Author: Lab Team

MWC 2017: Line Introduces Conversational AI Assistant Clova

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Line, Japan’s leading messaging app with over 217 million users, is working with Naver, South Korea’s biggest internet portal, to launch an intelligent voice assistant service named Clova to serve the East Asian markets.

Line’s CEO Takeshi Idezawa took the stage at a press event at the Mobile World Congress today to announce its plan to launch Clova, which will be accessible via a mobile app, a smart speaker WAVE, and a smart display device FACE. The Clova app is set to launch in Japan and South Korea this spring, with WAVE coming out in early summer and WAVE launching later this year. The company plans to roll out Clova products in other core markets such as Thailand and Indonesia later this year as well.

Leveraging Naver’s search technology and data and combining it with Line’s own user data and communication technology, Clova will able to offer precise, personalized answers to user’s voice commands, adopting local languages, content, and services to better serve its users.

In addition, Line is also in talks with the several companies including Sony and LG to integrate Clova into more consumer gadgets and connected devices, such as a Sony connected headphone, LG connected home appliances, connected toys from Takara Tomy, and even a holographic home robot called Winkle Gatebox that will serve an anthropomorphic visual component for Clova.

What Brands Need To Do
During the keynote presentation, Idezawa acknowledged that the goal behind launching Clova is to bring artificial intelligence technology to consumer gadgets and smart home devices so as to establish Clova as a local competitor to Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant in the Asian markets. This major launch also marks another major tech player entering the battleground for consumer attention with a voice assistant service as non-mobile-centric digital interactions start to emerge and pull the focus off smartphones.

As this trend continues to develop, voice-based conversational services stand to quickly gain more ground in the next few years. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts. Even brands that won’t embed voice into their own product experiences should still look to capitalize on the opportunity by offering complementary services to add value.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

MWC 2017: Alexa Coming To Motorola Handsets, Will Learn To Distinguish Voices

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Compared to its near omnipresence at this year’s CES, Alexa may appear to have a smaller presence at the Mobile World Congress, the global smartphone and mobile industry trade show unfolding in Barcelona this week. But that doesn’t mean Amazon’s virtual assistant service is taking a break either. Motorola, now owned by Chinese consumer electronic giant Lenovo, announced at a press conference on Sunday that it has struck a partnership with Amazon to embed Alexa service natively into most of Motorola’s devices in the future. But first, Moto says it will focus on developing an Alexa “Mod,” an attachable block for its Moto Z modular handset.

In related Alexa news, Amazon is reportedly working on a “Voice ID” feature that will enable Alexa to distinguish different voices and recognize which user is talking to it. If realized, this individual voice recognition feature would unleash some great new use cases of Alexa and the Echo devices it supports. For one thing, it should stop your Alexa from responding to her name being called in TV commercials. Moreover, this feature can be used to authenticate different users in a seamless way and therefore solidifying Echo’s position as a family living room device.

What Brands Need To Do
Expanding Alexa into more smartphones and multi-user usage shows Amazon’s determination in pushing its voice-activated assistant and bringing AI-powered interfaces to mainstream consumers. It is becoming more evident than ever that voice-based brand-customer interaction is something that brands have to explore and master.

According to a report from analytics firm VoiceLabs, about 33 million voice-first devices will be in circulation by the end of 2017. Therefore, It is up to brands to start working with developers to figure out their brand voice and incorporate conversational tools into their marketing efforts.

Even brands that won’t embed voice into their own product experiences should still look to capitalize on the opportunity by offering complementary services: recipes, wellness information, and lifestyle content are all popular uses for Alexa, and areas where brands can look to add value.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: TechCrunch & The Verge

 

MWC 2017: Olay Debuts AI-Powered Skin Adviser Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
P&G’s skincare brand Olay made their debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier today to celebrate the global launch of its Olay Skin Advisor platform. Available via Olay’s mini-site, the web-based skin analytics platform leverages artificial intelligence and deep learning to provide skin analysis and personalized product recommendations delivered right on their mobile phones or tablets.

