Music discovery app Shazam is developing a merchandising feature that allows users to tag TV shows and discover products used on the shows
Shazam is developing new technology which allows users to discover products used on their favourite TV shows.
As with Shazam’s music app, which takes a sample of the audio content and matches it with the song details, Shazam is now working on technology that helps consumers shop for items used on the TV shows. By sampling the sound from a TV show, Shazam could, for example, match it with what the actors are wearing or using on screen at that point, through collaborating with the producers.
While the company has not yet developed technology for image recognition – it still relies on audio tagging – this could change.
“We have the ability to identify the product in a TV show so that when somebody Shazams it, they could find out where a presenter’s dress is from in one click,” Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher told The Guardian.
The company already works with TV production companies in the US. When users tag the unique sound content at time of broadcast, Shazam can link it to the relevant content on the consumer’s phone. Fisher continues:
“We are focused on creating a new category which we call media engagement. We make it easier for consumers to engage with a brand or a piece of content they are interested in, without having to go through search engines, then mining the results. That works with both TV programming and advertising: a 30-second slot can be turned into a three-minute brand engagement – and more.”
Fashion discovery is a fast-growing niche, with startups such as fashion search engine ShopStyle helping consumers to discover new clothing.
Like Shazam, ShopStyle works with TV production companies to help them discover brands. The British company has a partnership with Channel 4’s Made in Chelsea to sell clothing worn by actors of the show after each episode. ShopStyle is seeing a transformation of how users use mobile to interact with brands: mobile web clicks grew by 1,206 per cent between 2012 and 2013.
Shazam was founded by Chris Barton and Philip Inghelbrecht, two Berkeley students, in 1999. The startup moved its headquarters to London in 2002.