Easel TV's new Streaming service introduces unprecedented flexibility that is a game-changer for content owners looking to drive exceptional business results through a direct relationship with consumers.
Our new streaming solution enables businesses and brands across a multitude of industries (not just film and TV) to take unprecedented control of streaming services as tool for reaching audiences and consumers - more easily, flexibly, and cost-effectively than they ever previously could.
The new platform is built on four “pillars of flexibility” – Design, Metadata, Markets, and Coalescence - and over a number of posts we’ll explore each aspect (ably supported by our recent podcast).
The first of those is flexibility in ‘design’.
A significant aspect of streaming’s mandate is to provide entertainment to the big screen, be that through smart TVs, streaming boxes like Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Roku, Netgem etc., or through pay TV boxes like Xfinity or Virgin Media. The challenge with this is that these devices are not like computers where traditional tools used to build websites can be used. These devices adhere to their own, often very unique, development environments in which to launch a ‘TV’ app.
Equally, in a market whose content and audiences are evolving rapidly, it is not enough for content owners to rely on a one-size-fits-all design, or have to wait (and pay) for every design change they'd like to make across these potentially large portfolio of devices operating across the globe.
For content owners – from the smallest sports club’s live-streaming fixtures to established brands looking to connect to streaming audiences - the prospect of creating a streaming service (in the mould of Netflix or BBC’s iPlayer) is not only technically daunting, but can also be financially challenging.
With Easel TV's new Streaming service the construction of the whole client User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) is fully dynamically data driven from a rich and powerful set of cloud design tools.
This is NOT multi-template design selection that is rigid and inflexible.
This is NOT re-skinning, that provides limited visual changes.
This is full customisation of the whole UI, across the aforementioned extensive portfolio of devices; web, mobile, smart TV and Pay TVOperator devices, changing not only branding and design aspects but also selection and positioning of design components, e.g. carousels, grids and swimlanes, and their attributes, e.g. their size, shape and position.
This is important not least because these changes can be implemented on live (approved) apps, to respond to events; from daily events to rebrands. It also acts as a potent foundation for other service features.
It brings much of the flexibility of web design tools to Streaming, across the whole portfolio of devices, from a browser, mobile and tablets, to smart TVs, streaming boxes and TV operator services – that is game changing, a sort of Wordpress to TV.
It enables content owners to easily and repeatedly restructure and reconfigure what the viewer sees and experiences, and how – far beyond just the control of logos, colours, themes, and banners.
It includes the ability to flex the design in order to test and change how content is displayed, ordered, and found by the viewer, in response to ongoing audience interaction.
Design flexibility can become a burdensome undertaking if permission is required from each individual design manufacturer to change anything (as it often is), so our new platform is also data driven meaning there is no need to put these device apps back through manufacturer approval. This enables changes to be rolled out seamlessly to all devices – web, mobile, and TV – in a “publish once, change at will” solution, which also enables the accompanying branding to be easily refreshed if required.
What’s driving the importance of design flexibility is a strong and growing consumer tendency to gravitate towards streaming content that speaks to interests, pastimes, and hobbies, rather than delivering mere entertainment.
Inevitably, this makes for much more diverse content - from cookery to karting, supercars to skeet shooting, modern art to mariachi music, and just about everything in between – but it also makes for multiple differentiations within that content.
Your Manchester City streaming audience, for example, might be adult males in Moss Side or female children in Mayo, and your cookery channel audience could be vegan, gluten-intolerant, card-carrying carnivore, or any of the above.
What this multiplicity means is that the way the streaming content is made searchable and discoverable by those audiences is highly nuanced compared to, say, a Disney or Netflix environment. The flexible design built into our new platform enables content owners to structure, display, and deliver content in ways that appeal to these audiences.
To book a demo contact us here.
Easel TV
1 Waterhouse Square
London EC1N 2ST
T: +44 (0)20 3026 3605
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