Mobile TV as a Brand Utility

written by: Gianluigi Cuccureddu

Could Mobile TV act as a Brand Utility for brands?

Brand utilities are useful and serve as a promotion, they have a different kind of spending than "normal" promotional/marketing budget. There's too much advertising and it's becoming less effective.

A Brand Utility complies Use, USP, Subsidy (from Marketing budget), Conversion, Attention and Desire. If an offer meets the six aspects, it will be a relevant Brand Utility.

Mobile TV fits the two aspects of usefulness and promotional

It's useful for content consumption that fits the mobile device, think of live events that can be watched on-the-go. Mobile TV can act as a promotional tool, adding incremental value to IPTV, online- and a variety of different multiplatform and -screen experiences.

Why should companies chose Mobile TV as Brand Utility?

In-Stat for instance reports that Mobile TV is a niche that mostly prospers in Asia and the Pacific. According to Frank Dickson, VP Research for In-Stat:

“Getting mobile subscribers to pay for TV services on their mobile devices has been daunting as users have clearly gravitated to free broadcast or Internet-based content on their phones.

As a result, pay mobile TV results have been disappointing, relegating cellular mobile TV as a niche service.  However, niche services in cellular can still drive huge revenue.”

Figures on Mobile TV from In-Stat's report:

• Cellular mobile TV subscribers will generate over $15 billion in subscription revenue by 2014.
• Asia/Pacific will drive mobile TV subscriptions, primarily in India and China.
• Latin America will see subscription growth of 800% in digital mobile subscribers in 2010.
• Mobile TV broadcasting standards remain fragmented by geographic region worldwide, with CMMB, ISDB-T (1seg), ATSC-M/H, DVB-H, MediafloFLO and DMB all finding deployments.
  

The information of Distimo on application downloads in July 2010:

The most successful free applications that monetized using in-app purchases this month in the Apple App Store for iPhone are MobiTV (MobiTV), ESPN 2010 FIFA World Cup (ESPN) and Tap Fish (BayView Labs).

The most successful free application that monetized using in-app purchases is MobiTV, which enables users to watch on-demand and live TV.  The application is free and users can upgrade to the subscription version at $9.99 for the first month.

Business Insights has released the report "The Future of TV: The evolving broadcast and on demand landscape" that reports on Mobile TV:

Mobile TV is a reality today and moving towards the mass market.
Asia Pacific is the mobile video dominant area, with the highest volume of mobile video phone sales. One primary driver for mobile video adoption is access to live sporting events, particularly soccer, cricket, and motor sports.

There is a fragmentation of standards for digital mobile TV broadcasting that is the way of the future.

All these figures demonstrate the interest and opportunity in Mobile TV, even if -at this moment- it is a niche and "underperforming".

If Mobile TV generates such an amount of revenue, why should it be given away as a Brand Utility?

This is the crux and depends on factors like:

Is it core-business or additional business?

If it's core business, like MobiTV, it is the approach of a Freemium model. Lowering the barriers to initiate/trigger usage and a possible upgrade is a revenue model widely used.
It's not a give-away that assists the brand in an extra way.

Does the mobile screen fits the core proposition/experience?

If it doesn't for whatever reason, then it doesn't comply the aspect usefulness.

Will Mobile TV as a Brand Utility work on every continent?

As the In-Stat research reports, Asia/Pacific prospers the most, factors like the absence of alternative infrastuctures or mobile diffusion into society. Giving Mobile TV as a preview is less impactful due to the lack of other alternatives which then could be the greater proposition that can be offered by companies.

Dish Network is approaching the concept of a Brand Utility well, the ZDNET article on Dish Network going online, says:

It appears likely that every pay TV service will have to offer a mobile streaming service to customers in order to stay competitive. That means watching your favorite shows on the go will graduate from a niche offering at additional cost (Flo TV anyone?) to a free add-on — as long as you’re already a subscriber.

It's not only to stay competitive, it is a mean to offer your customers something useful and promotional (for their portfolio of products/services) and fits the experience that Dish Networks want to offer.

In an era where consumers are confronted with thousands of advertising expressions, one way to stand out is to offer a Brand Utility in the line of "Meaningful Marketing" or "Marketing as a Service".

Consumers want more than just a product or service or a certain level of quality, they want more and Brand Utilities can show what a company has to offer, concretely and useful.

In line with the "Applified" Internet, all kinds of applications can serve the purpose of a Brand Utility.  Think of all the apps developed by brands, free to be downloaded that supports the brandproposition.

Examples are bank locators based on GPS, or real-estate apps that show easily the homes on sale, or supermarkets that offer sophisticated apps that offer recipes and show people what to buy in store.

What are relevant applications of Brand Utilities in the Social TV / TV 2.0 space?