Author: Lab Team

Ecobee’s New Thermostat Comes With Alexa Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Alexa continues to infiltrate the smart home space as it becomes the go-to choice of voice assistant integration for many IoT device makers. Today, smart home device manufacturer Ecobee debuted a smart thermostat Ecobee4 that essentially doubles as a wall-mounted Echo Dot. Besides allowing users to control the room temperature via voice command, it also enables users to access over 10,000 third-party skills. In addition, Ecobee will also be integrating Alexa into a smart light switch coming later this year.

What Brands Need To Do
Connected home devices are estimated to ship over 1.8 billion units by 2019. As the availability of smart home devices rapidly grows, they emerge as a valuable platform for brands to reach consumers at home. As Amazon and the developer community continue to build out Alexa’s capabilities and make it more brand-friendly, brands would be smart to get on board with those devices via integrations or branded skills.

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

Header image courtesy of Ecobee

Home Design App Houzz Adds AR Preview Mode

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Home design and furniture shopping app Houzz is the latest ecommerce player to add an AR twist to its platform. The Palo Alto-based company updated its iOS app to add a new virtual preview mode that supports 3D objects. With this new feature, viewers can get a better idea of how the furniture items would look in their own space before making a purchase. As of now, only about 300,000 items out of the eight million products available on Houzz’s marketplace support this new AR preview mode, but Houzz says it will work to add more items.

What Brands Need To Do
Besides Houzz, other furniture sellers such as IKEA or Hutch have also been exploring AR as an online shopping aid for their products. This new feature provides yet another example of the ongoing shift in designing mobile user experience, where the camera becomes a prominent input source that enables virtual product sampling. As more and more companies start to realize the potential of augmented reality, more mobile-based AR use cases can be applied to enhance ecommerce and marketing. Brands looking to update their digital user experience should take note and start thinking about how to use AR to add value to the customer experience.

Source: The Verge

Images courtesy of Houzz

Hulu Launches Live TV Service In Beta, Adds NBC Programming

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Monday, Hulu announced it has reached an agreement with NBCUniversal to add programming from NBC and Telemundo-owned networks to its upcoming live TV subscription.  This rounds out all four major broadcasters for Hulu’s live service, which is set to launch in the coming months. Moreover, this deal also gives Hulu a nice boost in terms of sports programming, as it gains access to a range of NBC-owned sports content, including Sunday Night Football and the Olympics. The comprehensive lineup should give Hulu an edge as it sets to compete in a crowded market against other OTT live TV services including DirecTV Now, Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, and YouTube TV.

Update May 3: Hulu Live service is now available (in “beta”) for $39.95 a month. Per Ad Age, this live TV service will include “dynamic ad insertion capabilities, meaning advertisers can serve messages to specific targeted audiences. The navigation screen will also allow for additional advertising opportunities beyond the 15 and 30-second spots.”

What Brands Need To Do
Hulu currently has over 12 million subscribers in the U.S., making it the third biggest OTT streaming service after Netflix and Amazon Prime. Unlike the other OTT streaming services, Hulu is an ad-supported service, and the upcoming live TV service should continue to make the case for Hulu as a brand-friendly platform. With U.S. cord-cutting households hitting over 25%, it is important that brands look for new ways to reach those viewers and take advantage of the addressable viewer data that those OTT streaming platform offers to explore better targeting options.

 

Source: TechCrunch

L’Oréal Launches Beauty Gifter Bot For Personalized Gift-Giving

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
L’Oréal has quietly launched a Facebook Messenger bot that aims to act as a gift-giving liaison for personalized makeup and skin care gifts. Working with Automat Technologies, a Montreal-based startup, the beauty giant created the Beauty Gifter bot which asks both the gift giver and the recipient questions in order to pick out the perfect beauty gift. For example, the gift-giver can set a price range of the gift while the recipient will answer a series of questions about their skin tone and type and beauty preferences. Once answered, the bot will then generate several gift options for the gift giver to choose from.

What Brands Need To Do
This is a cool example of brands using AI-powered chatbot to optimize the online customer experience that they offer. This bot not only creates a functional use case for users to engage with, but also enables L’Oréal to gather more customer data on their beauty and skin care preferences for future targeting. For brands seeking to reach the 1.2 billion active users on Facebook Messenger, a chatbot that creates true value for users will be your best bet.

The Lab has extensive experience in building Alexa Skills and chatbots to reach consumers on conversational interfaces. The NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia is a good showcase of our expertise. If you’d like to learn more about how to effectively reach consumers on conversational interfaces, please contact Samantha Holland ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

Header image courtesy of L’Oréal

Microsoft Brings Augmented Reality Feature To Windows 10

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
If you think augmented reality is something that has to be experienced with pricey smart glasses, think again. Microsoft is integrating an augmented reality viewer in Windows 10 later this year, which will allow WIndows users to interact with 3D objects that are created in 3D Paint against the real world via live video captured by a webcam. This feature is announced on Tuesday during Microsoft’s education-focused Windows event in New York City, where the company ran a demo showing how 3D objects can be displayed on a tablet via an AR viewer.

What Brands Need To Do
Championed by major tech players such as Snap and Facebook, augmented reality is quickly gaining momentum as the next frontier for digital interactions. Microsoft also has a solid lead in AR with its HoloLens headsets, which the Lab has one ready for demo. Bringing AR to laptops should help further propel adoption. Even though we are still in early stages of AR development, brands looking to stay ahead of the curve need to start thinking about how your brand may leverage AR to engage with consumers and offer extra value. For a CPG brand, that could be surfacing additional AR content via smart packaging, whereas an autobrand may leverage AR to enhance the test drive experience at dealerships.