With just one selfie, Skin Advisor can analyze a woman’s face to determine her skin age and the main areas she needs to focus on. The platform will also prompt her to answer a short series of questions on personal skin concerns and product preferences before offering a personalized recommendation on suitable products and skincare regimen based on their needs and preferences.

The global launch of Olay Skin Advisor also means a series of upgrades to the platform in the United States, where a 1.0 beta version has been live since late 2016. The upgraded Olay Skin Advisor 2.0, will launch in the US in mid-March.

What Brands Need To Do
More and more beauty brands are incorporating mobile touchpoints into their customer journey. On the mobile AR front, L’Oreal’s Makeup Genius app and Covergirl’s BeautyU app are both good examples of how beauty brands can leverage the advanced capabilities of smartphones, especially the ease of image input via the phone’s camera, to provide extra utility for the customers. In addition, the kind of personalized user experience and product recommendations that AI can offer based on data and user input is also valuable for brands. Brand marketers need to consider how they can use their customer data to provide personalized experiences with the help of an AI engine.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience working with beauty brands to create and implement digitally enhanced retail experiences. The recently-opened NYX Cosmetics store at Union Square is a proud showcase of our team’s work in this space and elevated NYX as one of the most innovative digital beauty brands of 2016 named by WWD. If you’d like to learn more about how your brand can develop and implement digital-driven solutions to modernize your beauty retail experience, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Business Wire

Header images are promotional image from Olay’s press release

 

Twitch To Start Selling Games On Its Site This Spring

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitch is ready to take the logical expansion from streaming video gameplays to selling video games. The company announced on Monday that it will start to make game titles available for purchases later this spring. The company will be working both big-name and indie game publishers for the launch, including Ubisoft, Telltale Games, Digital Extremes, Hi-Rez Studios, tinyBuild, Paradox Interactive, Trion Worlds, Vlambeer, and others.

Once Twitch users make a purchase, they can play the game via Twitch Launcher, a software for that Twitch Prime customers uses to redeem games and loot codes. They can also opt to download and play the games through existing developer and publisher-operated services, including Uplay.

What Brands Need To Do
This move will no doubt open up a new revenue stream for Twitch while also setting it up for competition against other game marketplaces like Steam and Valve. While this may not be a common marketing ploy, several QSR and CPG brands have worked with video game publishers to develop games that incorporated their brand IPs. For brands, this means they will soon have a new platform to sell and promote the branded video game content they own.

 

Source: TechCrunch

MWC 2017: The AI-Powered, Connected Cars Of The Future

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Monday marks the first day of the 2017 Mobile World Congress (MWC), the world’s leading smartphone trade show. As with the previous years, a slew of new mobile and portable gadgets are introduced, and the Lab team is on the ground in Barcelona, Spain, scouting for the latest trend in mobile technologies. Today, however, it is the futuristic smart cars, not the shiny new phones, that stole the show.

Ford announced a partnership with Vodafone at its press event that will lead to 4G modems being built into a select range of its upcoming vehicles in the European market. The modem will bring 4G LTE connectivity over Wi-Fi, with up to ten devices able to connect at once, effectively turning those Ford models into a media hub on wheels.

Moving beyond connectivities for existing models, Roborace drew a lot of eyeballs at the Mobile World Congress today with a stunning self-driving race car. The British company behind the robot racing series unveiled Robocar, the world’s first AI-powered, self-driving electric race car. Powered by Nvidia’s Drive PX2, an open A.I. car computing platform, the Robocar can reach an impressive top speed of 199 miles per hour.

French automaker Peugeot took the AI solution one step further with the debut of its Instinct concept car, an autonomous car designed to drive differently according to reading your mood and needs. The car is connected to Samsung’s Artik cloud service, allowing it to gather data from other connected devices, such as your calendar schedule or your heartbeat rate from a smartwatch, in order to determine between four driving modes: drive boost, drive relax, autonomous soft, and autonomous sharp, to provide the most suitable driving experience.

