Using Netflix & DVDs in Your Business: Don’t Put Yourself at Risk

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There it is – did you read it? You probably saw it, but did you really read what it says? Me neither. At least not after years and years of seeing it, or a similar message at the beginning of every movie I’ve ever watched.

Well, in case you still haven’t read it, it says:

“Federal law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, video tapes, or video disc.”

So what does this mean exactly? In short, it means that if you own something like a DVD of a movie, or a CD, you can’t legally burn copies of that disc and sell them to people, or even hand them out for free. Nor are you allowed to show that movie or play that album for the general public without the expressed consent to do so. If you’re looking for a something you can play instead, take a look at It’s Relevant TV.

You might be wondering where the line is drawn, and it’s a fair question. Just like when you get a driver’s license that allows you to drive a car, when you buy anything like a DVD you’re buying the license to watch or listen to that media privately.

Now before you go taking a hammer to your home theater, it’s important to note that while those licenses are private, it doesn’t exclude friends and family from enjoying them as well – the means to actually traffic and enforce that would simply be ridiculous. So long as your viewing is limited to personal and non-commercial use, you’re not in violation of the Terms & Conditions.

Is it Legal for Me to Show Netflix in My Business?

In short: No.
But this is an easy question to clarify by looking at Netflix’s terms of service:

“The Netflix service and any content viewed through our service are for your personal and non-commercial use only. During your Netflix membership, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, license to access the Netflix service and view Netflix content through the service. Except for the foregoing limited license, no right, title or interest shall be transferred to you. You agree not to use the service for public performances.”

This is a prime example of how companies lay out licensing agreements. Does this mean you can’t show Finding Nemo in your waiting room? Unfortunately, you can’t. The difference between throwing the movie into your DVD player at home, and the TV at your office – is that one is at home (personal), and the other is a business (public). It’s the same reason you can’t buy a Taylor Swift CD and play her songs outside your store to attract customers. You can try, but it’s illegal, and it’s not good when you get caught. Companies take this sort of thing very seriously.

But Were DVDs or Netflix a Good Idea in the First Place?

When your visitors are at your location do they really want to watch a movie? Not really. They’re there for a reason and don’t want to be around long. People want to watch the TV as a distraction while they wait, but can’t be invested in a long-form program or movie.

The average time spent in a waiting room varies from business to business. Dentist offices come in at 5 to 10 minutes, whereas you could be waiting up to 20 minutes at a doctor’s office. Even if you could play the movies you wanted, a typical feature-length flick usually runs over or just under two hours. So unless you’re waiting over an hour for your car to be serviced, you’d only catch 1/12th or 1/6th of the movie – starting from who-knows-where.

The sort of programming that runs in a lobby should compliment the length of time people are going to be waiting there, with the notion that they’re not going to be fully invested in whatever’s on the screen.

So What Can You Play Instead?

It’s Relevant TV features a network of original content spanning across a vast selection of categories. And unlike a DVD or Netflix, all of the content is licensed for public display. From kid’s entertainment to the national news, the programs are on average two and a half minutes long – long enough to hold someone’s attention in a waiting room and feel as though they left entertained or informed.

TV Advertising: Traditional Isn’t Cutting It Anymore

The Main Goals of TV Advertising

Branding has long been the First, Middle and Last reason to advertise on Television. If potential customers don’t know about you, why would they buy your products or use your services? Brand awareness creates trust, generates leads, and ultimately creates sales and the growth of your business.

For this reason businesses have used TV advertising to:
•  Create brand recognition by reaching the greatest number of viewers.
•  Attaining a frequency level that will promote memory retention.
•  Demonstrate value through emotion and visuals

And TV ads are great at achieving all three. But TV ads have become more expensive and less effective in the last few years due to a number of changes. Let’s take a closer look at the current state of Traditional TV Advertising.

