Web-enabled devices have become a key growth segment for the global consumer electronics industry. The smart devices, when connected to the Internet, create opportunities for advertisers to influence people while they are actively searching for visual entertainment content or other information.
According to the latest market study by In-Stat, the value of this ad-supported content discovery will reach $2.4 billion by 2015.
"When consumers are navigating for content, advertising is not seen as an interruption. In fact, it might help consumers find what they're looking for," says Gerry Kaufhold, research director at In-Stat.
Of course, the typical advertising creative process will need to be totally re-imagined -- in order to attain this degree of value or benefit in the eyes of consumers.
With the rise of mobile Internet services, the proliferation of smartphones, and the growth of tablet devices, a lot of content discovery engines will work on a mobile device, to find content that ultimately gets delivered to a TV screen.
Advertisers will likely be attracted to content discovery services, which is a slowly emerging growth market segment. But first, they'll need to see this innovation deployed and applied -- before they fully realize the potential.
Incidentally, it's nearly four years ago that I first outlined my concept of visual entertainment redesign that's focused on Personalized Media Preference -- entitled the Cisco Digital Lifescapes proposal. My point: moving beyond the inherent limitations of the industry's legacy channel-centric perspective has been a very long time coming to fruition.
In-Stat's latest market study includes the following insights:
- The installed base of smart devices will grow at an impressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46 percent from 2010 through 2015.
- The annual value of ad-supported content discovery on directly connected TV sets will grow to nearly $442 million in North America by 2015.
- By 2015, almost 170 million web-enabled devices in Europe will be connected.
- By the end of 2011, there will be about 30 million web-enabled TV households in Asia-Pacific.
- Only about 12 percent of web-enabled devices in all of South America will actually be connected during 2011.
