Author: Lab Team

Amazon Unveils Echo Show, An Alexa-Powered Smart Speaker With A Screen

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Tuesday, Amazon officially unveiled the latest addition to its Echo smart speaker line – Echo Show. A first for the Echo products, Echo Show features a 7-inch touch screen, which enables it to do things other Alexa-powered speakers can not, such as making video calls, playing online videos, and displaying lyrics of the songs being streamed. Echo Show is priced at $229.99, with pre-orders open now and a ship date set for June 28.

Despite having a touch screen, Echo Show is still very much intended to be primarily controlled via voice command with Alexa. Instead of repurposing their Fire OS or Android apps, brands will need to make third-party skills to get on Echo Show, just as they would do for other, screen-less Echo devices. However, developers will be able to incorporate the skill cards that already exist in on the Alexa app or a Fire tablet, as well as sending a video to the device via the built-in video player. Moreover, the Smart Home API for Alexa is also being extended to allow for easier smart home integrations.

What Brands Need To Do
The new addition introduces a visual component to Alexa-powered conversational interface of the Echo lineup, which, in turn, opens the door for brands to create new kind of voice experiences that can be supported and enhanced by additional texts, images, or videos. For example, a beauty brand’s Alexa skill will be able to surface makeup tutorial videos for users to follow, while a healthcare brand may create an Alexa skill that offers seniors live consultations via video calls. The possibilities are endless, and with Amazon Echo now dominating over 70% of the U.S. smart speaker market, it is up to brands to come up with an Alexa skill that can allow them to connect with customers at home.

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 Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: The Verge & TechCrunch

Images courtesy of Amazon’s product page

Canadian Coke Uses AR To Add Spotify Music To Bottles

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As part of a returning marketing campaign Play a Coke, Coca-Cola and Spotify is teaming up to offer Canadian consumers a unique product experience. Customers are encouraged to download a special mobile app and use it to scan the special a promotional label on a Coke or Sprite bottle, which would unlock one of 189 themed-Spotify playlists such as BBQ Time and Nothing But Net. Users can browse through different playlist by rotating the bottle in their hand, making it an interactive AR experience. Coca-cola says thirty million such bottles are expected to ship for the Canadian market during this campaign.

What Brands Need To Do
Last summer, Pokémon Go introduced mobile AR technology to mainstream consumers, but brands are only starting to explore the possibilities that AR marketing brings. This is the latest example of how brands, especially CPG brands, can leverage AR technology to add interactive experiences to products and deliver a rich customer experience. Such a mobile-based interactive experience offers an easy way to introduce AR technology to your brand’s digital assets and deliver an engaging customer experience. Brands should take advantage of this trend to experiment with camera-enabled AR interfaces and interactive experiences.

If you’d like to get some help to figure out how augmented reality can enhance your customer experience and drive new opportunities for your brand, or simply to try out the HoloLens demo we have to experience the transformative power of AR, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VR Focus

 

Microsoft Aims To Turn Windows 10 PCs Into Echo Competitors

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Microsoft is planning to turn personal computers running Windows 10 into always-on smart speakers with a new HomeHub feature, as the company aims to find a better way to compete with devices like Amazon Echo. First previewed in December, HomeHub is designed to turn a PC into an always-listening device that users can activate Cortana via voice from the lockscreen to provide useful information. Microsoft is also planning to support smart home devices like Philips’ Hue lights, to enable Windows 10 PCs to act as a hub to control and manage smart home hardware.

What Brands Need To Do
Microsoft has been playing catch-up in the smart home device space, and this move should encourage some Windows users to use Cortana more frequently and become familiarized with the voice-activated smart home experience. The company has also worked with Harman Kardon to create an Invoke smart speaker that evokes Amazon Echo’s sleek cylinder design. As voice-based personal assistants like Alexa and Cortana continue to take over as the default interactive layer of smart home devices, brands wishing to tap into the marketing potential of the smart home devices will have to keep a close eye on this development.