The Current Characteristics of Traditional TV Advertising

  • Broadcast TV ads are expensive.
  • Television advertising is broadly targeted and ad buys usually include a lot of “waste” (the ad reach you pay for that is not relevant to your message).
  • Clutter Ridden – Television is overflowing with advertising. 25% to 35% of the broadcast airtime is now being filled with commercials
  • Ads are purchased based on ratings. Ratings are based on a small sample of the population and cannot guarantee how many people actually tune into any particular program.
  • TV ads are sold on a cost per thousand (CPM) basis.
  • Audience delivery is impossible to measure, as ratings are estimations and it is impossible to track what percentage of viewers stay tuned during your ad’s playback.
  • Under-delivery is fairly common
  • Reporting is horrible and slow. Actual run time/placement is only available by requesting a program log. It is nearly impossible to receive a log in a timely fashion. Especially from a Cable Operator.
  • Return on investment is very hard to calculate. Direct marketing messages are the only surefire way of seeing true ROI and actual effect on purchases based on the ads

Modern Television Advertising from It’s Relevant TV

It’s Relevant TV allows advertisers to forge brand recognition with pin-point accuracy and benefits. Unlike cable TV that targets channels and times of day, IRTV goes deeper.

1. Reach screens that are located in businesses in specific categories.

2. Market through televisions in specific zip codes.

3. Your commercials are shown in single ad breaks. This means that your ad is the only ad in a break, so all attention is on it.

4. You can target location types that have screens near point-of-purchase, allowing product owners to push their products in areas that they can be immediately purchased.

5. Reliable and immediate reporting. You can see the exact screens and the minute and second your ads have played on them.

6. Affordable at just $0.30-$0.50 per play per screen.

7. Extremely scalable with 24/7 controls. You can concentrate your ads when it makes the most sense for you, and scale back when it doesn’t.

8. Multiple ad messages. You can run multiple video ads at the same time and It’s Relevant will automatically distribute the messages evenly.

9. Ads are associated with family-friendly programming displayed in prominent public places.

For more information on this new advertising platform please contact John Lunghi by emailing him at: john {at} itsrelevant.com or by dialing the main office at: 203-588-1689.

Top 10 Reasons to Cancel Cable TV or Satellite TV in Your Business

Are You Using Cable or Satellite TV in your Business?

Cable TV and Satellite TV costs are on the rise, while they continue to offer little benefit for your business. Business owners are finding a better way to utilize their TVs, to not only entertain their customers, but to make the business more money at the same time. Why only spend money on cable/satellite when you can be making money with  It’s Relevant TV?

The Top 10 Reasons to Switch (Video)

1. Cable TV COSTS Money, It’s Relevant TV MAKES you money.

It’s Relevant TV is designed to make your business money by integrating your own promotions, videos and social media into the programming. These integrations lead to an increase in the average customer spend, social media followership and return visits/referrals. Traditional TV doesn’t give you any customization, while IRTV lets you customize every part of what’s being delivered to your customers.

2. Competitive Ad Block®

Cable and Satellite TV have a ton of commercials, often 16-22 minutes an hour. And while everyone expects to see commercials on TV, the one thing you as a business owner shouldn’t tolerate is a competitor to advertising in your location.

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If you own a Mercedes-Benz Dealership, would you want a BMW commercial being played to your customers? Of course not. That’s why It’s Relevant has Competitive Ad Block®. It comes with all IRTV systems, and automatically blocks out ads from your industry competitors.

3. No Repetitive Loop & Better Content

If your TV is tuned to a news network you’re likely showing the same content over and over on repeat all day long. A repetitive loop just makes customers feel like they are waiting longer, and no one wants that! It’s Relevant TV is different. The programs never loop! Instead, we bring in fresh content all day long and switch between different content types to keep things interesting.

TV has a lot of channels, and you may find your staff and visitors having to change between them during the day. It’s Relevant TV has just as many choices, but instead of picking one channel, you choose all of the categories of content your visitors will enjoy most. We change the channel for you throughout the day, switching up the programming types every few minutes, increasing the number of touch-points you have with your customers.

4. Display Your Own Ads

Short of buying expensive advertising spots, Cable and Satellite offer no way to get your ads and messages across to customers. It’s Relevant TV makes it easy to feature your messaging next to the programming. You can create and upload images right from your computer or smartphone. IRTV handles the rest, rotating through your ads constantly throughout the day.

