26/02/2008 - Marco Giusti is Creative Director and responsible for the «look and feel» of Tiscali TV, its EPG, specialist brands on-screen promotion, creative development and output. He presents the VOD strategy of Tiscali TV and his areas of expertise. He also describes the key to have a great TV with interactivity.

Marco Giusti is Creative Director and responsible for the «look and feel» of Tiscali TV, its EPG, specialist brands on-screen promotion, creative development and output.

What is the VOD strategy of Tiscali TV?
We had a soft VOD launch to Tiscali UK customers in December 2006 and a full launch to Tiscali UK customers on March 2007. We will launch the VOD service to Tiscali Italia customers in autumn 2007. In Italy, Tiscali has a broadband customer base of 1.8 million people, a number which is constantly growing.
We pretty much pioneered Video On Demand, certainly in Europe. We are still the first in our EPG guide in our TV guide. Our VOD service are TV channels. We broadcast (or stream) to the TV not to the web through a set-top box, via ADSL. Tiscali also has a business which is a portal business which is very interesting in terms of «eyeballs».

What are your areas of expertise?
We provide a joined up creative solution that ensures design, message and brand consistency through all key areas. I’m managing the Creative studio. The Creative studio is responsible for the «look and feel» of numerous ITV/VOD channels and products across media.
We are quite unique in the fact that we also control the design of the EPG and the TV Guide and because we develop our own middleware. We are integrated creatively, since we are playing around in the interactive arena and we are usually trying to flex components that our development guys have created in a way that they never planned us to do.

What are the most relevant innovations you introduced into the set-top boxes?
We created a very user-friendly environment for the children. We give them something of their own to use: the Minimote, exclusive to Tiscali TV. The Minimote is Europe’s first remote control designed specifically for children. We gave them control, by design. It creates a walled garden for them in the TV environment. It is pre-programmed to only access kids’ channels. It’s safe to use. They had it in America, we just restyled it. But we’re the first in Europe to take up the idea. (The Americans also give it to older people as well). The Minimote remote control is easy to use with easy picture icons. Child friendly shape and soft touch, bright orange paint finish means it’s non-slip and easy to find.

Do you explore channel design solutions?
Yes, there are a couple of design solutions we came up with to try to have more interactivity. Fundamentally we provide on-demand content with degrees of interactivity attached. We work with great brands, brands we know and love, like Disney and Cartoon Network. We also created our own pre-school, a brand new start up, called «scamp».

What are the elements you would like to keep in mind when you design ItV channels?
The key to have a great TV with interactivity is to push and stress development components and design together. And that’s why it’s important not to have that as a separate division. Face to face contact makes it much easier to put across what we are trying to achieve in development. We make sure we never forget that this is television.
Our customers are still viewers rather than consumers to me. It is quite a big difference. Good promotion is an essential part of the equation. There is no point of making something no one knows exists or how to use. We have had some companies creating platforms on our platform that just died because they put a couple of promos on when they launch then forget about it. And they wonder why the figures aren’t so good! It’s very busy out there, you have to be visible. There are a lot of channels out there, when you want yours to stand out, you have to push them and push them intelligently.

We use all media - on-screen, on-line and print and we make sure it is joined up. We designed Disney treasures to showcase an impressive variety of well-known content. Disney treasures is a deep destination channel - with a mix of Cartoons, movies, shows, games and Quizzes. With the channel we are leveraging well-known content. The content is designed to be familiar and traditional.
You enter from a channel but we don’t use banners, they are video messaging, always in video form. Again it stresses the «television» nature of what we do.
We also created a video-on-demand service for Cartoon network, which is a completely different premise. The channel shows in many ways cartoons but in a very different brand. It didn’t need inventing, it just needed an on-demand life.

Did you create your own channel?
Yes we created our own brand, called «scamp». «Scamp» is a channel created by us, the content is bought and aggregated, we created the brand, very much aimed at pre-schoolers. «Scamp» is the first interactive on-demand pre- school channel (1-4 year olds). It has been designed for an ITV/VOD channel that must appeal to pre- school kids, but also reassuring and accessible to parents. It has extensive content, safe environment and ease of navigation.
It was a big challenge to create a new kids brand from scratch. We had a blank paper, no heritage to lean on. But we knew who we were aiming at. There was nothing on demand in pre-school. It is doing remarkably well for what it is. It had to be accessible to parents. It’s very easy to change content and one thing we take from linear channels is traditional stuff, like seasonal references. It works as a linear channel on demand but without time lines, and it works. Because it’s available all the time, there is a danger that it becomes quite static. Lots of people don’t realise the effort that goes into keeping it fresh and current, in fact more so than in other time based channels.
You make a change and the viewers react, especially with kids. If you don’t do it, to them it’s just boring. The very latest development is we have crossed the boundaries, where content can meet promotion, education but with a bit of fun. With short content we are promoting our brand. Having interactivity is all very well but not if no one uses it. The kids use it but lots of others don’t, so if you don’t teach them within the first month it is difficult to change the behaviour patterns later. So we use animated characters to drive the information and get them to sign up. And we had good reaction because there was some content, not just being told to do something. A bit of education goes a long way, entertaining whilst doing it - goes longer.

Cartoon Master Murcia, Spain, March 2007