 

Source: The Verge

 

Microsoft Tests Chatbot Integration In Bing Search Results

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Microsoft is planning to add chatbots to the search results on Bing.com to drive conversations. The company has been testing this integration in Seattle. Local users near the Redmond, Washington Microsoft headquarters began to see a bot button in search results for local restaurants, prompting them to learn more about the restaurants via a chatbot.

What Brands Need To Do
Putting chatbots into local search results is a great way to allow customers to quickly connect with businesses for additional information or making reservations. This replaces the need to call the restaurants, thus relieving the workload in customer service for the local businesses. A recent study found that most consumers now prefer to use messaging to interact with businesses rather than calling. As Twitter continues to make its platform more brand-friendly with new messaging features, we expect to see more brands utilize the tools to provide better customer service.

How We Can Help
The Lab has extensive knowledge about reaching consumers on mobile messaging apps and building branded chatbots. The NiroBot we build in collaboration with Ansible for Kia delivers comprehensive product information about the all-new Niro model via friendly chats. If you’re interested in reaching your audience on messaging apps and better serving them with a chatbot, please contact our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]) for more information or to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Google Launches “AIY Projects” To Facilitate more AI Integrations

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google looks to put Google Assistant in more third-party devices by launching AIY Projects, an open-source reference project that will include several do-it-yourself artificial intelligence reference kits for developers to tap into. The first one being released is a Voice Kit designed to work with a Raspberry Pi to create a voice-based virtual assistant. Google says it aims to help more people build voice command interfaces directly into products or use cloud APIs like the Google Assistant SDK released two weeks ago. The Voice Kit will be for sale at Barnes & Noble stores nationwide in the US.

What Brands Need To Do
This new initiative makes it easier for hardware makers to experiment with voice command interfaces, which, in turn, could lead to more Google Assistant integrations. As the competition between voice assistants starts to heat up, consumers will have multiple options to choose from, which means brands will need to develop voice experiences for multiple platforms in order to maximize their reach. According to ComScore, half of all searches will be voice searches by 2020, and brands need to prepare for that near future by developing conversational experiences for various platforms to make them readily accessible to customers.

 

Source: 9to5 Google

Walmart Ventures Into IoT Commerce With Connected Sensor Patent

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Walmart has started exploring IoT commerce as it filed a patent describing a system of connected sensors that track CPG product consumption at home. Utilizing a wide range of technology such as radio frequencies, Bluetooth, conventional barcodes, and RFID tags, the sensors will be attached to various products and can alert the customer to restock when they are running low on certain household products. Listed in the patent filing are several scenarios that Walmart envisioned to leverage the sensors to learn more about their customers, including an in-fridge one that tracks food consumption and expirations and a RFID system to monitor how much toothpaste is left.

What Brands Need To Do
As smart home technologies continues to evolve, more and more brands are realizing the big potential that connected devices holds for reaching customers at home and collecting relevant data. Venturing into IoT commerce is a timely move for Walmart, but it still has a long way to go before it can catch up with its arch-rival Amazon. While there is no guarantee if any of the ideas that Walmart outlined in this patent will be brought to market any time soon, at least Walmart is actively exploring this area to further implement an omnichannel approach, a strategy that more brands should adopt, with methods to protect user privacy, to reach consumers and learn more about their consumption habits.

 

Source: The Verge

Why Smart Home Appliance Maker Whirlpool Is Buying Recipe Site Yummly

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Whirlpool, a leading manufacturer of connected home appliances, announced on Thursday that it is acquiring Yummly, a recipe site with personalized recommendations and search. Beyond recipes, Yummly has also partnered with Instacart for one-hour grocery delivery in select cities.

This acquisition will allow Whirlpool to tap into Yummly’s recipe database to enhance its products by, for example, create better Alexa skills for its smart kitchen appliances, which added support for Amazon’s digital voice assistant earlier this year. For example, which the vast library of personalized recipes, the company will be able to make a smart fridge that can offer suggestions for home-cooked meals.

