Thursday, October 24, 2013

The future of TV advertising is here

When we launched TOK.tv a year ago, my only focus was on understanding what users would do with our app. A year later, I believe we know a ton about that - although there is a lot more to discover - and we also have traction (thanks Juve ;-)

The next step, of course, is monetization.

At this stage, I am more interested in understanding how people will react to a commercial on a second screen, rather than actually making money. I have yet to see a study on how a TV ad can be made "clickable" on a second screen. Personally, I believe this is the future of TV advertising (which still represents 85% of all advertising, BTW).

TV advertisers spend one million dollars for a SuperBowl ad, and they do not know who is watching it, what they like and they have no way to get a feedback from viewers. TV ads are not clickable today.

If I am watching a game on TV and I have TOK Baseball open, when the commercial break starts, the game stats are not that interesting. What is interesting is the actual commercial (at least, some of them). What if I could click on them, when I see something that I like? What if I could get to a web page and interact with that brand?

This, for me, is the future of TV advertising. A multi-billion dollars opportunity (the ad market is $200B a year ;-)

Guess what? The future of TV advertising is here.

If you download TOK Baseball and use it during a game of the World Series tonight, you will see it. During commercials, a thumbnail  of the ad you are listening to will pop up in the bottom right. In the example below, the TV is showing a Dodge ad (one of my favorite ones).


When you click on that thumbnail, a webview will open, bringing you to interact with the ad on the Dodge web site.


The nice thing is that you do not have to exit the app, or stop talking to your friends. Actually, you can talk with your friends about the ad itself - which is pretty cool.

Ad most watched last night? Verizon Stars Wall Halloween.

Ad most clicked last night? Chrysler 'Road to Greatness' Featuring Miguel Cabrera.

This is just the start of the revolution. Stay tuned.