What Brands Need To Do
In line with what we saw two month ago at this year’s CES, major advances in AI and machine learning has supercharged the race of developing autonomous cars among automakers this year. For brand marketers, AI is what will power the future of brand-customer interactions as the core of the post-smartphone computing. AI evolution is set to bring an influx of additional media time once self-driving cars can free our eyes from the road. While it is still a few years off till the technology fully matures, it is never too early for brands to start thinking about how to conquer this new media space.

Another important capability that AI will unleash for all brands lies in dynamic creatives that can deliver personalized user experience based on data and user input. Brand marketers need to consider how they can leverage their customer data to provide personalized experiences with the help of an AI engine.

 

Sources: as linked in the article

MWC 2017: Samsung Redesigns Gear VR And Reveals New Controller

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
At a press conference hosted yesterday in Barcelona ahead of this year’s Mobile World Congress, Samsung announced some noteworthy news about its Gear VR headsets. The Korean mobile giant debuted a redesign of the Samsung Gear VR that not only makes it work better with existing Samsung handsets but also prepares it for the upcoming Galaxy S8 phones.

More importantly, the new Gear VR headset will also come with a new controller that includes touchpad and trigger, in addition to the motion sensors. Equipped with a touch-sensitive touchpad, the controller enables users to navigate the VR interfaces in a faster and more convenient manner. The control also comes with a trigger at the bottom for playing video games.

Besides the VR updates, Samsung also unveiled two new tablets and a new class of two-in-one laptop-tablet device.

What Brands Need To Do
Samsung Gear VR remains one of the most popular mobile platforms for virtual reality at the moment. And this refresh in headset design and new remote controller significantly improves the user-friendliness and adds to its interactivity.

As the hardware continues to develop, VR and 360-degree content is quickly emerging as a medium that brands should explore to attract consumer attention with innovative storytelling. In order to capitalize on the booming popularity of the immersive medium, brands should take a cue and start developing VR content that truly enhances brand messaging and contributes to the campaign objectives.

How We Can Help
Our dedicated team of VR experts is here to guide marketers through the distribution landscape. We work closely with brands to develop sustainable VR content strategies to promote branded VR and 360 video content across various apps and platforms. With our proprietary technology stack powered by a combination of best-in-class VR partners and backed by the media fire-power of IPG Mediabrands, we offer customized solutions for distributing and measuring branded VR content that truly enhance brand messaging and contribute to the campaign objectives.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Lab can help you tap into the immersive power of VR content to engage with customers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VR Focus

 

Google Assistant Coming To More Android Phones

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google is expanding the reach of its voice assistant service to a lot more devices as it continues to compete against Amazon’s Alexa in conquering the emerging conversational market. Starting this week, Google is starting to roll out Google Assistant to every Android phone, 6.0 and up, for U.S. users.  The voice assistant feature was previously confined to the Google Pixel phones and Google’s smart speaker Home. Google says the gradual roll out will take weeks and will replace the existing “OK Google” voice command features on many Android phones.

What Brands Need To Do
This roll out will no doubt get Google Assistant into the hands of more mobile users and further familiarize mainstream consumers with the rising AI-powered conversational services. With Alexa dominating the IoT devices at this year’s CES and more and more brands embracing virtual assistants and chatbots to improve customer service, brands need to start developing a conversational strategy to figure out how conversational interfaces may improve your customer experience.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. So much so that we’ve built a dedicated conversational practice called Dialogue. The “Miller Time” Alexa Skill we developed with Drizly for Miller Lite is a good example of how Dialogue can help brands build a conversational customer experience, supercharged by our stack of technology partners with best-in-class solutions and an insights engine that extracts business intelligence from conversational data.

If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, or to leverage the Lab’s expertise to take on related client opportunities within the IPG Mediabrands, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Ars Technica

Google Taps NBA For Original VR Show, Debuts Its First VR Series

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google is coming out with more VR content initiatives as it continues to build out its content offering on its Daydream VR platform. Last week, the company announced it is working the NBA to launch a virtual reality app for Daydream. The main content that this new VR app serves will be an original talk show series called House of Legends featuring former NBA players. Additionally, Google also debuted its first episode of its VR series created in-house. Dubbed Google Immerse VR, the series set to leverage the empathizing power of virtual reality to explore the nuances of race, diversity, and identity.

