Tag: ott

Amazon Brings In-Flight Binge-Watching To JetBlue

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
JetBlue first announced its plan to add Amazon’s Prime Instant Video and Prime Music service to its flights in May. Now the airline says that the streaming services are available on the majority of its WiFi-enabled planes. All JetBlue passengers with Amazon Prime memberships on those planes will be able to access Amazon’s media library for free, and non-members will still be able to purchase videos and songs a la carte from Amazon’s services.

What Brands Need To Do
This deal marks the first time Amazon has partnered with an airline to power an in-flight entertainment service, which should help to expand the reach of its OTT content. Passengers confined to their seats make great audience, and now Amazon will be there to capture their attention. Other media and entertainment brands should consider similar partnerships to make their content more widely accessible and attract a new audience.

Source: TechCrunch

NBA Content Is Coming To Verizon’s Go90

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Verizon is adding NBA content to the lineup of its streaming service Go90, as the telecom giant inks a multi-year marketing and content deal with the basketball league. This pact will grant Go90 users access to some live games as well as highlights and original NBA programming. Moreover, viewers will be able to buy individual games via NBA’s “League Pass” programming with Go90’s a la carte option.

What Brands Need To Do
As we wrote when Verizon launched Go90 this summer, Verizon stands to offer brands strong targeting tools on Go90’s ad-supported platform by combining its vast amount of consumer data with the ad tech it acquired from AOL. By adding premium content such as live sports to its platform, Go90 should be able to draw an audience sizable enough to warrant ad buying. Therefore, brands need to be mindful of the great advertising potential it presents.

 

Source: AdAge

CBS Gets Serious About Its OTT Streaming Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Yesterday, CBS Broadcasting Inc. surprised the “trekkies” with the announcement of a new Star Trek TV series. More surprisingly, however, is how the broadcaster plans to distribute the long-awaited TV reboot. Reportedly, CBS is set to air the premiere episode on TV in early 2017 but will be putting all remaining episodes exclusively on CBS All Access, the subscription-based OTT streaming service it launched last fall.

Market Impact
Covering all CBS’ current content and back catalogue, All Access currently has about 100,000 subscribers, a number that pales in comparison to the likes of Netflix (69 million subs worldwide) and Hulu (9 million). As a longstanding Sci-Fi franchise, Star Trek has built up a sizable number of devoted fans over the decades, a fanbase that CBS is clearly betting on to fuel the growth of its fledgling streaming service.

With more and more attention shifting from linear TV viewing to on-demand streaming, it makes sense for CBS to take proactive measures and leverage the enduring popularity of Star Trek franchise to raise the profile of its streaming service. Whether other networks will follow suit and start developing high-profile content exclusively for streaming platforms remains to be seen, but in the long run, this will likely prove to be a smart move for CBS.

 

Source: The Verge

Amazon To Launch Shopping Channel On Fire TV

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has been the undisputed leader in ecommerce, but can it conquer TV shopping as well? After quietly rolling out buyable banner ads on the homepage of its Fire TV set-top box in the past few weeks, the Seattle-based company announced on Wednesday its plan to launch a QVC-style home shopping channel exclusively on Fire TV. Expected to roll out sometime next year, the channel will allow viewers to purchase products directly from the screen.

What Brands Need To Do
Amazon enjoys some unique advantages in transforming TV into a direct sales channel, given that it can seamlessly integrate ecommerce functionality into the Fire TV devices by syncing up users’ Amazon accounts and enabling one-click purchases. The new Apple TV, which hits retail this Friday, allows ecommerce brands to reach viewers via dedicated apps. For brands that are currently selling on Amazon, it may be worthwhile to tap into these new TV shopping initiatives to get a better understanding of the emerging shoppable TV experience.

   

Source: GeekWire

Google Brings Podcasts To Google Play

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google is ready to challenge Apple’s close ties to podcasts, whose name derived from Apple’s iPod. The Alphabet company is readying the launch of a dedicated page for podcasts in Google Play, allowing podcast creators to upload content directly to Google Play Music. Podcasts will also be included in the Google Play Music app, making it the first first-party app for podcast listening on Android devices.   

What Brands Need To Do
Thanks to last year’s surprise hit “Serial” from This American Life, podcasting has been enjoying a surge in audience interest and resultingly, marketing opportunities, where brands aim to reach a targeted audience of specified interests with sponsorships and native ads. Earlier this month, Coca Cola struck a content deal with iHeartMedia to produce a coke-branded music podcast to target teens. Google’s added support for podcasts on Android devices will no doubt help further expand the reach of podcasting and solidify its status as a burgeoning marketing channel.

 

Source: Re/Code

Time Warner Cable To Introduce OTT TV Packages

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Time Warner Cable (TWC) is set to test a new Internet TV service in New York City this week in a bid to stop hemorrhaging cable subscribers. Designed for users who only signed up for Internet service, TWC will be offering a “Starter” package at an additional $10 per month that covers all broadcast channels. Interestingly, TWC will also be giving out Roku 3 boxes for free to these customers, truly bringing TV into the OTT era.

