The Connected Consumer: Insights, honesty and unknown unknowns!

David Brennan, Founder of Media Native, summarises his key take-aways from MediaTel Group’s packed Connected Consumer conference yesterday at Merrill Lynch.

I knew we were entering a new era when MediaTel’s MD, Derek Jones, introduced yesterday’s conference by pointing out that the title had changed, from ‘Connected Television’ to ‘The Connected Consumer’. It signalled media silos were out and convergence was in, and the impressive list of speakers and panellists continued this theme with a series of strong opinions, enlightening insights and bouts of rigorous debate.

The first panel addressed the question ‘How do you reach the connected consumer?’. Panellists included Dan Saunders (Samsung), Anna Bateson (YouTube), strategist and author Michael Bayler, former COI Media boss, Mark Cross (now founding partner of Equal and Tamsin Hussey from Joule. There was a consensus that the consumer isn’t quite as connected as we would like them to be, and some work would have to be invested into persuading them to expand and increase the frequency of their connected experiences.

There was a sense of ‘mea culpa’ as the limitations of the current user experiences were picked over and the gap between technologists’ aims and consumers’ needs was illustrated, but there was also optimism from the panel regarding how technological innovation could make the connected experience more satisfying and efficient.

The fact that the connected consumer can achieve a connected experience on more than one screen was not lost on the panel, although it was pointed out that each device creates a different context and will be used in different ways. In particular, the mobile screen was seen as offering a major opportunity for providing more TV-related second screen activity (whereas currently around 75% of the time it is used as a distractor). Other key insights to emerge from a lively debate included;

• There are two eco-systems working in parallel in many living rooms; a macro system (‘big’ media like TV) and a micro-system (based on more one-to-one experiences such as social), and although they converge occasionally, there is actually relatively little overlap between them (Michael Bayler)
• We need to distinguish between content choice selection and consumer journeys (Dan Saunders)
• Behavioural economics is finally coming to the tech space, with Mark Cross applying many of the theories he learned at COI to the realities of human behaviours in the connected world

The next panel looked at business model and platforms. There was a strong sense of the replacement mindset which has previously dominated the technology industry – whereby the new simply replaces the old – itself being replaced by a much more nuanced eco-system perspective.

So, Damien Read of BT Vision informed us that the two most popular TV ‘apps’ are live pause and programme recording, (echoed by Nigel Walley of Decipher, who added that most mainstream innovation is broadcast-centric whereas most technologists have an app-centric perspective). Emma Scott of Freesat pointed out that most research focuses on what we watch, whereas we should really be focussed on how we watch.

YouView was discussed and even Walley, who has consistently predicted that it would struggle due to its launch delays, talked it up, pointing out that it has far less applications than the average SMART TV but it had the apps that people want (all the main catch up players).

Indeed, simplicity of choice was considered vital for platforms in the emerging digital landscape, along with compelling content, strong brands and bundling opportunities (in that order).

My one complaint about this fascinating session was that the debate about platforms did not really have time to consider the business models. In particular, I felt that the perceived downward pressure on licence fee, advertising and pay TV revenues was not really tackled, possibly a sign that the panel felt the outlook was more rosy than many pundits are predicting.

The third session – chaired by Graham Lovelace while Ray Snoddy had a well-earned break, looked at how content would be discovered, distributed and shared in the connected world. A presentation by Andy Littledale of SecondSync gave some fascinating insights from analysis of Twitter activity during programmes, including the differences between women and men (apparently women anticipate, men commentate, according to the two examples he presented).

The expert panel all gamely confessed to having missed some of the big trends of the past decade, including the success of YouTube, social media, tablets and mobile transactions; admissions which made their subsequent comments all the more credible. Much of the debate centred on social TV, pointing out that around 40% of peak-time tweets are TV-related.

It was also pointed out that social TV is nothing new, and the question arose as to whether it is even a sign of engagement, with Peter Cowley of Spirit Media pointing out that programmes should not put off the 90%+ of their audience who are not interacting simply to embrace the latest technology. That said, the consensus was that social media and TV are perfect bedfellows and social TV offers an opportunity to turbo-charge behaviours that naturally occur around TV viewing.

Second screening was also discussed and again enthusiasm linked to healthy scepticism framed the debate. The benefits of shifting and synchronising content across screens were clear to all panellists, but the lack of a creative link in many multi-screen applications was indicated and Jonathan Allen, Sales Director of Channel 4, pointed out that the opportunity cost of not putting second screen investment into the first screen content should be taken into account.

Tom Weiss, formerly of TV Genius, also helpfully pointed out that not all TV content is appropriate for multi-screening – such as subtitled films. Finally, the opportunities afforded by the EPG were discussed, where it was noted that the schedule grid is still ubiquitous in EPGs, despite many other alternatives having been tested. The power of channel brands, choice architecture, the importance of what is on now and the inappropriateness of open-ended search for TV programme choice all meant that EPGs need to work alongside the schedules, not against them.

Last, but not least, the issue of metrics.

At most conferences, this would be a graveyard slot, or if held at the end of the day, on the assumption that half the audience would bunk off early. Not MediaTel conferences. It was telling that this session elicited some of the more feisty comments from the panellists.

It began with some fairly philosophical musings from Jean-Paul Edwards from Manning Gottleib OMD – a futurologist for almost two decades, much to the amusement of moderator Ray Snoddy – who commented that we have both too little data and too much, and we need to sort out the noise from the significant. Videology’s Rhys McLachan suggested it is less about the data than the storytelling, and Sky’s Jamie West and outgoing BARB CEO Bjarne Thelin put forward a vigorous defence of the TV ratings system.

The debate heated up when Rhys suggested BARB was rapidly becoming anachronistic, and airtime deals should be based on payment against agreed effectiveness measures, as the data is readily available. Media-centric measurement would become redundant. Feedback from the floor (yes, including me) pointed out some of the inherent problems in such a solution, but there was at least consensus that BARB’s role was constantly evolving.

There was barely enough time for topics such as addressability (exciting, but not going to fundamentally change the way TV works), privacy and personal data (could be a challenge to data collection) and data convergence across multiple touchpoints, but the panel gave it a good go.

And then to drinks. It was a packed agenda, providing lots of interesting insights. But, just like the panel members who bravely confessed to not seeing some major media shifts coming, there was a strong sense – often expressed – that there are more unknown unknowns out there to keep the debate sparking for some time to come.