Clear Channel - Transforming Technology by Clear Channel

CONTENTS 1

BETTER WAYS OF DOING THINGS

TECH TO WATCH IN 2016

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

CREATING THE FUTURE OF MEDIA, OUT OF HOME.

Welcome to Transforming Technology, a report based on our first Thought Leadership breakfast of 2016, brilliantly chaired by LJ Rich, presenter of BBC News’ tech show, Click. LJ gave us her take on the tech that could transform our industry – tech she’s experienced around the world, including visits to future media labs in Japan and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). We then gained the perspective of leading industry figures in a stimulating panel discussion which focused on the future while being firmly anchored in the present. As a business we’ve been around for 75 years. Much has changed, and much is changing. That change is being driven by consumers who are more tech-savvy and demanding of advertisers. Brands are adapting to meet the needs of this new breed of consumer, and we in turn are offering advertisers new ways of reaching and engaging people using digital screens, mobile interaction and a smart content and inventory management system. We know from our audience insight community, Ngen, that consumers are more selective about the media they engage with and more adept at screening out irrelevant advertising. Witness the rising use of adblockers, a trend explored in our panel discussion. Consumers will increasingly value personalised media, and, as LJ says, experiences “that best fit their lifestyle”.

Advertisers and brands are looking to us to provide data that will personalise campaigns, and more intelligent systems that will deliver clear ROI. We are delivering on all these fronts, and more, as we lead the digital transformation of our industry, creating the UK’s largest and most advanced digital advertising network. Finally, we ALL need to be thinking about our transformation, and coming up with better ways of doing things. We want to work with our partners to keep improving our offering to advertisers. Please get in touch with us with your innovation suggestions and help us create the future of media, Out of home.

Chris Pelekanou Commercial Director, Clear Channel UK

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

BETTER WAYS OF DOING THINGS.

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TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

TECH TO WATCH IN 2016.

LJ (Laura-Jane) Rich is a presenter, writer, producer, musician and selfconfessed ‘geek’, best known for her role covering tech trends and gadgets on BBC News’ Click programme. Starting out as a musician – she started playing piano at the age of three and has perfect pitch – LJ quickly developed a taste for music technology. After a degree in music she worked as a touring musician and as a sound engineer before moving into TV.

As well as Click, LJ has been a guest on the QVC shopping channel covering gadgets and consumer electronics. LJ is a regular blogger on the world of technology, and speaks at events on latest consumer and technology trends. Along with her work in front of the camera, LJ runs her own music production company and occasionally writes restaurant reviews. And, when she has time, she’s also an inventor.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

LJ Rich chaired our Thought Leadership breakfast looking at the technology that could transform Out of Home. Before the event we asked LJ for her views on the future of media. Q: What are the big tech trends we need to be mindful of? LJ: Technology is getting better. We all know this. You can do more with it. You can be more pervasive, more persuasive. A lot of younger people right now are experiencing the potential of mobile technology. There is a massive expectation now from our mobile devices. This amazing, slim, sleek piece of technology is quite incredible, but we’re still annoyed when something doesn’t work exactly how we expect it to work. Technology is becoming more invisible. We’ve got AI (Artificial Intelligence – see Page 12), and things like deep analytics. Sometimes a certain website can work out what products I want before I even want them. It’s probably looking at more datapoints than even I could consciously look at, and it can serve me something after picking up nuances from Facebook, Twitter … places where I throw all of my data. And also based on other consumers and what they’ve seen, where they’ve been, what they’ve bought.

