People 'confused' by connected TV technology claims BARB CEO Bjarne Thelin
The television industry is not “as crystal clear as what it might like to think it is” according to CEO of BARB, Bjarne Thelin who has admitted that the general public is confused about the advent of connected technology.
Speaking to The Drum after his forum event at Apps World last week, Thelin said BARB research has found the population at large is “confused” by new services and technology. “The phrase Connected TV, or even Smart TV, doesn’t mean anything much to them [the public] at the moment, most of the time people are not sure of what they’ve already got.”
He added: “People can even not be absolutely sure who they get their services from, Sky or Cable or Virgin Media or BT Vision, and it’s because sometimes these brands are present on different services. So there isn’t clarity in people’s minds about the access to the TV services that they have.”
As more and more Connected TV’s and Smart TV’s flood the market Thelin advises what the industry needs to remember is “sometimes people just want to buy a telly, and having all these different propositions which have slightly different functionalities and names creates a bit of a puzzle.”
He continued: “one of the challenges the industry has got to be able to address and deal with is simplifying what the proposition is…it’s a very dynamic marketplace out there but also I think that potentially leaves greater challenges in the customers understanding of what the equipment actually does.”
Thelin said that he believed that; “there is a clear issue for the industry to look at and work through” suggesting “a more uniform technology that kind of sees things operating in a similar way” as a possible solution. He explained that “simplification is needed to make things easier to use. Communication of the functionality that exists also needs to be made easier and possibly on branding as well.”
At this year’s ad:tech London, Shazam’s Miles Lewis raised his scepticisms over Connected TV and how it would work, expressing his view that people simply don’t want things like social networking on screen whilst they watch with their families, Thelin though remains more hopeful commenting: “I think the jury is out on which devices, which applications and which TV services are going to be extensively used.”
Connected TV image courtesy of Shutterstock