IPTV event: Shazam CEO on how to use the second screen

Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher gave an excellent keynote speech at the first day of IPTV World Forum at Olympia yesterday, highlighting the exciting recent developments at the company.

Shazam has been active on mobiles as a music identification service for a long time now – and has 180 million users, with a further 1.5 million new users being added every week. Its transition from music into the world of TV advertising is relatively new but gaining traction fast.

One of the main media talking points of the past year was the “shazamable” adverts in the breaks of the Superbowl.

The cost of a 60 second ad in this year’s Superbowl was $7 million. But this year half of all superbowl ads were also shazamable, allowing viewers to use their app to get additional content and offers.

Fisher revealed that during the Superbowl, the number of ‘shazams’ was as much as all the comments on all social media sites combined.

But the interaction didn’t stop there, with 65% of interactors going on to look at additional content, what he called “post tagging” engagement – a response rate from a direct response TV campaign to make your eyes water. And further to that, purchase rates were as high as 27% – although he didn’t reveal which advertising campaign or brand this was from.

In summary he outlined the main reasons to use the second screen:

• Scale – Fisher pointed out that by the end of 2012 there will be six billion phones globally compared with 250 million connected TVs. There is such a high number of mobile phones in the home now that in most households where everyone is over 11 years old, each individual now has their own mobile phone
• Proximity – 80% of us have our phone next to us while we watch TV
• Not disruptive – Viewers can interact with adverts and content without interfering with the main TV set experience
• Personalised – With each person having their own second screen, the advantage is that each can do something different – maybe Twitter, Facebook, Zeebox etc
• Portable – If you Shazam an advert, the outcome is always on the device and travels round with you wherever you go. So if you Shazam and get a voucher, it stays with you ready for use until the voucher expires.

And you may think that when the ad break starts people get up, go to the loo, put the kettle on, but recent research he highlighted showed that 60% pick up their phones – a huge opportunity for advertisers?