‘Products and services are only one thing. The future for me, I think, is experience’

Q: What will connected behaviour look like over the next 15 years? LJ: Right now we mainly touch a screen and get pictures and sound as a response. What if you could transmit more than pictures and audio? You can now be scratched by your cat through the internet [using an experimental device invented at Japan’s Ochanomizu University]. This is a little way off, but the ‘tactile internet’ is being championed now. I have no idea what you would do with the ability to touch your end user, but it’s certainly something worth exploring! Then there’s Project Soli (see Page 18) from Google. This is where screen size might become less important as technology advances.You don’t need to touch things, you just have to be near them. That could have massive implications for a poster site: it means you could actually interact with something without needing to touch it, and maybe more than one person could do that. So if user interfaces are changing then user experiences are changing too. For those of you who haven’t tried it, VR (Virtual Reality – see Page 16 ) is incredibly immersive and interesting. I really think there’s some opportunity here for advertising. The technology is now fast enough to promote incredible experiences. Tech like Microsoft HoloLens for instance – you wear a form of headset and it overlays

things in real life. Imagine being able to play with reality … this is a mixed reality scenario. There’s the idea here that you could walk through something in virtual before doing it in real life. I think that’s just fascinating! Technology is creating a reality that’s indistinguishable from real life – a virtual Out of Home. For brands that means the potential for data gathering and tailoring experiences. In a game – such as say a virtual rollercoaster – you have advertising billboard opportunities. But say you’ve got 32 seats in a rollercoaster ride then you’ve got the opportunity to personalise advertising inside a VR headset for 32 people – and if you’ve got access to analytics as well then you could say “well you clearly like these things from your Facebook profile so we’re going to offer you these particular brands”. We are moving towards soap operas where the main character is YOU! With virtual reality you get the passive nature of absorbing entertainment and the involvement and immersiveness of gaming.

Products and services are only one thing. The future for me I think is experience. Our experience of something is so powerful that we actually make these neurological changes where we go ‘I’m not going into shop A, I’m going to go to shop B because last time …’. It could have been an experience with one person that changes our buying habits. People are voting with their wallets. There is a rising middle class. People want experiences that best fit their lifestyle. It no longer means best price, it means tailor-made personalisation. There’s a consumer dichotomy going on: ‘I don’t want to share my data, but I do like free stuff’; and ‘I don’t want banners everywhere, but I like to have content’. Beacon tech is interesting here – a lot of people know about the tech but haven’t actually interacted with it. Loads of retailers are doing very interesting stuff, where you walk into a store and you get things sent to you. As an experience there’s something going on that’s definitely worth investigating.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

Q: What are your views on advertising? How is it changing? LJ: We’ve got two kinds of advertisement at the moment – the John Lewis Man in the Moon style campaign that says ‘this is an advert everybody! Advert! Advert!’ and then we have much more subtle placements of brands, like a Dell computer in nearly every Netflix original movie. Then there’s the power of people to advertise to each other … the idea of ‘subtle endorsement’. In William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, which I massively recommend, one of his characters meets someone in a bar and they have a casual conversation and they reveal that they are being paid to talk about a particular brand in this casual context. There’s something really odd about that, because I think it’s happening right now.

cientists, philosophers, writers and mathematicians have long predicted a time when machines could make sense of their environment, learn from their experiences, communicate … and, ultimately, think. The term ‘artificial intelligence’ was coined in the 1950s at the advent of modern computer science. As computational power increased so too did the capability of AI systems. The big advance came in 1997 when Deep Blue, a chessplaying computer developed by IBM, beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov. In 2011, another IBM computer, Watson, which could understand and answer questions posed in natural language, defeated two champions of US TV quiz show Jeopardy! Today, AI systems are embedded in many everyday devices and internet services. When you ask Siri a question on an iPhone you’re

interacting with an intelligent personal assistant that adapts to your speech and learns your online preferences. Google is applying AI to search, especially ambiguous queries that its vast ‘brain’ has to make sense of in a fraction of a second. M is Facebook’s answer to Apple’s Siri and intelligent personal assistants from Microsoft (Cortana), Google (Google Now) and Amazon (Alexa). Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made AI his 2016 personal challenge. He’s starting with an AI system that will run his home – controlling “music, lights, temperature and so on” and letting friends enter “by looking at their faces when they ring the doorbell”. According to Zuckerberg that self-coded system will also help him with his work, building “better services” and leading “more effectively”.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