What Brands Need To Do
As Google continues to build out Daydream’s content library to attract VR content creators and consumers to its VR platform, brands can also leverage this initiative to make their VR content stand out on Daydream VR. A month ago, Google opened up Daydream to allow all developers to create and publish Daydream VR apps via the Play Store, giving brands a way in to get on the platform. Early-adopting brands, such as Marriott and Mountain Dew, have been leveraging VR and 360-degree content to offer customers a powerfully immersive experience, and more brands can benefit from exploring this emerging medium to keep consumers engaged and entertained.

How We Can Help
Our dedicated team of VR experts is here to guide marketers through the distribution landscape. We work closely with brands to develop sustainable VR content strategies to promote branded VR and 360 video content across various apps and platforms. With our proprietary technology stack powered by a combination of best-in-class VR partners and backed by the media fire-power of IPG Mediabrands, we offer customized solutions for distributing and measuring branded VR content that truly enhance brand messaging and contribute to the campaign objectives.

If you’d like to learn more about how the Lab can help you tap into the immersive power of VR content to engage with customers, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Engadget & The Verge

How Hyatt Leverages Snapchat Spectacles For Branded Content From Employee POVs

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Hyatt becomes the latest brand to embrace Spectacles, the camera-equipped connected sunglasses from Snap Inc., for creating marketing content. As part of its global campaign “World of Hyatt,” the international hotel chain has given away eight pairs of Spectacles to employees at different hotel locations around the world to produce branded video content from their unique POVs. The content they produce will be shared internally as well on Hyatt’s social media channels selectively.

What Brands Need To Do
Previously, Toyota and L’Oreal have also tapped Spectacles to produce branded content. Hyatt’s approach differs from those two brands, which both handed the Spectacles over to social influencers at their respective events, in that it has a broader, international perspective and focuses on capturing the normal, day-to-day happenings at Hyatt properties around the world. Spectacles are great at capturing the kind of candid, off-the-cuff moments, in a circular format that is especially suited for Snapchat but can also be posted to other social channels. Brands wishing to add more authenticity to their branded content and enrich their Snapchat video content should consider using Spectacles.  

Beyond content creation, the popularization of Spectacles also signals that we are approaching an age where cameras are increasingly becoming one of the primary input sources of our digital life. Beyond Snapchat, Mastercard is now allowing app users in Europe to authenticate their payments with a selfie, and the Hawaii Tourism Authority recently launched a digital campaign that uses facial recognition technology to create personalized travel recommendations and offer tailored travel packages. As these examples indicate, the surging prominence of visual input is set to bring a new set of opportunities and challenges that brands will need to learn to navigate in order to adapt to the shifting consumer behaviors.

 

Source: Business Wire

Header image courtesy of Hyatt’s YouTube

Shine Pivots From Network-Level Ad-Blocking To Ad-Filtering

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Israel-based ad-blocking startup Shine has announced it will be pivoting to a new business model. Instead of partnering with mobile carriers, such as Three in Europe and Digicel in the Caribbean, to block display ads and in-app native ads at a network level, the company will rebrand as Rainbow and shift its focus to verify ad quality against industry standards such as LEAN. Ads that pass Rainbow’s verification will be then digitally stamped and pass along to customers of partnering carriers, who have opted in for Rainbow’s ad-filtering service.

What Brands Need To Do
The rebranding of Shine points to an interesting development in the ad-blocking landscape. A recent survey shows that over 40% of millennial internet users worldwide has an ad blocker enabled. Yet, despite the prevalence of ad-blockers among younger demographics, the sudden pivot seems to signal the difficulty that Shine must have come to face by going against all mobile advertisers. Shifting its business model allows the company more room to expand its business and remains a player in the mobile ad-blocking space.

Regardless of the changes on Shine’s part, widespread aversion towards subpar ad experience caused by intrusive and slow ads remains the same among mobile users. Therefore, brands need to take a proactive approach to deal with this growing aversion. One good way to do so is to explore new formats of digital ads, such as sponsoring online events and livestreams and producing branded content.

 

Source: AdWeek