You can even set specific days or hours of the day to show specific ads. So for instance, if you run a restaurant, you can have breakfast specials shown until 11am, lunch until 3pm, and dinner for the rest of the night.

5. National News & 5-Day Weather Forecasts

Cable and Satellite TV offer a variety of weather and news channels. But you have to be tuned to one of the channels to get the information. As we all know, any extended viewing of news or weather leads to viewer boredom.

It’s Relevant TV allows you to mix in news and weather information seamlessly throughout the day amidst other more entertaining programming. So you can have food shows, travel programs, celebrity interviews, and news/weather all together instead of being stuck on a single repetitive channel for hours.

6. Real-Time Social Media Display (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

Is your business on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter? How do you encourage people to follow your accounts? Are you getting real customers to follow you?

It’s Relevant TV will display your posts in real-time, showing your most recent photo and text updates to your customers. This is great because it encourages people that have been to your location to follow you. People that have physically been there are more likely to return when following you than someone that’s never been to your location before.

7. Display Your Own Videos

Cable and Satellite TV offer no way for you to display your own videos. You’re just stuck with the channels they provide. It’s Relevant TV is different. If you have a TV commercial or two, you can run them on your TVs. If you have a video message from a staff member for your customers, you can have it displayed for them. It’s as easy as uploading a video from your computer, or recording one on your phone. It’s Relevant TV takes care of rotating your messages evenly throughout the day, and even adds subtitles to your video productions so that they can be displayed on the TV without sound if you desire.

8. Sell/Barter Your Ad Space

Are there businesses in your area that might want to advertise to your customers? It’s Relevant TV provides you with a platform to display the ads and make direct revenue from them.

Let’s say you run an office, and across the street there is a restaurant. As people wait in your office they could see an ad for a special deal at the restaurant. You could charge the restaurant $50 or $100 a month to display their image ad on your TV, however much you choose – you set the price. And you keep all of the revenue.

9. All Family-Friendly Content

Unlike Cable and Satellite TV, It’s Relevant TV only provides content that is prescreened and family friendly. It’s far too often that cable channels have a tame piece of programming one minute and something disgusting, offensive or inappropriate the next. It’s Relevant TV gives you as a business owner piece of mind.

10. Easy Installation

Cable and Satellite TV require long installations, large windows of time for an installer to come, complex wiring, drilling holes and a lot of headaches.

It’s Relevant TV comes as an easy self-install kit. It takes just 5 minutes to get going, and you can do it on your time, when it’s convenient for you. No holes to drill, no shady installers to have to deal with- Just the TV programming your business needs on your terms.

Consult with a TV Expert

It’s Relevant TV offers a free consultation with business owners. You can reach TV specialists by emailing retail {at} itsrelevant.com or by calling (855) ITS-RELE between 8:30AM and 6:00PM EST, Monday-Friday.

Competitive Ad Block® for Customer Retention and Business Loss Prevention

What’s on Your Business TV?

Televisions are becoming a fixture in businesses throughout the United States. While many business owners have decided to buy TVs, not many put much thought into what is displayed on them. TVs can help visitors pass the time but they can also draw customers away from you, and to competing businesses and products.

Block Out the Competing Ads with Competitive Ad Block®

It’s Relevant TV blocks out all competitive ads from your television. In a car dealership, you will never see another car dealership message on your screen. In a restaurant, It’s Relevant TV will not show any other dining establishments. IRTV’s proprietary technology takes care of the blocking automatically and infuses your TV with more relevant TV programming in place of lengthy ad breaks. It’s Relevant TV shuts off ads that could be harmful to your business, while reducing the number of overall ads significantly to make your customers happier viewers. The average hour of cable television includes between 16 and 22 minutes of advertisements. It’s Relevant TV limits ads to 3 minutes, making sure that the focus of the television is on the satisfaction of your customers. You can learn more about the differences between cable TV and It’s Relevant TV on the official site.

