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COVER STORY
APPLE versus GOOGLE Over 50 million connected TVs will be sold worldwide this year
By 2014 this figure will rise to 130 million, or 60% of total sales
By Cary Songy, Interactive Director for Ames Scullin O’Haire
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pple wants your TV to be a closed system, highly controlled by Apple; Google wants your TV to be a reflection of the open system of the web. I’m not so sure that one is better than the other. If consumers want personalized experiences, shouldn’t the consumer determine which system works best for him or her at that moment? Google TV will work with a consumer’s cable box, allowing search not only of the web, but also of all the shows available on cable television. That’s a clear advantage for Google. But Apple is introducing a rental model for shows and movies, which is appealing because you won’t need space to store all that content. You just rent them when you want to watch them. And then there’s the ease-of-use for all things Apple. Consumers do love that. Which will be more successful: Apple TV, Google TV or another format? In an era where technology and technological strategies change by the day, it is too early to predict any clear winners in this interactive TV battle. Our challenge, as advertisers, is to understand the consumer’s lifestyle and engage with messages that are personalized and appropriate for the consumer. The Apple model allows us to tap into the alreadyestablished millions of iTunes users. The Google model naturally fits our TV guide ‘searching’ habits. Which will win? Maybe I want both. Maybe neither.
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that over 30 million connected TVs will be sold worldwide this year – equivalent to 18 percent of total TV sales – and that by 2014 this figure will rise to 130 million, or 60 percent of total sales. And although only 0.7 percent of the 90 million TV households in the US have so far cancelled their pay-TV subscriptions in favor of relying on receiving services over broadband, the trend is clearly growing. Kurt Scherf, VP and Principal Analyst for Parks Associates, believes that nine percent of US pay-TV consumers have a strong inclination to cancel their subscriptions in the next 12 months. What is more, he says, 10 million households in the US will be linking PCs to TVs to watch web video at the end of the year. “Many households are working with devices they already have to get the connected TV experience, which shows strong future demand for connected TVs, webenabled Blu-ray players and networked digital media players such as Apple TV and Roku,” he says. Over threequarters of US households with PC-to-TV connections and one-third of Xbox 360 owners are using these connections to stream online video. These households, as they extend online video and other web experiences to the TV screen, are laying the foundation for future behaviors with connected CE and entertainment services, says Scherf. “Connectivity is becoming standard in consumer electronics products,” he says. “Manufacturers and service providers should examine these consumer behaviors closely, so they can match their current and future connected offerings with actual demand without pricing themselves out of the market.” “Consumers are becoming more accustomed to personalized experiences in many aspects of their lives, not just in consuming media,” agrees Cary Songy, Interactive Director for Atlanta, Georgia-based advertising agency Ames Scullin O’Haire. “A more interactive experience with television is simply a natural evolution that is part of the greater experience of personalization happening everywhere on the internet.” And in terms of the looming battle royale between Google and Apple, Cohen for one feels we’re still very much in the early stages of seeing what each has to offer. “They’re trying to figure out what is the best case for their users, and I think you’ll see them both clarifying their position in the next few years,” he says. “Once they do that, both will probably grow in a big way, and you’ll start seeing them converging and competing with each other much more fiercely.” The fusion of the web with the largest screen in the home is often called the Holy Grail for both the consumer and media owner – because the content and advertising options are endless. Is the age of TV over? No. It’s just entering a new phase of its ever-upwards trajectory. “My feeling on it is that in less than 10 years time, all televisions will have an internet connection on them,” concludes Kelly. “And I don’t think that’s a particularly bold statement. It’ll be cheap enough to do so, so it’ll happen.”
05/11/2010 16:50