ironSource Aura releases Smart TV engagement solution
September 29, 2020
ironSource Aura, the engagement platform for mobile carriers and OEMs, has announced its new customer engagement solution for pay-TV providers. Aura’s industry-first solution allows next-generation media companies to dynamically enhance their existing Android TV set top boxes, and then bridge their TV and mobile technology to reach users in an effective way across all of their screens. The unique solution transforms the TV experience, empowering users to customise their TVs with their prefered content and services during the initial setup process, and throughout the lifetime of their pay-TV subscription. By doing so, it provides pay-TV providers with premium, ongoing engagement opportunities with their subscribers, enabling them to elevate their brand and generate new and new recurring continuous revenue streams.
“As leading telcos expand 5G, they’ll become serious players in the home internet space, and are likely to bundle the service with their paid TV and mobile connectivity services,” explains Sagi Benbasat, GM Enterprise Solutions, ironSource. “Our mission is to empower our telco partners with a cross-platform solution for these services, where they can engage with a customer across all of their screens. What’s more, they’ll be able to connect the consumer’s big screen with their mobile device – be it Android or iOS – for cross screen engagement and a richer user experience.”
Currently, set-top box experiences are static, with limited opportunities for carriers to interact with their users and the content they consume, once the box or service has been shipped from the factory. With the competition for pay-TV fierce in all major markets globally, standing out and offering a solution that adds value for the customer is key. Aura’s new solution creates an opportunity for pay-TV providers to utilize various touch points and opportunities throughout a user’s TV journey, to recommend channels and content, and display interactive ads and offers to their users, generating more choice for the customer and incremental revenue for themselves. These additional engagement points help the provider stand out from the competition, increasing brand loyalty with customers and capturing more market share.
“We’ve developed a solution that combines Aura’s proven strength in content distribution and engagement with pay-TV providers’ needs,” explains Benbasat. “We see this as a three-pronged approach – to utilise Aura’s existing technology that’s been successfully deployed on millions of phone mobile phones for over 5 years and bring it to pay-TV providers; to provide them with unique solutions for the TV environment that match their needs; and to connect the consumer’s big screen with their mobile device for an enhanced user experience.”
The solution works by leveraging traditional Aura touchpoints from the mobile device experience, such as an intelligent preload combined with contextual notifications to maximize content exposure, and an Out of the Box Experience (OOBE) which is integrated into the TV’s setup wizard and allows users to easily customise their TVs with their prefered apps during the initial setup process.
Additionally, there are numerous features developed specifically for the TV environment, such as the ability for a provider to customise their channels and services to promote owned and operated and promoted content, as well as interactive screensavers that can be fully customised by the partner and configured by the device owner, promoting further engagement. When it comes to marrying the users’ devices, Aura’s smart connect functionality allows a user to easily connect their phone with the TV and enjoy new content and games using their phones, making the experience more interactive and keeping users engaged. This could include playing games on their TV while using their phones as a gamepad, or discovering new content on their TV and transferring it to their phone in a simple click.