This document discusses how the SoundPrint platform developed by IntoNow increases customer interaction with television. SoundPrint uses audio fingerprinting technology to identify television programs, including specific episodes, allowing users to check-in to and discuss shows with friends. This level of integration has changed marketing approaches, making advertising more implicit and measurable. The platform also has potential applications in other industries like automotive and accessibility for the blind. While growing customer interaction, competition in the social television space remains intense.

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SoundPrint Platform Increase Customer
Interaction With TV
A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR PROFESSOR.BREY
MKTG-7546 Marketing in a Digital Environment
BY
YANG SUN
March 2012
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SoundPrint Platform Increases Customer Interaction With TV
1. Introduction
1.1 The Development Of Customer Interaction With TV
The concept of customer interaction with TV is really not new, however, the sound
print platform really lead such interaction to a new grade.
When we review the development of customer interaction with TV, the first question
would be why the customer wants to interaction with TV? A simple idea is one of the
natural characters of our human being is sharing information with our family, friends,
classmates and colleague etc.
In early 2000s, the concept of socializing around TV content is introduced trying to
encourage audiences share their experience with others, such as Social TV, which
creating the cyber-living-room and cyber-bar to enable increased interactivity around
shared programming both live and time-shifted. At that time, the interaction is more by
text or phone call. However, due to the inconvenience using and the communication lag,
previous trial gained very limited success, until the social networking emerges.
The social networking starts to popularize after Facebook and Twitter comes out in
2004 and 2006, and the quick growing market of smartphone and IPAD pave the way for
the social networking takes off. TV viewing is increasingly becoming a multi-screen
experience, and customer starts to interact with TV via a more convenient way.
In 2010, social TV app comes. Miso and GetGlue started to use the idea of check-in to
encourage customer interaction with TV. They all have mobile and web applications
explicitly designed to support and enhance that very natural entertainment-driven social
behavior. App users can check-in to content, and share what they are watching, listening
to and reading with friends, get fresh recommendations, exclusive stickers, discounts and
other rewards from the show or program. But still, there are some inconveniences. For
example, the user may not be familiar with the TV program, and the user can not remark
a specific episode, which prohibits them to check-in and discuss that with his friends. But
this problem is solved since into IntoNow launched their SoundPrint platform in 2011.
As SoundPrint is what’s known as a “fingerprinting” technology. Now the SoundPrint
platform is IntoNow’s patented indexing technology. With SoundPrint platform, IntoNow
can identify what’s being watched, down to the individual episode, within seconds.
Through that, IntoNow can recognize a show even if it's airing live for the first time.
IntoNow also have an index that covers more than 140 million minutes of previously
aired shows. That’s the equivalent of 266 years of video! And what’s more, after the
sound identify, the IntoNow combine “what you are looking” “what the relative news
are” and “what your friends are discussion” together, which definitely improve the
customer interaction with TV.
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1.2 Why contomer’s interaction with TV means a lot
If there’s one thing we love here in USA, it’s television — the last super bowel
attracted 114 million spectators!
However, Television viewers are often multitasking — they watch their favorite shows
while interacting on social media platforms via their tablets, smartphones and laptops. A
Deloitte survey found that 42% of Americans surf the web while watching television,
29% talk on their phones while the TV is on and 26% of consumers are texting or sending
IMs. And according to the data released in Q2, 2011, from Nielsen, 40% of whom use
their smart or tablet while watching TV on a daily basis, and in fact, only 12% of tablet
owners and 13% of smartphone owners say they have never used those devices while
watching TV.And amazing data was announced via Twitter, by the end of super bowel
game, 12,333 TPS (tweets per second) are generated. Just as TV Guide‘s Christy
Tanner said people are inclined to share their opinions on their favorite TV shows.
2. SoundPrint Analysis
2.1 How can SoundPrint Platform integrated in marketing campaign
"Television has always been a source of social engagement, and yet there's never been
an easy way for people to create connections with their friends around the shows they are
into."-- Adam Cahan (founder and CEO of IntoNow). After SoundPrint platform was
developed, it is integrated with IntoNow’s app and makes the way of customer interaction
with TV more convenient, which also changes the marketing campaign.
Change 1: Advertising is more implicit.
As SoundPrint can identify the TV program automatically, now even you do not know
what you are looking at, the relative information regarding the program will pop out on
your mobile facility, which give you a deeper impression of the program and enhance the
program awareness. At the same time, by combing the check-in with your social
networking (FACEBOOK, TWITTER etc.), your friends will receive the message says
you are watching the program, and it will show your opinion of this program. Obviously,
people will not think it is an advertising of promoting this program, but in fact, it is! Now
almost all TV programs viewed by IntoNow make the advertising more implicit.
Change 2: Advertising effect is more measurable.
Recently, IntoNow has partnered with PepsiCo in a promotion that will reward app
users with a free soda for tagging the drink-maker’s new Pepsi MAX spot. “The basic
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concept is to find the Pepsi MAX commercial, tag it and select a store,” IntoNow founder
and CEO Adam Cahan explains. IntoNow will generate a unique digital coupon for the
first 50,000 IntoNow users who tag the spot. The coupon can be scanned and redeemed,
just like a gift card, at Target or CVS stores.
