Spy In The Room – Is Your TV Watching YOU?
April 30, 2012
By Tom Mountford | 3 Comments
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Of the earliest days of television it is rumoured that a not insignificant number of the population believed a television set could allow the broadcaster at the other end to spy into their home.
Television was such a mammoth technical feat it is perhaps understandable that TV sets were sometimes a rather unsettling addition to the living room. Of course, the idea that my harmless friendly telly could act covertly and report my activities to distant unknown power is laughable… isn’t it?
Recently a London voucher code site put out a hoax video for a product named ‘Hearscreen’. The imaginary product placed microphones in televisions and using voice-recognition the system would display discount-code ads based on what viewers were talking about. Sounds frightening, yes? Well – isn’t this what Facebook already does? Post a status on Facebook mentioning a brand-name or a keyword such as ‘pizza’, ‘beer’ or ‘holiday’ and you’ll notice Facebook has been ‘listening’ to your updates – contextual ads will begin to appear based on what you’ve said. Translating this contextual model to television isn’t at all far-fetched. Net-connected TVs will have installed microphones (for both Skype and voice-controlled apps) and IP-based transmission networks make it relatively easy to deliver different ad-breaks to each user. But of course – is there really a market for such contextual ads? I mean, would Facebook or Google also like to take a big slice of the global TV advertising market? Would advertisers and agencies like to make broadcasting their TV commercials internationally as simple as running an Adwords campaign?
Contextual advertising that’s based on real-life conversations happening ‘in earshot’ of your television will become reality, and I can see it being here within the next five years. Naturally there will be concerns for privacy, cries that big-brother is listening in on household conversations – but the operators will undeniably claim, “You’ve been telling Facebook everything for almost a decade – so, what’s different?”
I’m interested to hear your views on the future of television advertising. Will TV ads remain a medium to reach millions of viewers in one hit, or is the future going to be more selective and tailored, moving further toward the remit of search-marketing businesses than traditional media-buyers?
Comments (3 Comments)
Re: Spy In The Room – Is Your TV Watching YOU?
Key difference is one is an active process, and the other passive. Facebook advertising relies on the end user providing information to which it can then tailor experience.
Any passive action would instantly fall foul of existing privacy laws. A good example of this was the impact on Apple when it was found that IOS4 was recording gps location passively.
What I do believe will occur is a combination of existing technologies merging into one. The TV that allows you to “tag” those watching the TV via Facebook and other means, and subsequently providing the means for multi-broadcast advertising and detailed statistics for those behind the adverts. The question will be how to entice those watching TV to tag themselves as doing so? A greater level of interaction between what is being broadcast and those watching is most likely.
Jon CC April 30, 2012 at 2:10 pmRe: Spy In The Room – Is Your TV Watching YOU?
Absolutely Jon, I think any ‘listening’ would be an opt-in process (with a million and one caveats about data collection as you point out). More likely perhaps would be that connected TVs will use the stored information of a viewer’s browsing of the EPG and their viewing history to tailor the delivery of ads as per browsers/cookies, the argument being that cable/satellite providers already collect return-path data from viewers’ boxes. This would build upon the current method of placing ads on channels where the programming matches the demographic the advertiser is trying to reach. Advertisers always welcome more refined stats from their broadcast exposure.
Apps such as Zeebox are an interesting tie-in, but at present very much about optional interaction with linear programming than tailoring experiences though data-collection, although when these apps integrate more seamlessly with smart TVs and aggregate the data from both, well…
Tom Mountford May 1, 2012 at 8:33 amRe: Spy In The Room – Is Your TV Watching YOU?
Interestingly, this morning I was tipped off about ‘Google TV Ads’ – currently only available on American TV networks it allows the Google AdWords interface to book airtime on national and local cable channels. As with AdWords, an advertiser can simply determine a budget, pick the audience demographic (or individual programme) that needs to be reached, upload the ad and launch it on TV.
Tom Mountford May 2, 2012 at 9:25 am