Blocking Competition in Car Dealerships

Imagine you are sitting in a Ford Dealership getting your car serviced. You may be waiting a few hours and have a TV in front of you. The television, like many, is tuned to a local news station. In the time you are there you will not only see the TV programming that the channel offers, but also countless ads for other car dealerships. Chevy, Kia, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, Mazda… all appearing on the screen as you wait. Catchy Ads showing happy customers, great lease specials, low financing rates, credit guarantees– all much more attractive than the car you are waiting to get back.

This is a real problem for the business. As you certainly know, cars are big ticket items. They are generally the second largest purchases people make in their lives. If only one or two people in the service center are pulled towards another brand over the course of a year, the negative impact on the dealership is in the thousands of dollars.

Blocking Competition in Restaurants

Now imagine you are in a restaurant eating your meal.  On the TV, you see an ad for a competing establishment offering great prices and appetizing food. While the ad may not keep you from your current purchase, it could very well give you an alternative idea for your next meal, instead of coming back to the restaurant you are in.

As silly as the quick video we prepared above may seem, the effect is very real. Regular TV exposes customers to competitors when they are most impressionable. As a business owner, you would never welcome a competitor to walk in at your business location to hand out their coupons, offer better deals, or speak directly to your customers. So why allow it to happen through your TV?

The answer is simple: Up until now there wasn’t much of a choice. If you wanted to entertain customers with your TV you had to deal with the ads. But with It’s Relevant TV‘s Competitive Ad Block®, you block the competing ads, and keep great TV programming.

Social Media on TV: Businesses Become More Social with their Customers

Businesses Need to Have A Presence on Social Media

The vast majority of consumers are on at least one, if not multiple, social media networks. For this reason, it is obvious that your business should be there as well. Every B2C business owner, no matter their industry, size, or location, has to think about using social media to reach their customers. But, using social media for your business is different than using social media for yourself. Business owners need to strategize how to best reach the people that are the most likely to utilize the business.

Social Media Followership Starts in Your Location

For a long time, businesses have focused on getting more people to “follow” or “like” accounts on social media. They target people on their computers and phones to get a “like”. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have ad platforms designed with that goal in mind. The problem that we’ve heard from our clients who have tried these ad platforms is in conversion (making those new followers into customers). In fact, the vast majority of the new followers you gain online never turn into actual customers.

We’ve found that getting existing customers to follow you is a much better goal. These people are more likely to purchase from you in the future, and to tell their friends about your business. Plus, they have already found you! They know how to get to your business, and they have enjoyed being there in the past.

Gaining Real Followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

But how can you get your customers to follow you from your physical location? Up until now social networks like Facebook have been promoted with physical signs and stickers. While it lets people know you have an account, it doesn’t give them a real reason to follow you. What will “liking” your business do for them? What kind of posts will they be seeing? A static sign just doesn’t show it.

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Static Facebook sticker in a store window

It’s Relevant TV has the answer. Built into the TV service is an automated display of your most recent posts. Having all of our most recent real posts leads to more customers following your social media profiles. The service syndicates your posts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to your televisions, in between TV programs. This lets customers not only see that you have social media profiles, but also gives them a “free sample” of what they can expect to see when they follow you. It’s a gentle way to prove to them value in following you.

Get a Demonstration

It’s Relevant TV offers live online demonstrations of the social media TV system. For more information, and to book a consultation please visit: www.itsrelevant.com

Television Decided the Election. What Decisions is it Making for Your Customers?

Regardless of  who you voted for in the presidential election, your decision was influenced by television. Between the constant TV news coverage and the paid ads that ran, everyone formed judgments and impressions based on what they saw and heard. TV makes a lasting impression. Let’s take a look at what this means for broadcast television, and for TVs inside your business.

24/7 News Networks Care About Their Businesses, Not Yours

Today’s 24/7 news networks turn a 1-day event into months of drama. They take the normal “coverage” and inject scrutiny, conspiracy theories, and sex scandals to bring viewers on a rollercoaster of ups and downs before the grand finale (election day). News feels more and more like entertainment, and that’s not by accident. Plenty of intelligent people have already pointed out that networks do this to boost ratings and generate greater revenues for the crowded networks. And while I would agree that revenue is a driver, I feel that the larger problem is a growing laziness among the people that design the format of these shows.

