Interactive TV Moves to Second Screen

New Mobile-Device ‘Tags’ Link TV Ads, Shows to Online Content

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 7/18/2011 12:01:00 AM

Call it over-the-top TV advertising.

Companies including Shazam Entertainment, Invidi Technologies, IntoNow and Spot411 Technologies are pitching TV networks and advertisers on a new way to deliver interactive content to viewers — via smartphones and tablet devices, not through a cable or satellite set-top box.

Shazam, whose apps identify songs based on their audio fi ngerprint, is making a big bet on TV. The Shazam app takes five to 10 seconds to identify the audio in a TV show or ad (which has been ingested and processed ahead of time), then offers various options to the user, such as calling the advertiser, watching a video clip or entering an e-commerce site.

Since launching in February, Shazam for TV has reached more than 100 million people and served 5.5 billion impressions, according to executive vice president of advertising sales Evan Krauss. Advertisers that have aired “Shazamable” ad campaigns include Honda, Starbucks, Paramount Pictures’ Transformers 3, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance.

LESS INTRUSIVE

“Using remote-based interactive TV is more intrusive,” Krauss said. “We’re all sitting there on our couches with our iPads, iPhones and Android devices anyway.”

Last month, London-based Shazam raised a $32 million round — funding to be used to support Shazam for TV — led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), with existing investor DN Capital participating.

In the initial campaigns, 0.3% of viewers accessed the Shazam-enabled commercials, triple the average online click-through rate of 0.1%. Of those viewers, 27% either shopped, downloaded the song featured in the ad or viewed additional content, according to the company.

NBCUniversal is using Shazam for TV across NBC, USA Network, Syfy, Bravo, Oxygen, Telemundo, Mun2, CNBC and MSNBC. For example, the programmer has included Shazam tags in Oxygen’s The Glee Project, Syfy’s Alphas and Bravo’s “Summer by Bravo” promo commercials.

“Strategically, networks are all looking to provide deeper engagement with their programming, and to increase their [Nielsen] rating by getting people to tune in live,” Krauss said.

Shazam’s pricing for TV advertising is an additional 25 to 40 cents on top of the ad unit’s cost per thousand (CPM). With networks it charges differently, in some cases offering flat-fee or revenue-sharing models.

Spot411 is taking a similar approach with TVplus, which also uses audio recognition to let any Internet-enabled device with a microphone ID a television program or movie. According to the Orange, Calif.-based startup, TVplus can identify to within one second of the exact location of a program, providing real-time contextual content or ads on the second screen.

TVplus was selected as the “best new idea” out of 11 presentations by attendees of Cable- Labs’ Winter Conference in February.

YAHOO JUMPS IN

Yahoo has entered the space as well. In April, it bought IntoNow, a seven-employee startup that developed an iPhone app that identifies the TV show a user is currently viewing based on the program’s audio.

IntoNow launched Jan. 31, 2011, with a database it claimed indexes audio from more than five years of U.S.-based TV programming. The app uses a “sound print” to identify content down to the airing, episode and time within a program as well as provide program information and links associated with it.

Meanwhile, addressable-advertising technology vendor Invidi has spent two years quietly developing its own TV tagging system, dubbed SnapPing. It hasn’t launched yet, as the system undergoes final testing, but will eventually be accessible through iPads, iPhones, Android devices and at SnapPing. com.

Unlike other approaches, SnapPing lets viewers identify content using a “Snap- Tag” not only via audio recognition but also speech, text entry and image recognition — a distinction Invidi president and CEO Dave Downey said is crucial.

“Our research proves that audio detection is not enough,” Downey said. “It is a nonstarter for adults over 35, and it is limited to situations where audio detection can work.”

According to a $250,000 focus group study Invidi commissioned, consumers strongly preferred speaking or text ing the SnapTag into a device, with Shazam-style audio recognition a distant third. Invidi is refining the format for the SnapTag, but Downey said it will work with both live or recorded shows.

Krauss, though, maintains that Shazam has a big head start over rivals. Shazam serves 4 million lookups daily, and 150 million people have used the apps to date.

“We have a huge user base,” he said. “The technology is done. The question is, what kind of experience can you offer after you ID the content?”