eacons (or iBeacons, as Apple refers to them – Apple pioneered the proximity technology in 2013) are small, low-cost transmitters that broadcast signals and data to smartphones and tablets (running on iOS and Android) within a certain range. Beacons use a form of Bluetooth called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to transmit a unique identifier which can pinpoint the mobile device’s location and trigger an action within a location-based app – such as receiving a notification. The combination of proximity technology and mobile marketing is giving rise to ‘proximity marketing’. Retailers are using beacons to send vouchers and other targeted in-app promotions to potential customers. Customers in a store can use beacon technology to find their way around (GPS mapping apps often do not work inside large

buildings), and make mobile payments. Beacons have been compared to NFC (Near Field Communication – the tech used for contactless payments). The big difference is range: NFC works within 20cm, whereas beacons can transmit up to 50 meters. Beacons offer brands a new opportunity for mobile engagement, allowing them to deliver contextually relevant and personalised messages. Beaconenabled digital screens and poster sites allow consumers to interact with brands, increasing the effectiveness of the advertising. Beacons also generate real-time analytics and data which can be used for targeting.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

BEACONS.

irtual Reality (VR) systems offer an immersive user experience, placing the user in a real or imagined world and allowing them to move within in it and interact with other lifelike characters and objects. VR experiences are either displayed on a screen or a head-mounted display, kit that was first developed by the gaming industry in the 1990s. Several next-generation VR headsets are being released in 2016: • Oculus Rift, developed by Oculus VR, the tech start-up acquired by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014, is now available pre-order. Headsets will ship in March, priced $599 (around £420). Users also need a high-end PC. • Sony PlayStation VR. Currently in development and awaiting a release date. Sony says the visor-style PlayStation VR will create “two sets of images: one for the headset and one for a TV, so everyone can join in”. Users need a PlayStation 4 games console. • HTV Vive. Due to be released in March. Users need a high-end PC. Samsung already has a VR headset on sale: the £90 Samsung Gear VR, which is made by Oculus. The headset works with Samsung’s latest smartphones only, there’s no support for Apple iOS devices. The user’s smartphone provides the Gear VR’s display and processor.

If £90 is too much of a financial stretch, then Google has the answer: the £10 Google Cardboard. As the name suggests, it’s a cardboard viewer which works with both Apple iOS and Android smartphones that pop into the self-assembled, entry-level VR viewer. There’s plenty of VR content on YouTube, and the YouTube app has a feature offering a VR-like experience for any video. Augmented reality (AR) systems apply a computer-generated virtual layer over actual reality. It’s therefore a blend of virtual and real, hence AR is said to offer a form of ‘mixed reality’. AR experiences have been offered on computer screens, smart glasses, smartphones and headmounted displays. Scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle are now working on a display that could one day fit in a contact lens! AR systems are powered by computer vision, the ability of a machine to see and make sense of a scene and objects within it. Within that technology is object recognition, the ability of the machine to identify an object. Several AR systems and applications are available. They include Blippar, a mobile app that overlays the physical world, captured by the device’s camera, with digital content.

That content is unlocked when the camera scans an image – it could be an Out of Home poster, a magazine or newspaper ad, or even product packaging – that contains a ‘marker’. Microsoft HoloLens is a headmounted display (Microsoft uses the word ‘headband’) due to be released to developers in 2016. The device has been designed to blend real world sounds and images with augmented content – Microsoft calls the 3D overlays ‘holograms’. Users interact with holograms using voice and gestures.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

VR AND AR.

roject Soli is a tiny chip unveiled in 2015 by Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Advanced Technologies and Projects (ATAP) group which introduces a new touch-free user interface. The chip uses radar to track hand positions and finger movements. Advanced computing then translates those precise movements into gestures and commands that can control smart devices. The use of radar is significant: unlike cameras that are used for other motion sensors, Project Soli chips can detect motion through objects.

The technology is at an early, experimental stage. It is potentially suited for a wide range of devices, such as controlling smartwatches, smartphones and tablets without having to touch them. Google plans to release a developer kit so developers can invent new applications. Project Soli presents an opportunity for Out of Home: radar chips could be embedded in digital sites, allowing consumers to interact with advertising and their devices without touching any screens.