The News used to be a place that you would come for facts and knowledge. It was the work of large teams of people that spent days or even weeks to bring you researched programs that included quotes from actual experts and your trusted newscaster.  The best part was that you left each broadcast better informed than when you began watching.

CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite reports that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Trusted CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite

Things have changed. While the basic format of having a news anchor inside a studio reporting on the day’s top stories has been constant for decades, the pressures to do more with less money is changing the face of it. The fact of the matter is it’s much easier and far less costly to put a few people around a table to argue about a topic than it is to research and report on a news story.

News reporting can be extremely costly, especially for TV. I ran a video news company in the Northeast for almost 4 years, and we put a lot of work into each story the staff produced. From sourcing a story idea to setting up interviews, cross checking facts, recording the actual video, finding b-roll (cut-away shots), editing the video, fact checking, publishing and distributing the story – it took hours just to produce a minute or two of content. It’s hard to sustain a business with the kind of effort needed to do news reporting right.

Replacing the Reporters & Experts

Taking a look at most prime time cable news shows you see a familiar pattern these days. At the top of the hour you have the team of reporters and experts that are unbiased and reporting the facts of the day without forming judgments. All sitting or standing in the beautiful professional studio.

Then a few minutes later the professional journalists and experts peel away, and a panel of professional-looking people start to share their opinions – in the same space. Panel members can say whatever they want to say and their statements appear to be researched, authoritative and official. It feels like you are hearing from other experts when in reality you are hearing from surrogates (people that will stand by the candidate they support no matter what).

If you recognize any of the people below, then you have come across exactly what I am writing about:

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Some of the many 2016 Election Surrogates

This Would Never Happen Anywhere Else

Imagine a doctor’s office for instance. You schedule an appointment with a well-established practice. You go to the office and sit down with someone in an exam room. The person gives you their opinion on your physical condition and makes recommendations on things you should do once you leave. It feels a lot like you just sat down with a doctor and got a medical opinion.

But what if the person you sat down with isn’t a doctor at all?
What if he/she wasn’t a nurse, or even in the medical profession?
What if you found out that the person you saw and heard from is merely someone that knows of the doctor, nothing else? Their medical opinion would hold absolutely no weight.

This is exactly the problem with the overuse of surrogates and non-experts in news programs today. They have the appearance of authority and are happy to share their opinion even though it’s not necessarily in your best interest.

Unbiased vs. Balancing Bias

For years the news industry has strived to be fair, factual and unbiased. However, in this election season we took one of the most noticeable turns away from that. The strive now seems to be more towards “balancing the sides”. Instead of sticking to the facts, these broadcasts allowed people to share their opinions much like facts, just as long as someone on the opposite side of the argument could do the same.

This created some real distractions within the campaign. Ultimately it may have created some single-issues for voters that moved them one way or the other in the election. Hearing that Trump “sexually assaults women”, or that Hillary “will be put in jail for deleting her emails” creates serious concerns for voters. But all of these kinds of things were being spoken countless times a day by people who looked to be authorities on what they were talking about.

You know it’s bad when the news broadcast has to fact check itself.

Television has Become Bad for Businesses

While television as a whole has more offerings than ever, and is seen in increasing numbers of stores and public places, it’s not helping businesses as much as it should. With endless channel choices at our fingertips, TV is great for the home. You can easily tune from one channel to the next when faced with something you don’t like, but not in a business.  More and more stores, offices, and public places are installing televisions simply because they can. Unfortunately, the programming the businesses choose to display on the screen often does more harm than good.

The bottom line is: even with endless channel choices, you can’t control what appears on any given channel at any given time. You could watch CNN for instance and enjoy a heartwarming story about one of the CNN Heroes.  But just one minute later you’re faced with disturbing images of war and terrorism half a world away. This can be off-putting and depressing to customers as they watch in a business.

