MIPCube: Will Twitter’s common language for social TV revolutionise advertising?

How will advertising - the lifeblood of commercial broadcasting - evolve in a connected world of smart TVs and second screening?

So far, the story for advertising around internet-delivered video isn’t great. Made-for-TV ‘spots’ are usually plonked at the beginning, middle and end of on-demand titles - or text ads are inelegantly slapped on top of the content.

These are solutions designed for a world in which on-demand viewing happened away from the main screen on computers. But the TV will soon be a device that will simultaneously receive broadcasts and connect to the internet – which opens up really interesting opportunities.

At MIPCube, Twitter UK General Manager Tony Wang came closest, providing a glimpse of where some future television advertising efforts and revenues might be heading.

Twitter seems to be winning the battle as the platform of choice for real-time interaction around live and event TV. Their aim is simple; get broadcasters to weave the Twitter platform into their shows.

And broadcasters have no choice but to get involved with Twitter and social TV. The conversation is already taking place; it's taking place during the broadcast window, and it’s taking place on platforms that they don’t own. Ignoring the conversation is no longer an option, so by working with Twitter to understand and exploit the platform, broadcasters are able to consolidate and drive the conversation. This can be done by creating official hashtags around properties, developing formats that allow for Twitter integration, or to influence the narrative of shows.

But by creating a common language and constructing datasets that leverage the activity driven by broadcast television, it’s Twitter that’s building the value. These datasets provide extensive intelligence about the audience: from audience measurement to engagement, content discovery, and (crucially) advertising.

Twitter is very clear that its business model is advertising and it will surely seek to exploit that data directly with advertisers.

Data is a powerful currency and ownership of it puts Twitter in the box seat. Twitter can provide the data ‘back’ to broadcasters to power applications and services that haven’t been thought up yet – including, perhaps, new forms of advertising that are personal, social and designed for the new medium of connected TV.

How do you see advertising models evolving? Will Twitter's ownership of the data enable them to dominate? Let me know what you think in the comments below or send me a tweet: @ianjamesdavies

Ian Davies, Product Manager, Content Discovery