Social commerce TV is the next advent of our industry, and MediaMind is already at the forefront of this new-media frontier. Are you ready for the convergence collision? Read on for why you have no choice.
In a presentation titled the "Convergence Collision," MediaMind's global director of media innovation, Dean Donaldson, dazzled the Spotlight audience at the iMedia Agency Summit by highlighting the quickly approaching turning point in digital's history as television and mobile technology converge in the most optimum way for consumers and advertisers alike.
"Within a very short period of time, the TV will become a giant iPhone," was the enduring point of Donaldson's presentation, which brought the audience through a touch-point review of how quickly, and how far, these two technologies have progressed, and the phenomenal opportunities their union will bring to the digital advertising industry in terms of the next evolution of display ads, rich media, video, out-of-home, search, and dynamic advertising.
"Social commerce TV is the next advent of our industry," Donaldson said. "Everything we know about media will change with the next generation of mobile media."
Representing the largest independent ad server, MediaMind, which covers demand-side platforms, rich media, and much more, Donaldson recounted how being laid up with a broken leg at his parents' home in the U.K. brought him that much closer to envisioning the future marriage of mobile technology and the enduring power of television.
"That's when the remote control becomes your best friend," Donaldson said, describing how his growing reliance on the remote got him wondering how to get the content from his mobile device onto the main television screen in an earnest desire for media and technology convergence.
"The whole notion of three screens totally changed," he said. "We were all fighting over the main screen, this prime real estate, and flicking content onto it, and then something changed for us as a family unit -- media suddenly ended up on a box."
As Donaldson predicted mobile devices and the television becoming one -- within a very short period of time -- he also stressed that this convergence will be an advertiser's bonanza -- social media, rich media, and the PC overlayed with television as the ultimate digital convergence.
"The notion of channel surfing is dead," he said. "You already know exactly what content you want to consume -- 86 percent of channels don't get accessed on any given plan, and consumers don't want to pay for what they aren't going to watch."And because we know that content drives advertising, we know that television is going to become another app, especially as 4G takes off.
"What if your remote control knows you, knows what you really like?" Donaldson asked the audience. "Interacting, sharing, buying what you see, when you see it, and your friends are always with you."
With global mobile revenue expected to soar to $264 million within the next few years, and one-third of all global ad spend going to digital media, the migration is underway, and it's time to start rethinking mobile advertising, what the device does, and how to control content and media, Donaldson said. Traditional television is still a dominant platform, but as soon as you bring technology into the home, consumption doesn't go down; it becomes more customizable to the consumer.
"Television is no longer just a monitor; it's a function, a geography, a source of social and media interaction," Donaldson said. "Everything will eventually become television."
Gretchen Hyman is editor-in-chief of iMediaConnection.com.