Source: Engadget

 

Facebook Let Users Unlock Discounts Via QR Codes For Offline Purchases

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has quietly added a feature in its flagship app that enables users to unlock digital discounts for offline purchases at partnered stores. With the Rewards feature nested under the More tab in Facebook’s main app, users can scan a personalized QR code to score discounts or bonuses when they make a purchase at a participating store.

Different from the Offers feature that Facebook launched in 2012, which gears towards coupon collecting and redeeming, this Rewards feature works more like a Facebook-operated loyalty program, allowing customers to scan their personalized QR codes every time they visit a store and rack up the “stamps” for certain rewards.

Facebook says this is a test feature that is currently only available to select users. There is no word on when or if this feature will become widely available.

What Brands Need To Do
For retailers and QSR brands, this Rewards feature gives them a new promotional channel to reach customers via Facebook and incentivize store visits. Other brands can also use this feature for customer acquisition and fostering repeat customers. For brand marketers, this feature could also give Facebook more behavioral data on shopping history and habits, allowing brands to improve the relevance of ad targeting and News Feed content. Down the road, brands should also be able to advertise their Rewards on Facebook to drive store traffic and promote sales event.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Twitter To Launch 24/7 News Livestream Channel With Bloomberg

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter has reportedly struck a partnership with Bloomberg to launch an around-the-clock live news channel in the fall, as the social media company continues its aggressive push into livestreaming. While Twitter has been hosting official live streams for various sports events such as NFL games and the Wimbledon matches, this would be the first continuous video feed to be hosted on the platform. The 24/7 live news channel is expected to launch this fall, and it will air  news reporting from Bloomberg news bureaus around the world while also incorporating “a curated and verified mix of video posted on Twitter.”

What Brands Need To Do
For brands with a global presence, this upcoming live news channel on Twitter could be an exciting new channel to look out for. While not specified, this live channel is expected to be ad-supported, giving brands an always-on channel to reach online viewers. Considering the finance-heavy focus on Bloomberg’s news reporting, it could become a particularly valuable channel for audience in that segment. As live streaming continues to gain momentum, more brands should seize the rise of this emerging medium to directly connect with consumers.

For more in-depth analysis how brands can leverage global mega-channels and niche micro-channels to effectively reach key audiences, check out the Global Culture section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: Wall Street Journal

Domino’s Launches IFTTT Integrations For Smarter Pizza Delivery

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Domino’s continues to explore the use of digital technologies in pizza delivery as the company announces a new integration with IFTTT. For those uninitiated, IFTTT, an acronym for “If this, then that,” is a platform that allows users to create customized, conditional interactions between apps, online services, and other connected devices.

Previously, Domino’s has created a few applets on IFTTT to facilitate sync-up between pizza ordering and other app-based actions. Now with the new integrations, the pizza chain is allowing customers to automate their smart home devices based on the status of their pizza delivery. For example, they can set up an IFTTT action that automatically turns off their connected sprinklers or turn on the porch lights when their pizza delivery is arriving.

What Brands Need To Do
Domino’s is no stranger when it comes to leveraging digital tools to enhance its customer experience with a tech halo, notably for its experiments of “one-click ordering.” The company previously created an Alexa skill and a Google Assistant action for ordering pizza via voice command. This IFTTT integration is a natural step as the company continues to dive deeper into the smart home space to optimize its pizza delivery experience for the tech-savvy customers.

The smart home is a new frontier for brands to explore, with emerging connected devices offering brands a way to reach customers at home and unlock new experiences. According to IHS Markit, 80 million smart home devices were delivered worldwide in 2016, a 64% increase from 2015. And that number is only set to grow. For brands looking to improve their retail or customer experiences, Domino’s sets an example in how new digital tools can be applied to better serve connected consumers at home.

 

Source: Engadget

Google Releases SDK For Integrating Google Assistant Into Third-Party Devices

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Thursday, Google released a software development kit (SDK) in “developer preview,” marking the start of allowing third-party hardware manufacturers to integrate its voice assistant in their products. Google Assistant is currently only available on select Android phones and smartwatches, Google’s Allo chat app, as well as its smart speaker Google Home. Using the “Actions on Google” API launched last year, developers can already create their own conversational experiences for Google Assistant.

What Brands Need To Do
This new SDK should help Google Assistant get on more connected devices, helping it to stay competitive with Amazon’s Alexa, which launched Alexa Voice Service (AVS) back in June of 2015 to allow hardware makers to add Alexa to their devices. For now, Alexa will likely still get to enjoy an early lead in the voice assistant race for a while, but as the competition heats up, consumers will have an increasing array of options to choose from. Google Assistant do have one big advantage over Alexa in search, and according to ComScore, by 2020, half of all searches will be voice searches. Brands needs to prepare for that future by developing conversational experiences for various platforms to make them readily accessible to customers.

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: Ars Technica

Heineken’s New Global Campaign Features Customizable TV Spots For 16 Markets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Heineken launched its new global ad campaign “Cities,” which comes with TV spots that can be customized and localized for the 16 international markets they’re airing in. The beer giant created an ad in which elements such as a city skyline, a flyer, and the protagonist that appears near the end can all be customized so as to cater to each market. The local markets will also get to customize the messages about local Heineken events at the end of the ad spots.

What Brands Need To Do
For brands with a global presence, the advances in dynamic creatives have ushered in a more flexible approach for creating and distributing your marketing content. To effectively reach the local audience in each market, It is important for brands to make use of emerging global mega-channels such as Facebook Live and Twitch and utilize audience targeting and segmentation tools to deliver a personalized experience at a global scale.

For more in-depth analysis how brands can leverage global mega-channels and niche micro-channels to effectively reach key audiences, check out the Global Culture section of our Outlook 2017.

 

Source: AdWeek

Images courtesy of Heineken’s YouTube video