What Happened
Mobile-based livestreaming continues to gain momentum as eight brands – including Taco Bell, CoverGirl, Verizon, and Pepsi – sponsored branded Periscope streams for this Sunday’s VMAs on MTV channel. Though not the first time brands have sponsored a livestream, this is definitely the largest one in scale so far.
While existing livestream apps such as Meerkat and Periscope captures their feeds from the phone’s cameras, Japanese mobile game maker DeNA is looking to flip the script by allowing easy streaming of one’s screen display. Last week, the company announced Mirrativ, an Android-based livestreaming platform that essentially brings Twitch’s interface to mobile, as it uses the phone’s camera and microphone to capture the stream host’s face and voice while also capturing what’s on the screen’s display.
What Brands Should Do
As livestreaming continues to evolve as an emerging media platform, we expect to see more brand opportunities and content formats arise as experiments continue. Mirrativ, while positioned as a game livestreaming app, could easily be repurposed for live app demos or customer services a la Amazon Fire’s real-time Mayday tech support. And branded livestrreams during big media events offer brands a great shortcut to get their content in front of a mobile audience in real time. Therefore, brands that wish to stay connected to today’s mobile-first consumers would be wise to start exploring the vast potential this nascent media platform holds today.
Source: AdWeek & VentureBeat
