BUSINESS INSIGHTS REPORT: THE FUTURE OF VIDEO CONTENT CONVERGENCE Consumer engagement opportunities in multi-platform video and over-the-top TV

By Keith Johnson

Executive summary

Situation analysis and market context

The Internet era of TV will create mass-market reach. Users are not interested in

device convergence; it is content convergence that counts across multiple

platforms and devices, seamlessly accessed, anytime, anywhere.

Users are not aware of or interested in how their content is delivered and are

increasingly looking for a unified experience that is location independent.

Multichannel, multiplatform video consumption across multiple devices will have

a profound effect on all parts of the content publishing value chain.

We are now entering the Internet era of TV, whereby users can expect an

increasingly on-demand and personal viewing experience.

Multichannel video content delivery

User experience is key. Users will expect the same quality viewing experience on

all three screens (TV, PC and mobile) and content discovery, personalization and

customization will be the main service differentiators.

For TV service operators the stakes are high. Those that execute a converged

content strategy well will be more likely to attract new customers, retain the ones

they have and find new or enhanced revenue streams.

Converging content strategy is a quest for better TV, the seamless experience

created by the integration of broadcast TV, video-on-demand and accompanying

interactive services and integrated web apps all within a televisual feel, navigated

by a remote control.

Over-the-Top TV

Content publishers and brands will emerge as media owners. Over-the-top TV

allows content owners/brands to by-pass existing digital TV platforms and take

their programming directly to the TV screen from the Internet, in effect becoming

a media owner themselves.

The advent of Connected TVs heralds the emergence of TV apps that will propel

web-based services and mobile-like app stores to the core of the TV viewing

experience.

Content discovery through well-structured search and recommendation

functionality will be the key to a successful user experience. If linked to social

networking, video engagement levels will also improve significantly.

A new ecosystem is evolving with the inevitable outcome of making hybrid

broadcast and broadband services a mass-market consumer proposition.

Video monetization

If content is king, the king of multichannel content is video. Businesses will

explore monetization strategies through a process of iterative experimentation to

see what works, and develop improved solutions by analyzing every aspect of the

engagement.

The Internet has not created a global market of content consumers but rather a

mass of content users brought up on ‘free’. User behavior is a leading activity and

monetization typically lags behind.

To be successful, service providers must be able to collect, analyze and track user

data to be able to offer exactly what a given media occasion calls for across all

dimensions of the user experience.

In an increasingly personalized TV environment, where consumers are used to

watching only the content they care about, there is evidence that consumers will

welcome advertising that is also more tailored to their interests.

The future of brand generated content

Over-the-top, direct brand engagement is a new marketing discipline. Brands will

respond to the opportunity for converged, multichannel brand engagement

planning and at the heart of this process will be a strategic branded content

strategy.

Users are looking for some form of participation (content in context), moving

beyond traditional push and pull responses to brands and seeking to interact to

find friendship. Brands must behave and engage in a reciprocal manner for this to

work well.

With most CEOs relying on their Marketing teams to correctly allocate resources,

it is time to acknowledge that over-the-top, direct brand engagement is a new

marketing discipline.

Ad/media agencies need to reassess where their value-add is, as the old-media

model cannot survive. To stay relevant, they will need to invest in technologies

and data expertise.