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PROJECT SOLI.

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Clear Channel invited leading industry figures to give us their perspectives on the big tech trends that could disrupt the media sector over the next year. They joined staff in The Playground at CC HQ for a thought-provoking breakfast debate, chaired by LJ Rich.

Chris Pelekanou Commercial Director, Clear Channel UK Toby Gunton Head of Innovation, OMD UK Glen Wilson Managing Director, Posterscope Andrew Newman CEO and Co-founder, DOOH.com

Q: What is the biggest threat and the biggest opportunity that new technology presents to the media sector over the next 12 months? Chris: Consumers are in complete control. They want to do things when and how they want, in a very flexible manner. The notion that they can be dictated to and have things pushed at them is just ridiculous. In media we have been very used to owning the relationship. Historically, we’ve been the conduit and link between consumers and brands. But now brands have a very direct route to consumers. So, arguably, you could say that everything becomes a medium of some sort, and that becomes a challenge for many traditional media owners. Toby: The Gartner Hype Cycle tells us we get a trigger moment when a technology is released, prompting huge excitement and hype beyond belief, but that’s soon followed by the ‘trough of disillusionment’ – that moment when you realise that 3D printing hasn’t changed the world. I think a lot of the technologies that we are looking at now might well be really important to us but I don’t think they are necessarily important to us in 2016. From a wider media point of view, the very specific challenge at the moment is online adblocking. It doesn’t affect you guys [in Out of Home] so much, but adblocking has been something that people are getting increasingly concerned about. By June last year, in the UK, 15% of adults were using adblockers. By October, it had increased to 18%. Among 18 to 34-year-olds, 35% are using

adblocking software and now Apple has allowed adblocking on iOS devices. So suddenly this is a really big issue. But it might be the kick we need to create better media experiences. We know from research what is driving uptake and what we need to do to solve the problem. Fundamentally, we need to be thinking about a term that we use a lot, and excuse my language, but we talk about ‘givea-shit-ability’. In everything that we do we need to ensure that our audiences, our consumers, actually give a shit about it. The way we phrase that nicely with our clients is ‘earning a share of people’s lives’. So in the old days everything was about share of voice. We used to have our clients come to us asking “what’s my share of voice versus that of my competitors?” And it got to the point where it’s all well and good having share of voice but if you are shouting at a bunch of individuals who aren’t interested in what you’re saying then it doesn’t matter if you are shouting louder, you’re still not going to get anywhere. So it’s now about how we earn a share of people’s lives, and that’s about being entertaining, contextually relevant, adding some small bit of value in the thing that you are doing. So the big threat? Adblockers. The opportunity? How we react to that, and how we think about creating stuff that actually provides value to people rather than just interrupting them.

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‘Consumers are in complete control. They want to do things when and how they want, in a very flexible manner. The notion that they can be dictated to and have things pushed at them is just ridiculous’ – Chris Pelekanou 23

‘Now it’s about how we earn a share of people’s lives, and that’s about being entertaining, contextually relevant, adding some small bit of value in the thing that you are doing’ – Toby Gunton 24

Glen: I think brands are created by the communities that they serve rather than the businesses that are making those products and services. If we are not enhancing that experience for a consumer then it’s only going to go one way. The threat is if we, as an industry, become too obsessed by technology and we start to forget that this business is still about magic as it is logic. Thinking about programmatic, which is very useful in lots of respects, if we filter out the opportunity for those moments of lateral thinking and serendipity then we do so at our peril, because we will fail to put ourselves in a position where we can genuinely enhance the experience of people who are much more empowered now. Adblocking is an interesting one. I can easily see adblocking coalescing into an empowered community, and I suppose this is a wider threat for the business. Where people getting together on one of those platforms can start to represent themselves en masse to brands. I can see a situation where a massive empowered community is in a position to negotiate directly with a brand. We are all becoming much more aware of the data that we are giving off, even if we don’t specifically know what it is or what the value of that is. So it’s a threat but it’s also a massive opportunity as well.

