Has Apple re-enabled ‘Connected Ads’ with ShazamKit?
Apple have announced a lot of great new software features at their Developer Conference WWDC21.
One that stuck out as particularly interesting was ShazamKit. We at Intrasonics have been keenly waiting to see what Apple will do with Shazam’s technology and this was the first serious glimpse of an unfolding strategy.
In addition to Shazam’s party trick of solving the “What am I listening to?” problem, ShazamKit allows developers to build their own catalog of media to match against (albeit locally on the consumer’s device rather than sending a query hash to the server).
This capability enables second-screen interactions like the ones shown in the WWDC21 session video — use cases mocked up included synchronising presentations for students and making TV “shoppable”.
Client-side matching is a smart move for Apple here, and not just for technical reasons. It also dovetails nicely with their focus on privacy. They can genuinely say that no audio samples leave the device.
Shazam-enabled Ads
Back in 2012, ITV (a leading commercial UK terrestrial TV broadcaster) signed a deal with Shazam to provide interactive TV advertising to the then 10M app users.
There were early reports of success at transitioning consumers online with one ad campaign delivering more than 20% more interest than from other sources.
Now, with Shazam’s technology embedded at a deeper level within the iOS platform, it should be possible to ‘catch up’ on interactive ads at a later date.
I can imagine it being possible to click on items in a rolling list of interactives accompanying ads to which the consumer has been passively exposed.
This puts less pressure on the consumer to fumble with their phone and scramble to act in the moment, instead empowering them to follow up at a more convenient time.
Attribution
Monitoring ad exposure with Audio Matching has its drawbacks, however.
Because no additional information is added, there is no broader context for the match. It’s therefore not possible to distinguish live from recorded content, nor attribute listening to a particular channel.
As the Connected Ads concept gains traction (and with Apple’s announcement we’re sure it will get a boost) the need for finer grained monitoring that scales becomes clear to see precisely when and where ad spend is most effective.
Audio Watermarks
In 2018 I wrote an article promoting the idea of Connected Ads, suggesting Google was well-placed to profit from the sizeable terrestrial television ad revenue spent away from its platforms.
I described how Intrasonics audio watermarks provide unambiguous, real-time attribution and a mechanism to elegantly transition users from one screen to another. Consumers are sent directly to review purchase options without the need for a disconnected search potentially leading them to a competitors website.
And, just like ShazamKit’s custom catalogs, the Intrasonics SDK detects audio watermarks on-device too, even offline. No audio leaves the device.
What’s more, with Audio Watermarking SDKs for iOS, Android and the web, Intrasonics offer a greater potential reach than Shazam.
Intrasonics JS Decoder works in Safari, Firefox, Chrome across both desktop and mobile. It’s 100% Javascript. No extra software, plugins or browser extensions need to be installed by consumers — so long as they have a microphone they’re ready to go.
Shazam-enabled Ads: Take Two ?
So, now Apple have seemingly more deeply integrated Shazam into their iOS, iPadOS and MacOS, I wonder if we’ll be seeing a return of the Shazam-enabled TV advert. This time with much less for the consumer to do to start interacting with related content on their device.
And, to give commercial broadcasters like ITV less to do, Intrasonics offer a complete end-to-end audio watermarking solution. From dedicated hardware to embed watermarks in real-time to live transmissions, to our second-screen engagement platform Hyperchannel we are able to offer the toolkit required for:
- Interaction & Loyalty
- Advertising & Shopping
- Analytics & Attribution
We warmly welcome Apples announcement of ShazamKit, and look forward to seeing what creative and engaging second-screen content emerges from advertisers and content creators in the coming months.
Intrasonics
Intrasonics, based in Cambridge UK, is a leading global provider of audio recognition technology.
Our audio watermarking and fingerprinting tech is widely used for audience research, synchronised apps and interactive toys.
We are market leaders in providing the tools (SDK, Software/Hardware Encoders) required for audio recognition and response triggers to help our customers monetise on the moment of engagement. Our technology has been fully protected by more than 20 patents in this area.
Further Reading
- https://developer.apple.com/shazamkit/
- https://www.intrasonics.com/
- https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10044/?time=207
- https://econsultancy.com/itv-to-launch-shazam-enabled-ads/
- https://medium.com/intrasonics/can-audio-watermarked-connected-ads-reverse-the-drop-in-tv-ad-spend-and-help-save-commercial-tv-8df06fa3a94b
- https://webdec.intrasonics.com/
- https://www.hyperchannel.com/