Market Impact
In August, the cable industry suffered a massive stock sell-off triggered by the increasing momentum of cord-cutting. In addition, a new report from Forrester Research found that cord-nevers – people who have never subscribed to a traditional pay-TV service – now make up 18% of the U.S. population. The study also estimates that by 2025, half of all TV viewers under age 32 will not be paying for cable TV subscriptions. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for TWC to start experimenting with selling TV packages as an add-on to its internet services in order to adapt to changing viewer behavior.

Currently, Dish Network’s Sling TV remains the only widely-available Internet TV service on the market. Comcast recently launched its OTT service Stream, which allows subscribers to stream select TV content on mobile devices only, while Cablevision started selling “cord-cutter” internet packages that come with antennas and subscriptions to Hulu and HBO. But with Apple’s TV subscription service set to launch in 2016 and now TWC jumping onboard, the battle for retaining TV subscribers and, more importantly, selling TV packages to cord-cutters and cord-nevers, has just begun.

 

Source: Engadget

CNN Enters Content Marketing With New Video Platform GBS

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Earlier this week, CNN announced its plan to launch a digital video platform named Great Big Story (GBS) that targets millennials with “three to five non-fiction videos per day” that caters to the interests of “urban, globally curious 25-to-35-year-olds.” CNN plans to rely on Facebook, YouTube, and an upcoming GBS mobile app as its primary means of distribution, with an app for OTT streaming platforms like Roku and Apple TV coming next year. The news network indicates no immediate plans for display advertising or pre-roll commercials on GBS, but focusing all initial advertising efforts on branded content instead.

What Brands Need To Do
By launching GBS, CNN is effectively building a young-skewing content platform to go after the content marketing dollars, which puts them in direct competition with the likes of Buzzfeed and Vice. For brands, it’s time to recognize the rising importance of branded content, especially videos, in reaching today’s younger, tech-savvy audience and start to team up with media owners to create quality content that people want to watch and share.

 

Source: AdAge

This Presidential Election Will Be Live Streamed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Tuesday’s Democratic debate drew a record 15.3 million live viewers for CNN. More impressive, however, is the number of people that watched the debate via CNN’s live streaming feed via its mobile apps, website, and Apple TV channel. According to CNN, viewers peaked at 980,000 concurrent streams around 10:20 p.m., topping the 921,000 peak concurrent streams CNN had for the first GOP debate last month, and setting an all-time record for a live news event.

Industry Impact
Political campaign ad spending has been historically crucial for the media industry in election years. But this time around, we may be seeing a significant portion of the ad dollars shifting toward digital and mobile. In fact, according to expert estimations, ad spending will top $4.4 billion for the presidential race, of which digital spending could take up about $1 billion in 2016, a staggering 576% growth over 2012. As livestreaming continues to evolve as a legitimate alternative to live TV, we expect to see more brand opportunities and content formats arise.

 

Source: Variety

Comcast Integrates Digital Videos Into Its X1 Cable Box

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following the launch of its OTT video service Watchable in July, Comcast continues its attempt in broadening its content offering by adding digital videos right into its X1 set-top box. Bringing in short-form videos from a number of content providers, including ABC, Discovery, AMC, BBC America, and its subsidiary NBC, Comcast’s digital content mostly consists of clips of news and sports at the moment. While it probably won’t be enough to convince the customers considering cord-cutting to keep their service, it does offer a nice complement to the existing living room viewing experience.

What Brands Need To Do
With consumers of all age demos excluding baby boomers now watch as much digital video as television, traditional media companies are starting to recognize the importance of digital content in reaching the increasingly fragmented audience today. In August, Comcast invested $200 million in BuzzFeed via NBCUniversal, making a play for its viral digital content. As the audience continues to migrate towards OTT on-demand platforms, marketers and brands will have to follow the eyeballs, as well as developing a more comprehensive digital strategy and campaign approaches.

 

Source: Engadget

Hulu’s Virtual Reality App Coming Next Month

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Hulu is ready to step into virtual reality. The OTT streaming service has made a VR app set to launch next month, around the same time Samsung’s consumer-facing $99 Gear VR headset starts shipping. Hulu is the latest video streaming service to develop VR experiences to distribute their content. The app will provide users with customized immersive environments to watch Hulu’s existing non-VR content in, such as sitting in Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment for an episode of “Seinfeld.” Moreover, the company is also producing a VR short film called “The Big One,” and reportedly has more original VR content in the pipeline.

What Brands Need To Do
Virtual reality technologies bring a unique, immersive viewing experience to the audience, so it makes sense for the OTT video streaming services to get serious about VR for an extra competitive edge. And unlike Netflix or other popular OTT video services, Hulu is ad-supported for the most part, which opens doors for brands to get on board with their own VR content. As VR sits on the cusp of mass adoption, brands would be wise to explore this burgeoning medium to stay ahead of the curve.

 

Source: CNET