Insights 2012: the year to be Smart

Smart Phones

The importance of smartphone technology to the UK shopper was hard to ignore in 2011. Smartphone owners increasingly used their mobile devices to visit websites, with visits to e-commerce sites from mobile devices in Q2 2011 accounting for 7% of overall traffic1. These visits also led to an increase in mobile purchasing with 3.3% of purchases from the same period being made from a mobile device. Interestingly, the smartphone not only led to an increase in m-commerce during 2011, but 24% of UK smartphone owners took their smartphones with them when visiting offline stores to compare prices and provide information about products2, making the smartphone an essential mobile shopping assistant.

Smart TVs

Consumers eagerly anticipated the arrival of ‘connected’ or ‘smart’ TVs during 2011 (TVs connected to the Internet which can access online entertainment and retail opportunities). Such anticipation was shown in our Digital Entertainment Survey 2011 where we looked, amongst other things, at the likely demand for connected TV.

Smart TV is very much here. At the end of 2011 there were 82 million connected TVs in homes worldwide,according to research group Informa. By 2016 Informa forecasts that the number will have ballooned to 892 million.3 Not only will retailers look to promote and sell their products and services via smart TV, there may also be opportunities for retailers to get direct access to this new marketplace through deals with the smart TV manufacturers, as well as the development of new content and apps. It is not yet clear how these brand or commerce-driven services might be regulated. Whilst advertising may be covered by the latest changes to the Advertising Standards Authority’s amendments to the CAP Code, retailers will need to be mindful of other aspects of TV regulation. There is not yet a ‘standard’ commercial deal for arrangements with these new smart TV partners and so negotiations in this area are likely to be unchartered territory. Advice from consultants such as Content & Co may be the solution for brands accessing these new revenue streams, digital platforms and devices.

Smart Services

‘Smart services’, allow brands to engage with new platforms, such as YouView (digital TV, Internet catch-up, apps and video-on-demand services through one set top box without subscription). Whilst we still await the official launch of YouView, (expected to be some time in the first half of this year), brands have started to target promotional activity to this fresh audience. The YouView audience, initially likely to be mainly males under 354, will force retailers to consider whether or not to incorporate YouView into their overall marketing strategy.

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