Even when the topics aren’t disturbing in nature, they are often exhaustingly overplayed. It’s hard to forget the months of nearly non-stop coverage of missing Malaysian Airlines flight 370. With no new information CNN had to constantly improvise, bringing up new theories, even having anchors use toy planes.

cnn-malaysian-airlines-370-overplayed

It’s not just news stations that cause stress, discomfort, boredom or other negative feelings. I’ve heard complaints about even the most neutral of channels like The Food Network and The Weather Channel. People have different tastes, and leaving them with only one programming type for an extended period of time is a surefire way of losing their attention or worse: becoming a bother to them.

Take Control of the TV in Your Business

As a business owner, it is up to you to make the right choices for your business. You may have spent time choosing the colors of your walls, the hours you are open, the people you want representing your business, the type of music that plays, and the kinds of refreshments you offer to people when they visit. All of these examples are things that have some influence on the way people perceive your business. It’s the interactions your customers have with each element that dictates their overall satisfaction of your location.

TV has arguably one of the greatest abilities to shape how people feel. The combination of visuals and sound leave a lasting impression on people. What impression do you want your customers to leave with? How do you want them to feel when waiting at your place of business? What do you want them to know about your business, values, and offerings?

We’ve found that the happiest customers are the ones that get to see a variety of content.  They don’t want to feel like they are being bombarded by advertisements. For this reason, we created a platform called It’s Relevant TV that provides an ever-changing assortment of short-form television shows. The service blocks out competitor advertisements and gently brings the business’ own messaging and real-time social media onto the screen. The custom networks can operate with or without sound; all of the video content can be overlayed with optional subtitles.

It's Relevant TV

An experienced editorial team screens the included licensed TV programs before delivery to the businesses. All of the programs that we distribute are family-friendly.  We keep all political coverage short, to the point, and truly unbiased. It’s Relevant gives each business 50 categories of video content to choose from. This ensures that the programming isn’t just risk-free, but is topically oriented to visitors of the specific business. The business easily controls the messaging and social media syndication.

Learn from the Election

This election season, one thing was obvious: the campaigns understood the power of television. They knew that messaging seen on TV will stick in people’s minds and influence their decisions. This is why we saw the campaigns push their  surrogates to TV. The lazy TV networks were happy to invite them on because it saved money and filled their airtime.

TV has tremendous power over decision making. Don’t be lazy with yours.
Make sure your TV is working in your best interest as a business owner.

Written By: Jonathan Krackehl, President & CEO of It’s Relevant TV

Feeling Loopy? Repetitive Slideshows Leave Customers More Anxious

What is it about an environment that makes you feel bored? What makes you feel like time is moving slowly, or that you have been waiting a long time? It probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that many people cite repetitive (or looping) television programs to be a major factor.

Repetition can be seen everywhere

Repeating over and over

Have you ever been at a medical office and seen the same “medical facts” flash on the screen a number of times before seeing your doctor?

How about the gas station where the screen plays the same advertisement or weather forecast multiple times in 3 minutes?

Have you ever been at a restaurant and seen the same news stories played every 15 minutes?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are not alone! Businesses often turn to television content providers with limited libraries of content to show “relevant” content to their customers. Unfortunately, most of these providers don’t take into consideration the amount of time customers wait, or the average frequency of visits the same customer makes in any given week or month.

Showing the same content over and over is boring

Bored ManWhen people are bored they feel like their time is being wasted.  Business owners don’t want to waste customers’ time.  Happy customers make greater purchases and come back again in the future.

The It’s Relevant TV custom TV platform takes all of this into consideration.

The 5 Main Differentiators of It’s Relevant TV

1. There is no loop. The programs shown on the custom TV networks do not repeat over and over again in the same sequence.

2. The content library is gigantic. It’s Relevant TV licenses television programs from top TV producers and short-film makers around the world.  As a result, the company constantly changes the content they deliver to each of the partner televisions.

3. It’s Relevant TV constantly updates the content. Some other services “refresh” the content on custom networks once or twice a month. It’s Relevant TV releases new content to partners almost hourly, expanding the library and creating new experiences all the time.

4. It’s Relevant TV makes custom TV easy to control. Some other solutions require that the business owners have to go in and select specific videos that they want played, and then have to go back and change their selections anytime they want the programming on their TV to change. It’s Relevant TV changes the programming for you, while keeping within your preferences and parameters. Instead of picking specific videos, you simply choose from a list of 50 categories of content. The service then continues to deliver videos in only the categories you select.