More importantly, perhaps, is the vast amount of user data on food and grocery preferences as well as cooking-related behavioral data that Whirlpool will gain with this acquisition. Whirlpool can apply insights from this data to cater to customers’ kitchen habits better and improve their products accordingly. 

What Brands Need To Do
This acquisition underscores Whirlpool’s commitment to creating connected home appliances with a superior user experience. As one of the world’s largest digital recipe platforms, Yummly boasts more than 20 million registered users, and the user data and cooking-related information that Whirlpool will now have access to will give the company a nice edge as the competition in the smart home space heats up. More brands should be thinking about how they can gain access to relevant consumer data and use it to supercharge your product or service.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Amazon Allows Alexa Developers To Edit Built-In To-Do & Shopping Lists

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Wednesday, Amazon announced new permissions that allow developers to read, add, and delete items in Alexa’s built-in shopping and to-do lists from within third-party skill. This makes it easier for customers to keep track of their important tasks and shopping items through third-party skills. This feature is now available worldwide for developers building skills for the US English, UK English, and German language models.

What Brands Need To Do
This simple update allows brands to develop Alexa skills that can directly insert brand-related reminders or additional information into the two native lists in the Alexa app, which may help brands establish a lasting presence on Alexa and provide convenient access for users. CPG brands can, with permission from the users, integrate the shopping list into their Alexa skills to remind users of replenishment as needed, whereas a fitness brand can create a skill that sends daily workout challenges to user’s to-do list.

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 Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: Amazon Developer – Alexa Blog

Snapchat Announces Self-Serve Ad Manager & Pushes For Original Video Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snap Inc. announced on Thursday that it will be launching a new self-service platform called Snapchat Ad Manager, allowing brand advertisers to buy any of Snap’s ad formats, including videos, and target them to certain groups of users. Previously, brands can only buy ads on Snapchat through Snap’s sales team or third-party ad tools that often charge a fee. This platform, set to roll out in June, will be free for anyone interested to advertise on Snapchat.

In addition, Snap is also ramping up its original video content. The company has reportedly expanded its content deals with media partners including NBCUniversal, ESPN, ABC, Turner, and NFL to develop more original video content, typically 3-to-5-minute-long mini-episodes, for Snapchat Stories.

What Brands Need To Do
It is not hard to see that these two moves share the same goal – getting more ad dollars by making its platform more advertiser-friendly. The new self-serve platform makes Snap Ads much more accessible for smaller brands looking to experiment with Snapchat and reach mobile audiences. The play for more original video content can also cultivate a valuable channel for Snapchat to serve more video ads in. Although Snapchat is facing mounting pressure from Facebook’s relentlessly copying and stifling user growth, its loyal user base should keep it afloat for a while as the competition in the mobile messaging space continue to heat up. Brands looking to reach young-skewing mobile users on Snapchat should take advantage of the new platform and try out Snapchat’s unique ad formats.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal & The Next Web

 

eBay Plugs Machine Learning Into Email Marketing

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
eBay is supercharging its own email marketing platform with machine learning so as to send individually personalized offers to subscribers based on their browsing history on eBay’s site. By dividing deals into virtual “buckets” such as shoes, consumer electronics, or collectibles, eBay’s proprietary algorithm is able to insert the relevant deals from one of the “buckets” that a user frequently views. The new platform also monitors user actions and react in real time. For example, when the price changes on an item a customer has viewed, eBay can automatically send that customer an email alert.

What Brands Need To Do
eBay joins a growing list of companies that are experimenting with AI-powered marketing solutions. Last month, Nielsen integrated artificial intelligence into its cloud marketing platform, whereas H&R Block enlisted IBM’s Watson to help with tax filings. As cloud-based services and machine learning technologies continue to mature, brands need to explore the kind of hyper-personalized messaging and experiences that AI-powered marketing solutions can deliver.

For more information on how brands may tap into the transformative power it will bring to marketing, please check out the Augmented Intelligence section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: eMarketer