Chromecast: Google’s Hail Mary For Your TV

By Alan Coleman on 30 Jul 2013

The battle for the living room will be televised, but what does this mean for digital marketing?

The Chromecast is beautiful in its simplicity. The device is essentially a $35 Android computer that connects to a HDMI port and transforms your silver screen into a swiss army knife of content consumption. Supported apps like YouTube and Netflix get a new ‘Cast’ button, when you hit this the Chromecast will grab the video from the internet by itself (note: it’s not streaming from your device, just as your TV doesn't stream from your remote control!). You can also send any tabs open on a Chrome browser to the Chromecast, which means anything you can see on your browser, you’ll see on your television, so apps currently unsupported like Spotify and the RTÉ player will work.

Chromecast is Evolution, Not Revolution

Digital marketers get excited, get very excited. The battle for the living room has seen titans of tech blunder and waltz by without fully managing to capitalise on the area in which people consume an incredible amount of content. The average Irish adult spends 25+ hours every week watching television, that’s 100 hours of content a month supported by ‘dumb ads’ – bought and sold with imprecise and rudimentary information regarding reach and effect. Coupled with this there is a desire by the consumer to elevate their living room to the new digital age, and to put it bluntly Smart TV sets simply do not cut it. Slow, clunky interfaces and poorly designed apps have lead to growing reports of customer dissatisfaction. This presents an opportunity for true innovation and growth on both the consumers’ side and in the sphere of digital marketing.

Is Chromecast our ace in the hole?

Chromecast is getting hyped up for success in a big way, at the time of writing it’s currently sold out on Amazon and Best Buy. The barriers for success largely fall on timing: If the Chromecast is the correct device, is it the right time? The answer lies in content publishers. Currently the only major services supported are Netflix and Youtube, but don’t underestimate this line-up. These two players account for over 50% of North American internet traffic. That’s huge, and they’re growing. Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos has been very forthcoming in the companies’ ambitions to take on old-hat TV content providers and has gone on the record to state: "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us."

With this quote in mind we’ll leave you with the assertion that this is how the future of television looks to be developing – digital á la carte programming. Chromecast is certainly an interesting device with a hopeful future, the obvious intention is to have television manufacturers build sets with this device pre-installed. If Google can pull this off we’re looking at an expansion of the Google advertising network on a scale previously unseen. Keep an eye on this one folks!