Sharon Coleman
Editor / Journalist / Digital Content Strategist
... And the Consumers' XOXO to Innovation
By Sharon Coleman
Published Oct. 1, 2015. Updated June 19, 2020.
The writing is on the wall — in indelible ink: 2015 was the Year of Mobile Streaming.
The writing is on the wall — in indelible ink: 2015 is the Year of Mobile Streaming.
Mobile is now the leading digital platform for consuming content in the United States.¹ As a result:
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The number of streaming options has increased significantly, with Apple, Dish Network, HBO, Sony, Verizon and even Comcast, among others, launching or set to launch in 2015 either à la carte networks or live TV and on demand services.
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Mobile-friendly websites are ranked higher in Google search results, thanks to a change in spring 2015 in the Google search algorithm.
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And, among content providers and advertisers, there's a mad scramble to figure out whether storytelling changes on mobile and whether ads there can be made unskippable.
Mountain Dew hero / Courtesy of Think with Google
Why? Because Americans today are increasingly reaching for their smartphones when they need or want something. The convenience of nearly unbridled access to information and content, along with mobility, have created the conditions for digital disruption. Digital disruption occurs when new digital technologies and business models change the value of existing goods and services. Nowhere is this more evident than among creatives and content providers.
“No one pays for music anymore,” said Michael Powell, President & CEO of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the trade group for cable TV networks and cable broadband providers. As though to make his point, the group's signature event, “The Cable Show," rebranded in 2015 as "The Internet & Television Expo (INTX).”
Powell sat in one of Silicon Valley's signature red Code conference chairs during the opening general session at INTX in Chicago. Facilitating the discourse was Re/code co-Executive Editor Kara Swisher.
Powell and Swisher kick off INTX 2015 in Chicago. / NCTA 18:53
The former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission discussed what he
described as the cable TV industry's tumultuous future and the challenges presented by cord-cutting millennials use to the more intimate screens of tablets and smartphones.
“How do you [as a content provider] exist as a companion to the self-published / self-created content?” he asked.
James McQuivey, author of “Digital Disruption: Unleashing the Next Wave of Innovation,” has said for years that digital was going to change things. “Digital tools and digital platforms are reducing the barriers to entry in every industry, in every aspect of every business,” he said in 2015. “Regardless of where you are, you are about to face an onslaught of competitors — digital disruptors.”
Digital innovators, as I would describe them, are taking advantage of new platforms, tools and relationships to lower expenses, undercut the competition, get closer to customers and disrupt the usual way of doing business in every industry. And, while this may evoke fear and panic in some, it also can lead to better products, better services and better industry practices by others.
In Philadelphia, a trio of entrepreneurs has created an online farm share — Philly Foodworks — that gives residents another option in procuring groceries. Working with local farmers and food producers through a community shared agriculture program, Philly Foodworks delivers socially responsible food right to the doorstep of urban residents.
In San Francisco, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit — Lava Mae — used her considerable skills as a former marketing and PR exec to launch an Indiegogo campaign to transform decommissioned city buses into showers for the homeless. The campaign raised more than $58,000 the first time around, and now urban space advocates around the world are asking Lava Mae, or something like it, to come to their town.
Lava Mae’s digital fund-raising campaigns have attracted attention globally. / Graphic courtesy of lavamae.org
And, in Los Angeles, a young filmmaker created industry buzz when she used a friend's social media postings to create a brief biopic of one woman's romantic relationship — beginning, middle and end — as it played out through her Instagram posts. She's now pitching the concept as a series — for streaming.
The only way to compete is to evolve, says McQuivey, whose job as vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research sends him to some of the nation's largest companies to teach them to change the way they think about innovation. He says digital disruptors will do this to your business:
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They will build Better product experiences
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That create Stronger customer relationships
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To bring it all to market Faster
James McQuivey: Digital disruption is here to stay 3:23
McQuivey says each of us has the power to become an innovator: “As the cost to compete goes down for everyone, it goes down for you,” he says.
The only question is: How will you respond?
Find your solution with Sharon Coleman, Editor | Journalist | Digital Content Strategist.
Editor's Note: The National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA), rebranded itself on Sept. 19, 2016, as NCTA — The Internet & Television Association. Michael Powell, President & CEO of the trade group, said the change was made to better reflect the makeup of the industry that NCTA represents. One week later, NCTA announced that after 65 years, it had ended its annual industry trade show, the group's signature event which was rebranded in 2015 as INTX. Powell explained in his Sept. 28 blog post that the trade group was "exploring new and better ways to tell our story ... We believe large trade show floors, dotted with exhibit booths and stilted schedules, have become an anachronism."
¹ comScore, a leading provider of digital analytics, posts on the company blog, “Major Mobile Milestones in May: Apps Now Drive Half of All Time Spent on Digital,” June 25, 2014.