The Future Is Experience — CES 2020 Insights From Team Kast
In the beginning of January, CES is the place to be for tech people to boost those new year’s energies with some inspiration and industry insights. And that’s exactly what the Kast team gained attending the CES Digital Hollywood and Future of TV conferences.
Let me share my key learnings from the talks I’ve attended focusing on the current state and the future of streaming and advertising on such platforms. I was particularly happy to see that even though it was not a User Experience (UX) conference, a consumer-first approach and empowering experience teams were still at the core of most of the talks.
2020 is the year of the Chief Experience Officer
Predicted by Andrew Solmssen, President, Wunderman Thompson, this means that CMO, Customer Service, Design, Community, and Product all report to CXO. This really hits home for us at Kast because we have organized our company exactly this way from the very beginning.
Being the CXO at Kast, leading customer service, community management, marketing and product development teams as part of the Experience, I couldn’t agree more that User Experience is key and a consumer-first approach is the way to go. As Alison Levin, VP, Ad Sales & Strategy at Roku said on stage: this way, everybody wins.
A great example of UX being critical to success was mentioned by Samantha Cooper, Executive VP of Partnerships & ViacomCBS in relation with Pluto TV’s recent acquisition by Viacom. Pluto has 20 million monthly active users, thanks to its frictionless entry to the app (there is no need to sign up to use the service) and its sleek UI that people just love.
Time is ripe for TV disruption
Disruption of TV was one of the hot topics at CES. Even though it is something that’s been predicted for a long time, it seems like now the time is ripe for disruption to actually happen.
Consumers are getting fed up with having to have too many subscriptions. The model where cable companies sold bundles used to work very well for the companies themselves, but it’s no longer working so well for the customers, said Rich Greenfield, co-founder of Lightshed Partners. Cord-cutting is still on the rise as people are taking matters into their own hands: they want to be able to choose exactly what they are paying for and opt for services that empower them to do so.
Meanwhile, advertisers are increasing non-linear budgets to reach the growing mass of cord-cutters in a more effective, more personalised, all in all smarter ways. But this one is a slow process.
Smarter ads in a non-linear space
Even though 30% of viewing time is used in non-linear TV, only 1% of advertisement budget is spent there — these numbers were mentioned in multiple panel discussions. Interesting, right? Advertisers still grasp onto linear TV ads, even though it’s getting more expensive and its reach is declining. Non-linear TV ads are still uncharted territory for most of the big spenders with some brave explorers leading the way.
Deborah Wahl, Global CMO of General Motors said they are shifting significant advertisement dollars to connected TV (referring to platforms such as Hulu or Roku) and more companies need to think this way. Ad inventory in non-linear TV has to improve, said Rich Greefield and advertising needs to get smarter as premium subscribers are buying their way out of ads.
Alison Levin added that there is an unwritten contract between consumers and the platform that ads seen in this setting should be more relevant, more personalised than the ones seen on regular TV, since the platforms know way more about their viewers. And this is something that Roku is already experimenting with with brands that are open for these solutions — for example showing a battery ad after the viewer received notification of their remote’s battery getting low.
Having more personalised ads also help the brands gain some love, as their target audience will encounter them in a more meaningful way, leaving a bigger impact — said Kate Brady, Head of Media Innovation & Partnerships, PepsiCo. Instagram is a good example of a highly personalised ad environment — this can be a model streaming services should also pursue.
Data and measuring the impact of ads are critical: analytics and creativity need to go hand in hand, said Deborah Wahl. And with having vast amounts of data comes great responsibility towards privacy. Advertising, just like everything else on streaming platforms should be permission based, human and built with respect to the end user.
Influencers and communities
A buzzword of the past years, the influencer phenomenon may have already reached its peak when it comes to fast growing numbers in followers and reaching the masses effectively. Now it’s more about cultivating more intimate connections within communities, having real conversations and spending quality time together. We, at Kast are all about this notion. We are enabling small private parties with friends and people to care about, and this is the way we see ourselves going even more. Instead of one individual broadcasting themselves and their ideas to the masses, we’d like to see communities growing where each and every member can share their content and ideas if they wish.
After an event like CES, I always feel overwhelmed by inspiration, full of great ideas and I’m led by strong desire to keep experimenting, pushing the limits and bringing home as much as I can to pass onto my team. Seeing how the things that some of these trends and insights imply are already integral parts of our mission and work at Kast, this year I came home even more hyped and feeling reassured. I feel like we really are onto something and I am excited to see Kast growing under the principle of putting experience and our community first while finding the best ways to monetize to keep on going.
2020, Kast is ready for you!
