The Connected TV Marketing Association (CTVMA) launched yesterday in New York, London and Melbourne, Australia, along with individuals from 47 chapters around the world. With projections that connected TVs “make up to 90% of the global TV market by 2014, with sales reaching 123 million,” the CTVMA was founded to help organize and promote a quickly-growing industry.
I will be serving as an advisor and co-chair in North America of events and networking. The implications for connected TVs with social is obvious. The more internet enabled your TV becomes the more opportunities there will be to bridge apps and social platforms, like we recently covered.
We spoke with Zach Weiner, the Co-Founder and President, North America of the CTVMA about the importance of social TV within the newly formed association.
Lost Remote: Why did you launch the CTVMA?
Zach Weiner: We launched due to a genuine need that exists in the industry. We have a device/medium that has suddenly changed and evolved in amazing ways. This evolution is disruptive to nearly every aspect of the ecosystem. With these changes has come an incredible amount of challenges, but also opportunity. Our core reason for existence is help navigate the ways that the marketing, technology and device community can all come together to achieve potential. We hope to help educate, inform and provide oversight for the industry at large.
LR: How and why is social TV an important part of the CTVMA?
ZW: We believe that social TV is one of the core elements that truly enlivens Connected TV and makes it relevant. Television with an endemic connection to the internet allows for watching behaviors to be socialized in amazingly new and novel ways. New TV apps that are being created and App branding vehicles will all be highly social. EPGs and even programming itself will all have social graphs at their core It’s a strong area of our focus and an area that has an incredibly high potential for growth in our minds.
LR: What’s the CTVMA’s global reach?
ZW: We currently have Country presidents all over the world. Our other founder James Grant Hay, is located in Melbourne and has established a CTVMA presence throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Our European counterparts are all incredibly well established thought leaders.
LR: Who are some of the key thinkers that are part of the launch?
ZW: Our Chairmen are all exceptionally well-known in the industry:
Dr. William Cooper- Our UK Chairman- Of Informitv- previously was the Head of interactive for BBC Broadcast
Niko Munoz- Is the EVP of Havas, our country leader in Spain.
Doug Scott, our U.S. Chair is the president of Ogilvy Entertainment.
Tim Hanlon- Our Vice Chair has had stints running some of the largest media investment arms of major agencies like Publicis and IPG.
Richard Kastelein – is the owner of Richard is the owner of Appmarket.tv and a partner of Agora Media Innovation and in general a wide and varied speaker on social TV.
Our entire board consists of some amazing leaders in general.