connected TV

A day in the life of… Damon Westbury, Interim Managing Director for EBX

Damon Westbury is Interim MD at European Broadcaster Exchange (EBX), a joint venture founded by some of Europe’s largest TV broadcasters (including Channel 4) to address the demand for brand-safe environments and high-quality online video campaigns. Westbury joined EBX from Clear Channel and has previously held roles at Microsoft. He tells us: “After starting my […]

How to achieve what QR codes promised, but couldn’t deliver

What was the year? 2009? 2010? QR codes were ‘the next big thing’. They had such great promise. Turn any print advertisement, packaging or promotional experience into a digital touchpoint.

Richer engagement. Richer analytics. But they never delivered. (Some people perpetually say ‘next year’ is the year for mass adoption).

But there is one technology that comes pre-installed on 100% of handsets and which can exceed both the engagement and analytics that QR codes promised.

Shazam: from gimmick to major player

At the beginning of September 2013, Shazam announced a huge milestone: the 10 billionth use of the music identifying app.

The song: Lady Gaga’s ‘Applause’. The man: some guy in New Jersey who was officially the last human being in the Western world not to recognise Lady Gaga.

If you’re unaware of Shazam, quite simply it’s an app that you can use to identify a song you don’t know the name of that’s playing in any location (as long as it’s audible) in a matter of seconds. The process is called ‘tagging’.

Shazam currently processes more than 100m tags a week, this is 150% more than a year ago, and currently has more than 80m global users.

Connected retail: the future of the high street

The speed with which new technologies are being adopted by consumers is breathtaking. The use of tablets and mobile is unprecedented.

New customer touch points have burst onto the scene, leaving retailers struggling to decide where to prioritise their marketing and digital spend: should the focus be on websites, stores or mobile?

Great British Bake Off and the rise of social TV

The Great British Bake Off finale achieved 156,000 tweets during its 8pm-9pm broadcast last night.

The flagship BBC2 show has also seen a steep rise in audience figures over its 2013 season, achieving 9m viewers during its finale, up from 6.5m who watched the crowning of last year’s winner.

Although an assured move to BBC1 and a 32.6% audience share is a huge success, perhaps The Great British Bake Off’s greatest legacy is highlighting our changing viewing habits and how Twitter is transforming the way we watch TV.

Eight mobile push notification mistakes to avoid

Though potentially a powerful tool for marketers, push notifications on apps can be a real pain for many people. 

This means marketers need to be very careful about their use of this tactic but, sadly, not all do.

In one case, a nine year old was told “you’ll pay for this on judgement day” after failing to feed a virtual pet. 

Courtesy of Urban Airship, here are some mistakes to avoid, and examples of good and bad (mainly bad) push notifications…