• by Chase Martin , June 22, 2016

There appears to be a disconnect between media and entertainment companies and consumers using IoT products.

At least that’s the conclusion of a new report by EY (Ernst & Young) focused on the impact of the Internet of Things on media and entertainment.

The major hurdle for media and entertainment companies is the lack of consumer understanding of the Internet of Things, according to the report.

With limited access to data and feedback from consumers, media companies are seen as not fully engaging in the platform.

One of the key issues identified is the leveraging of location data, such as from all kinds of smart and connected devices.

“Think about the sensors that exist in our lives today, in the home ,” Howard Bass, global media & entertainment advisory leader at EY, told the IoT Daily. “Sensors know how many people are in the room or the emotional state of those people.

“Content presentation will adapt at scale to those data points,” Bass said. “If you walk into a room and you’re with your kids and we know that from the sensor data, we might pop up content that’s relevant, that’s appropriate for your kids.”

The report suggests that media companies should create new experiences for consumers based around IoT products already in use to spark consumer interest, and ultimately gain the insight needed through engagement data.

For now, the top areas for consumer interest in connected homes are appliances, security, energy management and other monitoring.

The study identified three key areas for media and entertainment companies to focus on to better leverage IoT:

• Personalization at home and on the road -- Using data from sensors can trigger more contextually relevant ads, but the execution needs to be practical. Outside of the home, connected cars provide a potentially massive market for media companies. Some projections estimate the number of connected cars in the U.S. to nearly triple by 2019 to more than 50 million vehicles and with this comes an expanding platform of channels to communicate with consumers. One such channel that media and entertainment companies should focus on in the connected car segment is video. As cars become automated and the time spent by the driver shifts from driving to watching video content, EY estimates that the video industry could see more than a $20 billion increase in revenue. Other interaction points in the connected car include dashboard interfaces for accessing email, music streaming and social networks.
• Authentication and Verification to create and protect personal profiles -- The Internet of Things could replace passwords through connected sensors that automatically connect consumers to their personal portal on any platform. Gone will be the consumer pain-points of remembering log-in information to connect to TV services on mobile, tablet, etc. IoT sensors and scanners will be the secure keys connecting paying consumers to the content service providers, but not just on their personal devices, on any device.
• Wearables – The growing wearables market provides massive amounts of new kinds of data for marketers. The value that this data will drive in the IoT era is providing context for media consumption metrics, rather than the current sample-based measurement systems. The data coming from wearables could help media companies determine why consumers are watching their content and even with whom they are watching, according to the report.

The opportunity comes with some associated risk, however. The challenges and risks identified in the report include regulatory hurdles, privacy, cybersecurity, possible new legal precedents, intellectual property rights, lack of  standards and scaling to reach critical mass.

The key is that the customer experience can be affected.

“One of the challenges for media and entertainment companies scaling the capabilities that IoT presents is the challenge of consumers opting-in and letting companies use that data to help improve their experience,” Bass said. “If we’re not careful with how we use the data, we can actually create a worse experience, one that actually interrupts the consumer's experience.”

And all of this isn’t happening in the future, according to Bass.

“Absolutely, it’s now. In June of 2016, there are deals being cut by service providers, agencies, etc. This is not three or five years from now, it’s happening today.”