To keep their viewers happy, video broadcasters find themselves increasingly eager to offer the best possible deal. Crafting offers that win business has not always been easy. Traditionally, offers have been tied to a single device, such as a set-top box, and limited to rudimentary models such as subscribing to one or more channels or purchasing a single event. Even if one overcame that obstacle, supporting commercial offers on multiple devices -many of which employ different proprietary Digital Rights Management (DRM) standards -meant that it was difficult to ensure a seamless user experience.

In a competitive business environment, the ability of broadcasters to monetize their video services with creative and attractive offers should not be limited bytechnology. Videoscape Offer Management lets operators implement new offers as quickly as they can dream up new business rules. Want to offer five PPV events for the price of three? No problem. Want to offer early bird rates for the first 500 customers to sign up for a package? Combine an offer with a voucher for a free pizza? It can be done. A simple open interface supports associating content with offers and rapidly deploying those offers in the field.

When a viewer purchases a package, authorization takes place in real time. Authorization can then occur from any device type. As a result, your viewers get the immediate gratification they deserve; they are not restricted to viewing on the device on which the purchase was made, even if the devices have different Conditional Access (CA) / DRM protection systems. No matter the device, no matter the scale, the viewer experience will be uniform.

But what about all those limitations? Different platforms, different DRM, hard-coded business rules -what's changed? Behind the scenes, working in concert with Offer Management, are complementary Videoscape Control Suite modules that resolve the longtime obstacles to supporting truly flexible offers. For instance, the Videoscape Identity Management module maintains user and device real-time authorizations, as well as user preferences, that Offer Management uses when evaluating entitlements. The Videoscape Endpoint Management module provisions services across viewer devices from a single, unified framework. And the Videoscape Policy and Resource Management module provides real time info on device/network availability to share bandwidth more efficiently and provide video services from a common platform. Together, these bundled technologies shape new ways for broadcasters to save money, save time, upsell, and nimbly enter new markets.

For more information about Cisco's Offer Management solution, click here.