The agency model has traditionally very much been set up to serve the needs of clients. But if you flip that on its head and ask ‘what if the purpose of an agency was to serve consumers and empower consumers?’ then I think that might give rise to some interesting business models. Andrew: Innovation is great, and when appropriately applied it can really enhance experiences. Our model in this market is about reach and buying as many screens as possible to target as many consumers as possible. Stunts that drive traffic to other channels that have great demographics that we can measure are great, and they create a profile for our industry, but I’m interested in where this is going to go next. So innovation and applying it in a real automated sense, and not buying innovation with smoke and mirrors underneath it to make it work for a one day event, but having innovation that can sit on hundreds of thousands of screens throughout the UK. If we are going to have innovation we need to be educated about it, we need to know what it is, we need to be able to confidently describe it to clients. We also need to come up with examples of how to apply it properly. We really need to educate our clients. The only way we can educate them is by applying innovation and coming up with examples.

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‘We really need to educate our clients. The only way we can educate them is by applying innovation and coming up with examples’ – Andrew Newman

Q: Could adblocking one day apply to Out of Home? So you’re walking down the street with Google Glass and software prevents you seeing any adverts at all? Chris: Potentially, yes. The reason why people adblock online is because the experience is awful and there’s been no thought to the creative execution and the way ads interrupt. At the end of the day, it’s down to us as an industry to ensure we are producing great creative.

‘The best technologies, ultimately, are the ones that, for the consumer, just disappear. They’re transparent, and they’re frictionless’ – Glen Wilson

Q: Is there anything we can do to help consumers perceive the media industry and Out of Home in particular as genuine innovators? Andrew: If we are going to add a piece of hardware or software to our screens then it has to be part of a consumer habit already. If you are asking consumers to do something new and different, and jump over hurdles they have never jumped over before, then you have a massive challenge straightaway. That’s why beacons haven’t been as successful as they could be.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

Toby: We get a lot of clients coming to us asking what they should do about beacons. It’s not what they should be doing with beacons but their app strategies. That’s what it’s fundamentally about. Lots of our clients today don’t have particularly good app strategies, or even reasons to have an app frankly. Glen: NFC – you [Clear Channel] were ahead of the game in installing that, but the behaviour was accelerated by the habit of people using contactless technology in an Oyster card. The tech started somewhere else and you probably need that behavioural priming somewhere else to accelerate it. Thinking of programmatic in online, the precursor to that was the way that stocks traded, high-frequency trading. The threat is that media increasingly looks like a kind of financial instrument, like a derivative and what have you. Part of the problem is advertisers being unclear about what the underlying value of that asset is.

Glen: The best technologies, ultimately, are the ones that, for the consumer, just disappear. They’re transparent, and they’re frictionless. Chris: I think we need to be a bit careful when we talk about innovation. If we go straight to the business model point of view then you’ll stifle innovation. The word innovation is over-used; in some of the things that we do we should instead talk about invention. Invention should be free to do whatever it likes; there might not be any application for it, but that’s how you come up with new ideas, and new ways of doing things. Some of it might be rubbish. Google didn’t have a business model when it first launched, just like some of the brilliant things that are out there don’t have business models.

Toby: Thinking about what the industry could do so we start to look at Out of Home differently, I don’t think it’s about a particular widget that you stick on your digital screens. I think it’s more about making sure they are connected and that they have enough tech so we can be a bit clever with them. The hardware itself is less important than the software that drives it, and the data you use. That’s where you have all sorts of opportunities.

Q: What’s the ‘so what’ for Out of Home? Why should people care about Out of Home? Glen: People are becoming more mobile, more connected, and location is becoming more important. There’s a big generational thing here: for millennials and younger people in general poster sites seem very much part of the fabric of an urban environment, whereas older generations might tend to think of outdoor advertising as a blot on the landscape. I think digitisation brings more utility and opportunity to the experience.

