Commentary
The Future Of The Big Screen: Strategist Stu Rodnick Talks TV
- by Charlene Weisler , Op-Ed Contributor, September 5, 2017
Stu Rodnick, founder of the strategic advisory firm Three Screen Nation, has years of experience as an entrepreneur, business strategist and consumer marketer, with a specialty in identifying the opportunities created by digital innovations and demographic shifts.
He learned early on that household databases are the bedrock for marketers to deliver meaningful and measurable messages.
Rodnick expects that the growth of connected TV will “offer a utopian environment for marketers to deliver ad experience that provide utility and interactivity to consumers, fulfilling many of the long-hoped-for possibilities of digital-aided marketing.”
He shared with me some of his opinions on the subject of television.
Charlene Weisler: First off, what is your definition of TV?
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Stu Rodnick: The big screen through which the majority of our video content is viewed, and a key influencer of our pop culture.
Weisler: Do you think programmatic will help or hurt the TV economic model?
Rodnick: I’d expect both, because while it would be more profitable to keep the status quo, the reality is that the market is changing due to technology. And with content viewed across many different platforms, it’s necessary to have programmatic technologies to automate processes and enable the advanced targeting and measurement capabilities that digital supports so well.
Fortunately for television, there are lots of learnings already in place on what works and what doesn’t work with programmatic technologies and business models.
Weisler: How can we best facilitate cross-platform measurement?
Rodnick: It's necessary to deploy multiple approaches, because there is no easy solution. Likely a combination of working with the incumbents, licensing cable and wireless carrier data, and investing in new approaches that rely upon transactional databases.
Weisler: How can the Internet of Things help in TV measurement, if at all?
Rodnick: With audio watermarking offering promise as a proxy for viewership, there should be a way for consumers to be compensated to share data collected on mikes from their smartphones, watches or connected TV devices.
Seems like an area filled with opportunity, and Alexa-like devices offer the potential to measure viewing behaviors in ways that were not previously possible. We need to recognize that the voice assistant market is still at a very, very early stage. And Amazon has been smart to enable all Fire branded products with Alexa, doubling down on its first-mover lead.
Weisler: What will be the state of TV in the next five years?
Rodnick: The app phenomenon will carry over from smartphones to televisions, as internet-connected television reaches significant penetration levels. This will lead to more and more of our viewing experiences being controlled by apps over the next few years.
We’re already starting to see this trend take place. And we can expect it to accelerate across the mass market as apps are better integrated into televisions and game consoles, become integrated within set-top boxes, remotes and voice assistants, and sales of stand-alone internet-connected devices keep increasing.
With around 80% of our mobile time spent using apps, we already know that consumers love this sort of navigation and are used to it. The future of TV will be highly influenced by software and the simple and elegant experiences it provides for audiences.
Charlene, did he explain what he meant by audio watermarking serving as a proxy for "viewing".
Hi Ed,was speaking to possibility of voice assistants being able to recognize an audio signal (within their 40 foot range) and provide insights into how people are engaging with video content. As the voice assistant market takes off, lots of opportunity for innovation here.
Thanks for that explanation, Stu. I tend to get nervous whenever I hear of any electro- mechanical surrogate for "viewing" which, as I'm sure you know, is a very ill-defined and often a very subjective or impressionistic description for consumer involvement with TV/video content. Having no other recourse, Nielsen lets its panel members self-define what "viewing" means whenever they attend the set and tune in some program. Perhaps that was a sound decision after all.
I tend to agree Ed.
While it is a subjective criterion it is consistently subjective. That is, if someone in the room considers that they are watching they log in, and if they consider that they aren't they don't log in.
The alternative definition that we use in Australia is present in the room with the TV on and with the content audible. Personally, I think that the key is 'audible'. As my Mum used to say ... if you've gott that TV blaring then you're watching it (at least in part).
Hi John, with so much in flux, who knows how this all evolves. Yet, at the least, voice assistant technologies should be revolutionary in that they are always capturing audio feeds & conversations when they are powered on (no log-on required).
Also plays to tech giants analytical strengths to monetize audio feeds & connect to other data sets, including Amazon's transactional data in US. Sure, tradeoffs when appending behavioral databases to gain deep insights. And, can be complimentary to panel data, which has its own problems.
I only partially agree Stu.
I have no doubt that the technology is capable of such granular recognition and differentiation - just like facial recognition can.
The issue is whether people accept that . I go back to a recent MediaPost discussion around Nielsen's 'Passive' PeopleMeter back in the early '90s. When we showed it here in Sydney the general feedback was that the industry people were impressed with the technology but that praise was generally followed with ... but I wouldn't want that it my home.
While it may be OK in the living room, ask yourself would you want that in your bedroom?
Plus it would need to be on every video capable device.
I remember when I purchased one of the early Samsung connected TVs with the in-built camera and voice recognition it was fun to play with but after a while it just became a pain. Sure enough I disabled all those features and didn't miss them - though the dog did as he seemed to quite enjoy making the TV turn on and off because there was another dog just like him on the screen.
John, you make a good point about the acceptability of technology which impacts panel cooperation rates. Even if the methodology seems to a scientist to be not very intrusive---or even totally passive----that's not the way it appears to many people one would like to recruit as panelists in order to gain a representative sample. Which leaves us to speculate on what kind of person would sign up for such a panel? And whether such people might over represent those who are tech-inclined while under representing many who are not. Also, I have reason to believe that Nielsen's peoplemeter panel has more heavy viewers than it should and fewer light viewers; If a newer and tech-advanced system were substituted it might garner the opposite profile---more light viewers than should be there due to the appeal of "new" technology to such people. Finally, there is the issue of maintaining the devices. As I recall, Nielsen loses about 15% of its peoplemeter panel weekly due to malfunctions and other issues. Could we expect an even greater breakdown rate or panel avoidance rate for a more complicated system?
John, Ed - you both have extensive knowledge on this topic and raise valid points about consumer acceptance of their conversations & audio being captured + analysed.
It's orwellian. But, consumers have looked past or not considered all the privacy issues regarding data, when they activate the voice assistants. Upon accepting terms of service, voice assistant manufacturers have access to audio data, so opt-in isn't necesary to at least utilize it.
New frontier when mics are in people's homes, doing way more than answering simple questions via AI.