The Pepsi MAX commercial in question will begin airing Wednesday and features past
and present Major League Baseball legends. The spot and the IntoNow promotion are all
centered around Pepsi MAX’s MLB sponsorship. IntoNow will not be featured in the ad,
but it will make a print appearance on the promo cards that Pepsi is distributing at MLB
stadiums. “This is the first time where consumers can close the funnel between a brand
experience on a TV commercial right down to a real-world drink you can consume,”
Cahan (founder and CEO of IntoNow) says.
The campaign, IntoNow’s first branded ad initiative, helps bridge the gap between
digital and physical worlds via mobile phone. “The idea that these devices are with us at
all times really does change the game,” says Cahan (founder and CEO of IntoNow). And
what more, PepsiCo will get 50,000 user information and their geographic buying
preference, in a certain time. These information gathered make the advertising effect be
more measurable.
Through above examples, we can clearly see the SoundPrint Platform has strongly
influenced customers, TV, website and corporation who need to promote their brands.
2.2 How can SoundPrint Platform be used in other business
As SoundPrint can identify the video sound automatically, and search relative
information for you, another further potential usage is combing the Siri technology and
Wifi technology together.
It can be used for enhancing the car entertainment. For example, if you are driving a
car and listening to the music or latest news, the radio could tell you a list of relative
news and you can order them to switch to the information you are interested in and let
them read for you without moving your hands out of the steering wheel.
Another potential business that can be used could be for people who are blind. Via
combing the three technologies together, the life for blind people will be better. In
scenario, if the blind person is listening to some program or music via TV, he can ask
SoundPrint to search relative information for him and order the TV or smart facility to
announce information they like via Siri.
3. Influence To Business Landscape
3.1 Business Model
Based on a formalized ontology for ebusiness models specified by Osterwalder and
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Pigneur (Osterwalder and Pigneur, 2002), business models consist four main elements: 1)
the product innovation, that consist of the value proposition the firm delivers to its
customers; 2) the customer relationship, defining the target customers, the channels and
relationship strategy; 3) the infrastructure, containing the resources required by the
internal activities and the partnership network that are required to produce the value
proposition; 4) the financial aspects, which ultimately determine the profitability of the
organization.
In the IntoNow case, we could find the four main elements as.
1) SoundPrint Platform is the patented innovation technology, which improve the video
identification and improves customer engagement.
2) Target customers are those who have a smartphone or laptop, or tablet, or other
mobile facilities, and have the willing to communicate and share their opinions of the
program or specific brand advertising.
3) In order to improve and courage the customer interaction, big storage of the TV
program and mass cooperation with TV, products marketers and networking is necessary.
4) Finally, the character of IntoNow can be an advertising agency who help the TV and
products marketers find their advocator and improve their marketing campaign.
3.2 The virtue and flaw of the SoundPrint Platform
The virtue of the SoundPrint Platform is obvious, it improves the customer interaction.
Viewers can interact with the TV easier. They can find out what their friends are watching
and engage in discussion, discover what shows they have in common with others and
which of them are on air right now, get relevant and more personal recommendations,
learn more about what’s on through show info and other info.
But after a deeper expert observation, we find there are still three flaws. The first is the
interaction should be based on the popularization of smartphones, laptops, tablets etc. The
second one is the IntoNow based on SoundPrint Platform can fail when the program is
unscheduled. (“For instance, when we turned on CNN for news of Kim Jong II’s death.
The app thought I was watching the regularly scheduled program, a show called “Black
in America”) The third flaw is although this helps in live sports game, it make you feel
uncomfortable if you are watching a recorded sports game, because it will pop up all final
scores and other comments.
3.3 Future Trend
Currently, SoundPrint monitors 130 broadcast channels in real time and IntoNow has
600,000 users and reported 1 million tags in 4 weeks, the number is still growing very
fast.
However, and the same time, GetGlue also have 800,000 users and similar as Miso.
This means the market competition is very strong and thus below two trends emerge.
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1) Expanding: expanding in horizontal and vertical direction. Horizontal expanding
can be via entering into a new TV market in other country, with similar strategy, while
vertical expanding means enter into other industry besides TV, such as game, automobile
and health care.
2) Merge and Integration: merge means similar company combined together and use
the same platform, while integration means the company can combine their technology
with other relative platform and share the information. Current social is in an information
booming environment, too many platforms sometime make the user feel uncomfortable
as he need to switch from one platform to another platform if he is trying to do
multi-tasks. If there is no need for switching, the barrier will disappear, and users are
more like to use that platform.
4. Conclusion
Customer interaction is one of the best ways to enhance customer brand awareness and
gain customer loyalty. With the Soundprint Platform, customer becomes easier and more
like to interact with TV, and we could foresee such growing interaction will change the
ways of how we watch TV, and how we design the marketing campaign, also how other
entrainment activities can be changed.
REFERENCE
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y. 2002, "An E-Business Model Ontology for Modelling
E-Business", 15th Bled Electronic Commerce Conference, Bled
Jenny Van Grove Y. 2010, "Why Entertainment Will Drive the Next Check-in Craze"
Mike Melanson Y. 2011, "SoundPrint Wants to Be the GPS of Internet TV"
Ryan Lawler Y. 2011, "Miso Goes Beyond the Check-in With Competitive Reality
Voting"
Zach Epstein Y. 2011, "Former Google, MTV engineers cook up IntoNow—Foursquare
meets Shazam for TV fans"
Brian Whalley Y. 2012, "Your Marketing Can Keep Pace with Facebook and Google"
www.intonow-blog.com
Interviewer Bio:
Zhonghan Zhu, Founder of SYZ Advertising Corporation.
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