5. They take care of the licensing. This is a big deal, and will become an even bigger deal in the years to come. Some services allow business owners to display YouTube videos on their TVs. Simply put: THAT IS ILLEGAL. YouTube’s terms of use prohibit broadcasting content publicly. Users who upload videos to YouTube give YouTube limited rights to display their content only on certain monetized online platforms. Since taking the content off the platform is essentially stealing it, the owner of the content could come after your business if you use it that way.

 

For more information and to explore creating your own non-looping custom channel contact It’s Relevant TV via phone at: 855-ITS-RELE or via email at: support@itsrelevant.com

Facebook Video Ad Viewing Times Inflated, ROI Questioned

Recent news has broken about the inaccurate reporting of video playback times on the Facebook platform.  Facebook’s reporting suggested higher message playback than actually happened.  In a post on the Facebook advertising help site, Facebook announced the discrepancy and explained the difference between how it defined the statistic, and what was actually measured.

We had previously defined the Average Duration of Video Viewed as “total time spent watching a video divided by the total number of people who have played the video.” But we erroneously had calculated the Average Duration of Video Viewed as “the total time spent watching a video divided by only the number of people who have viewed a video for three or more seconds.

New Changes In Place

Then in response to this discovery, Facebook says it’s introducing two new metrics in hopes to save face:

Video Average Watch Time: the total watch time for your video, divided by the total number of video plays. This includes plays that start automatically and on click. This will replace the Average Duration of Video Viewed metric.

Video Percentage Watched: reflects the percentage of your video somebody watches per session, averaged across all sessions of your video where the video auto-played or was clicked to play. This will replace the Average % Video Viewed metric.

What does this mean for you as an advertiser? It means that if you advertised on Facebook over the past couple of years you have likely been misled. You likely have an unrealistic ROI measure if you were using the “average duration of video views” metric. Most noteworthy is that Facebook is never aiming for a 100% playback of your video. The platform operates with distracted individuals in mind and is not the place to deliver a real ad message.

A Facebook Ad Alternative

TV Advertising Digital SIgnage Business Television
TV Advertising on It’s Relevant TV

Instead of playing back fractions of your video ads to viewers that may be largely irrelevant to your messaging, you could be utilizing It’s Relevant TV’s Advertising Platform. It’s Relevant TV puts your video messages on television in public places and only charges you for FULL PLAYBACKS. The price is about 1/100 of what standard TV ads cost. Advertisers can target by geographic location and business type.

For more information you can call the toll free office line: (855) ITS-RELE or visit online at: http://www.itsrelevant.com/advertising.

An Apple TV App for Businesses (tvOS)

Transforming the TV in Your Business

Up until now there have been very few options for using a TV in a business location.  Turning on cable TV results in a lot of doom and gloom news stories and unpredictable content.  Even worse for your business, cable TV delivers countless competitive ads that draw customers away.  Some businesses have tried using their televisions as digital signs. But plain old digital signage is BORING and often ignored. Some pre-programmed video packages are available also, but those bring a repetitive loop that can frustrate customers.  Finally, there is a solution! It’s Relevant TV takes a fresh approach to help you take control of your TV.

For a business, the true power of television is the combination of interesting content and well-placed advertisements, and It’s Relevant TV puts that power within reach of every business owner.  From local retailers, medical offices, restaurants, and salons to sports arenas, theaters, hotels and car dealerships, the custom channels work uniquely for each and every location.

Apple TV App (tvOS) Hand Remote
It’s Relevant for Apple TV (tvOS)

Apple TV (4th Generation)

It’s Relevant TV for tvOS brings the power of the company’s custom TV networks to any owner of a 4th generation Apple TV device. The service combines the best aspects of television, social media and digital promotions.  In addition, the service allows business owners to control them all from their computer, tablet, or smartphone.  It offers greater control than any other TV product available today.