Q: How might we know when something is innovation for innovation’s sake, or has the potential to change the market? Glen: The culture of digital businesses is to fail at stuff. It’s called the beta, and that’s alright. I don’t see why it should be any different for other businesses: you’ve got to experiment, you’ve got to be prepared to fail, you’ve got to be prepared to be ahead of the curve, and it should be applauded. Andrew: The way I describe the difference between innovation and innovation for the sake of it is this: for years we have been 28

applying social media commentary to outdoor advertising screens. That was innovative but it’s slightly innovation for the sake of it: you’re taking comments from people out there who have decided to engage with you, but they don’t know about it. They don’t know that their face or their social comments have been on advertising screens across the country. We have been working with Storm and came up with a simple solution: take a picture, and reply to them with their famous moment on the screen. Guess what, we got four projects booked off the back of it. So we need to think about innovation, and think about the consumer.

Toby: I love Out of Home. Look at the number of creative awards being won by Out of Home – it’s fantastic. You’ve got these amazing screens and you’ve got them in some amazing places around the country. And they’re now connected, so we can do more with them than ever before. I think it’s an amazing time to be in this part of the market, especially as people start to use data and connectivity in really clever ways. Chris: You won’t be surprised to hear that I concur with that! I think Out of Home is in a phenomenal place. Technology could make Out of Home even more relevant. There’s a really interesting phenomenon going on at the younger end of the market, this notion of expressing your self-worth and what you value. Increasingly it’s about shared experiences rather than owning things. Historically you would demonstrate your stature and status in a community

with a nice house, a nice car, the clothes you wear. But now it’s sharing experiences, enabled by technology – your holiday, restaurants and the concerts you’ve been to. That resonates among peer groups and increases stature and status. So thinking about that, and where Out of Home sits, and its ability to connect people and allow them to share experiences using data, and technology like beacons, then we’re in a really strong place. Q: What is going to have the biggest impact on you? Chris: Programmatic will make the biggest impact on our business in 2016. Automating our systems, both from an efficiency play but also from a value-added play. Toby: I would agree with that. The thing I am most excited about though, and this probably goes a bit beyond 2016, is artificial intelligence and the rise of virtual personal assistants. It’s slightly out there, but I think this is going to have the biggest impact on the way people shop and buy, and make purchasing decisions. Glen: The thing that really excites me is the data that’s coming from all this life-logging and social sharing. The data is helping us understand behaviour in an Out of Home space better and gives us the opportunity to create Out of Home experiences which are more rewarding. So it’s the proliferation of data and our ability to harness that to really fulfil the promise of an increasing digital infrastructure and connected pipework.

Andrew: For us at DOOH.com it’s the MESH network – a local area network of Wi-Fi boxes with locally stored internet content. MESH connects digital Out of Home with mobile. It’s about delivering content through digital Out of Home inventory so people can take away content on their mobile – it isn’t just an impact; it’s an interaction. The benefit is it’s Wi-Fi experienced at its full capacity on your mobile device – so if you’ve got an iPhone 6 then you’ll experience 200 Mbps Wi-Fi. You will never have experienced that connectivity before. It’s a new revenue stream for media owners and new opportunity for advertisers to bring the rest of their rich media content to life that supports that short piece of advertising content that they’ve got on outdoor.

TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGY.

his report has captured just some of the technology developments that have the potential to transform Out of Home. There will doubtless be more developments in the months ahead. Some will present obvious benefits for our advertising clients, but with other innovations the advantages might not immediately be clear. We all need to recognise those innovations since they might have the potential to enhance the services we provide, improve the effectiveness of our advertising and, ultimately, change the way we do things. Please get in touch, and contribute your ideas!

Commercial Director Chris Pelekanou chris.pelekanou@clearchannel.co.uk

www.clearchannel.co.uk

Press and PR Matthew Walker matthew.walker@clearchannel.co.uk

@clearchanneluk

+44 (0)20 7478 2200

clearview@clearchannel.co.uk

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