Yaniv Davidson, Founder of Tunity, studied engineering
before moving into the mobile space doing R&D for Intel and as CTO of a
security startup. From there he moved into the digital sphere – advising
Fortune 500 CEOs at BCG and as VP in a WPP funded start up where he saw how brands
were spending money on media. His company, Tunity, uses mobile technology to stream
audio to users in front of Out-of-Home screens where the audio might be muted
such as at airports, sports bars or gyms.
Charlene Weisler: What made you explore this part of the media
business?
Yaniv Davidson: In the U.S. according to Nielsen, almost 10%
of viewership hours is Out-of-Home. The experience for the viewer is terrible
because most of the time you can’t hear it. And on top of that, networks and
advertisers can’t really know who is watching what. There are studies that
report generally who is watching and you can see different networks trying to
quantify that but nobody has the technology or the ability to actually measure
these people.
So what we do in Tunity – we created a computer vision and
deep learning based technology that lets anyone scan the TV for a second. We
detect the channel and detect the timing and stream the audio directly to their
mobile phones. What we enable is a much better experience for the consumer by accessing
the audio to match the video feed and we enable the network and their
advertisers to measure that 10% of the market which is actually 10% of a $70 to
$80 billion a year market (in the US). That is what we are focusing on now.
Charlene: What else can you do with this technology?
Yaniv: In general, what we want to do with the technology is
to enable any consumer to connect with any visual content wherever they are – TV
in and Out-of-Home, Digital Signage, Digital OutofHome – whatever you see, you
will be able to scan, detect the content and we will be able to stream not only
the audio but any type of synchronized content – content that relates to you,
that you clearly signaled you are interested in and trying to connect with.
On top of measuring Out of Home viewership, we are creating a
platform that connects every viewer to additional content and advertising. We
are enabling brands and advertisers to create more effective content for
Digital Out-of-Home, measure exactly who is interested in that content and
adding a channel where they can go back and retarget the consumer with a
personalized offer or message.
Charlene: What type of data can you collect and how can it be used?
Yaniv: When you scan the TV we know who you are because you
have either signed up with an email or signed up with Facebook and we know what
you are watching now and what you have watched in the past. That is the initial
data that we already have. We are working on extracting even more demographics
from your location, from your viewing, etc. I see our data product in the same
way that Nielsen did or is doing for in-home viewership. I want to do the same
thing for Out-of-Home viewership. I want to supply TV networks and advertisers
with data that looks and feels exactly the same. Of course, on top of the viewership data,
there is a lot of additional data that can be used for better understanding
viewers and consumers and for measuring and improving advertising.
Charlene: Where do you see companies like Tunity that capture activity
out of home viewing going in the next few years?
Yaniv: We are extremely focused on enabling anyone watching
out of home to hear the audio as well as capturing all of that viewership data
for networks. That is what we are doing now. I think Tunity as a technology and
as a platform, the way we see it three to five years from now, is to enable any
user, any consumer to interact with any video content wherever they are – in
and out of home and digital signage.
For media in general, TV is not dead and I think out of home
viewership of TV will become a bigger part of the overall linear TV market. If
you think about it, what do people watch linearly today? Mainly two things –
news and sports. Much of that content is watched live and that is what people
are watching out of home. So I think that even if linear TV will grow more
slowly, it is still going to be a huge market and within that, out of home will
actually grow faster compared to the overall TV growth.
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