oyster card on London Underground, is starting to make headway in mobile phones, already appearing in the latest Android device, Samsung’s Galaxy S, and rumoured to be coming in the next iPhone 6.

“As mobiles become payment devices, the ability to buy off a poster in a bus shelter or a shopping mall is going to be transformative,” says Eccleshare. “We will see a shrinkage in the total number of outdoor fixtures and panels but an increase in quality in the way in which consumers interact with those panels.”

Although he dismisses recent stories about billboards recognising facial expressions as a “little gimmicky”, Clear Channel is already offering free WiFi on buses in Hong Kong and even putting wireless in bus stops in other regions.

New eye-tracking technology – involving paying people to wear special glasses as they walk around a city – is also helping to measure the impact of outdoor ads, which Clear Channel argues is less interruptive and annoying than online pop-ups or TV commercials.

“I get the sense it is all coming together,” Eccleshare says. “Convergence is starting to happen and this year we are going to start seeing some real breakthroughs in that, in terms of providing real revenue and a real business model. Technology is transforming our rather old-fashioned business and I can now see – which I couldn’t a year ago – how over the next five to seven years, it’s going to become really significant.”
 

Factual data only is sourced from the original attributed article. The data is then enhanced by additional research and comment.