There has been a lot of industry talk about the future of television as affected by the expansion of platform choices and technological advancements.
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.