By Rory Dennis, GM North America, Amplience
Did you catch the Super Bowl earlier this month? If you’re one of the record-breaking 111.5 million viewers who did, you probably saw the David Beckham ad for H&M. If watching from a standard TV, it was easy to dismiss the spot as one of the many Super Bowl ads competing for water cooler chat time the following day. However, if you saw the game from a Smart TV, the Beckham ad presented something more: One of the first examples of T-commerce available on a big stage, and potentially the opening for more mainstream use of the technology moving forward.
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T-commerce, short for “television commerce,” is the combination of e-Commerce and TV. The new technology allows viewers using Smart TVs to buy items seen in commercials directly from their TV screens, using only their remotes. Connected TV serves as an additional digital channel for brands to engage consumers as well as deliver the ability to shop online. It is indeed futuristic and exciting, but there is currently a lack of insight into how to make the best use of the technology.
Current Challenges
One of the challenges that T-commerce faces today is that it can only be utilized via Smart TVs. And while adoption numbers are growing, Smart TVs have yet to take hold in the American market. Another potential issue with T-commerce in its present form is that it requires navigating away from current programming. In a group atmosphere, where several people are enjoying a program together, this could be somewhat divisive. In the case of H&M and the Super Bowl, diverting away from the big game to make a clothing purchase could initiate a riot in the living room!
A third challenge that T-commerce brings is that of content creation and delivery. The T-commerce channel becomes yet another avenue for e-Commerce teams to populate with content. Utilizing advanced campaign management platforms can lessen this burden by simplifying and automating the content delivery process across channels, which enables providers to assemble and reutilize content to deliver a sophisticated and engaging experience without spending significant time reworking material.
Future Promise
The real potential for successful T-commerce adoption is with TVs that are connected to a second screen, such as a tablet. In this scenario, the user interested in pursuing the ad and potentially making a purchase can do so via the tablet, without disrupting the programming that is being enjoyed by others on the main screen. While we have yet to see this application for T-commerce in practice, developing this kind of synchronized interoperability between two devices holds great promise for the broader adoption of T-commerce moving forward.
T-commerce is certainly an exciting, futuristic technology, but it is still in the early days of deployment, with a long way to go before it will serve as a mature and profitable e-Commerce channel. The technology carries the promise of becoming an additional avenue for online shopping, social activity, interactive contests and overall brand engagement, and we certainly expect to see more of it moving forward. Just how well and how soon it delivers, however, remains to be seen.
Rory Dennis is Co-Founder of Amplience and heads up the North American business team. His primary responsibility is to ensure customers are extracting maximum value from the Amplience Platform. He previously worked as Business Development Manager for O2 Ireland’s Interactive Media Team.