Television Content, Social Media, Competitive Ad Block®

Businesses choose the types of content they want to display to their visitors from a vast library of licensed content.  They can also upload their own messaging, images, and videos to show.  In addition, they can decide which social media updates to display from their own accounts, and It’s Relevant TV does the rest.  It’s Relevant TV automatically delivers fresh video content throughout the day, updating the promotions and social media as each business makes changes in their account.  Businesses are also excited about what It’s Relevant TV blocks from the broadcast: competitive ads. With Competitive Ad Block® from It’s Relevant TV, all advertisements from competing businesses are blocked from reaching the screen.

Get Started

All you need is the free application from the iTunes TVOS store, and an access code from It’s Relevant TV.  Search “it’s relevant tv” on your Apple TV) to download the app.  If you don’t already have an access code please email support@itsrelevant.com to get one.

Today is the day you will make your TV worth something. We look forward to providing you with the tools to make it happen.

Waiting Room Makeover: Controlled By an iPhone App?

It can take a long time to create a waiting room environment that you are 100% happy with for your visitors. You want people to feel comfortable, to be entertained, and also to be informed about all you have to offer. Buying thousands of dollars of furniture, changing the lighting, updating music and even creating the scents are some of the ways businesses and professionals are altering their environments. But what if there were an easier way to transform your space? And what if major changes could be made inexpensively from a smartphone app? It sounds like a fantasy, but it is now a reality.

The Easy & Inexpensive Solution

Televisions are the focal point of most waiting areas, but until now there was no way strategically integrate one in your environment. Introducing: It’s Relevant TV for iOS. Businesses and their employees can now personalize and control the content displayed on their televisions directly from their iPhones. The new application paired with a $99/month subscription allow professionals to take control. Ideal for hospitality businesses including medical offices, hotels, restaurants, and sports arenas, It’s Relevant TV helps businesses easily take control of the programming displayed on their televisions, while influencing visitor satisfaction, purchasing decisions and social media followership.

It's Relevant TV in a Restaurant“It’s Relevant TV does exactly what our name says. We empower business owners to control the TVs and make the programming relevant to their customers,” said Jonathan Krackehl, CEO of It’s Relevant TV. Waiting is a part of any service business, but it doesn’t have be a point of frustration for yours.  “Up until now most businesses have done one of two things: Either they chose a cable television station loosely relevant to their business, or they displayed a video or image loop that became redundant after a couple repetitions.”

Making the “Wait” Less of a “Weight” on Your Visitors

Medical Office Custom TV Solution
Medical Office Custom TV Solution

The company, Software Advice, asked more than 5-thousand people to rate how they felt about wait times. 64% said the wait would be more bearable with a TV in the waiting room. Participants in the study chose television over free food and beverages and even access to WiFi. “ TV that shows interesting content alongside a business’ messaging makes both the customers and the business happier,” according to Krackehl.

What Can You Control?

It’s Relevant TV provides simple controls for all aspects of their screen displays.  It is simple for you to chose the video content that is relevant to your customers. The company’s experienced editors compile diverse, timely and interesting content and organize it into 40+ categories, ranging from general health, travel, business, kids shows, fashion, sports, comedy, cooking and non- controversial news. Business owners, administrators and facility managers using the service for display, simply choose the categories that match their vistors’ interests most.

Becker’s Hospital Review reports the average wait time nationwide is now more than 15 minutes. Most TV shows last much longer and start at the top and bottom of the hour. IRTV segments are current, timely, engaging and never run more 4 minutes in length. All of the videos are subtitled so even if you prefer a quieter setting people can still enjoy the programming.

iPhone App to Create Custom TV with Wireless Ad Uploading
It’s Relevant TV Ad Builder, Inside the It’s Relevant TV iOS App

In addition to controling the video content, users also control a suite of digital messaging. The app includes an ad builder that allows the user to take a photo, add text and even a QR code before setting it live alongside the TV programming on their screen(s). Users can also control the syndication of their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. With full screen features, It’s Relevant TV displays the user’s most recent posts automatically.  It’s Relevant also offers a 5-day weather forecast based on the user’s zip code

Free App Download

It’s Relevant TV for iOS is free for It’s Relevant TV customers. The application includes a demonstration video, accessible upon download. Click Here to access the application on the iTunes Store.