Automated Content Recognition (or shortly, ACR) is the technology, which implies the identification of the content, streamed or played on a Smart TV.
What is ACR?
From the technical point of view, automated content recognition implies capturing of the audio and/or video signals, i.e. frame/s from a show or a snippet of a digital video ad OST, and their further cross-referencing with the unified library of other audio/video signals from other captured signals for matching purposes.
Naturally, the scope of content analysis includes digital video content, as well as video ads, displayed on OTT devices.
Use Cases of ACR
Automated content recognition happens to be an indispensable part of viewership targeting and measurement on CTV devices (including Smart TVs, game consoles, connected digital video players, and more).
And quite predictably, one of the major use cases of ACR is CTV advertising.
Namely, it’s the ACR tech, which plays an important part in enabling digital businesses to target (and retarget) CTV ads to specific audience cohorts (based on their geo, income estimate or demographics), analyse campaign performance and, certainly, personalize video ad content, shown within a particular household, hence driving the more positive customer feedback towards ads.
Privacy Considerations
Likewise, as with somewhat the similar tracking mechanisms on other platforms, the use of automated content recognition in Smart TVs is permission-based, i.e. a vendor needs to require a user’s explicit consent to turn it on, as well as provide a working opt-out option (e.g. in the device Settings menu).
However, there are no strict guidelines regarding the precise naming of the feature, hence these usually vary depending on the vendor.