October 13, 2009 | Conferences

ESCA: Downloads have to match or surpass expectations

Pete Dodd looks at the problems of convincing consumers about Tesco and Microsoft's Silverlight technology.

Although “delighted” with Tesco’s joint venture with Microsoft to bring a “virtual DVD” experience to laptops via the computer giant’s Silverlight technology, Tesco’s Category Director for Entertainment Rob Salter, at ESCA, noted it was failing to impress because people unfamiliar with the digital world already expected such technologies to match or surpass existing physical offers.

“When we showed it to executives at Tesco we put it on a laptop and the general reaction was ‘…and?’” he said, admitting that he’d expected a big ‘Oooh’ when he showed there was no DVD in the tray.

The reason for the lack of enthusiasm, Salter pointed out, was that the people saw nothing more than they expected to see. “Nobody in that room had ever downloaded a movie. Nobody is really downloading movies yet – that’s the cold, hard truth,” he continued. “If the mass market was to download a movie today I think they would be disappointed because they’re expecting the same experience they would get from DVD or a Blu-ray. They’re expecting to be moved into a digital world where the experience is at least as good, and then we’ve got to make it better.”

While pointing out that web connectivity features did offer genuine improvements, he worried that it was a case of pushing ahead too quickly. “We’ve tried to move customers to a world they’re not ready to go to,” he said. “For me it’s an issue of tangibility. When people buy something from Tesco, or Borders or LoveFilm – any retailer – it should play on their devices – it won’t be out of date in a few minutes. Until we create that tangibility for the customer there is not going to be a growth in the digital market that will match the decline we’ve created by telling everyone that it is time to move on.

“Linking the two experiences is the key to this. I’m delighted with our virtual DVD player it’s a great step forward but it’s a step forward to where customers are already expecting us to be for them.”

Elsewhere, Paul Firth, Head of European Buying with LoveFilm, said that LoveFilm launched a streaming service a few months ago and although they had not pushed it, the uptake had been “very encouraging”. He said the company offered transactional VoD where members can pay to watch a film there and then, and a smaller subscriptional VoD available as part the company’s higher packages. He confirmed take-up had been good but LoveFilm had kept it in Beta to make sure the technology was robust enough and to improve the range. He foresaw demand increasing when films could be watched on a TV and not just a laptop.