Category: General Content

Alexa Users Can Now Activate New Skills Just By Asking

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is making it even easier for Alexa users to discover and activate new skills, which is Amazon’s way of calling voice-only app for its voice assistant made by third-party developers. Amazon has added a functionality to catch failed launch intents of non-enabled skills and allow users to invoke skills that haven’t been enabled by saying valid invocation utterances. This means Alexa-users will no longer need to pre-enable skills before using them. 

Previously, users have to enable a skill via the Alexa app on their mobile devices before they can use it on Alexa. Those who failed to do will be greeted with an error message and a prompt designed to teach the customer how to enable the skill.

This addition also offers a certain level of flexibility by allowing utterances similar to the rigid invocation pattern to result in skill enablement. For example, users can say either “Open up the Jeopardy game,” “Start up Jeopardy,” or “Launch the Jeopardy skill,” all of which will launch the Jeopardy skill for them even if it has not been enabled before.

What Brands Need To Do
This is a small yet significant update for the Alexa Voice Service, which allows third-party skills to be invoked without prior enablement. This not only makes for a smoother user experience but also removes a lot of the frictions in getting Alexa users to try out the skills made by brands. Now, marketing campaigns can feature skill utterances that work for customers whether or not they’ve enabled a skill allowing for easier discovery and repeated use.

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.

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 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: CNET

Alexa Developers Can Now Customize Skills Based On User Locations

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The location API for Alexa skills has officially come out of beta, Amazon announced in a company blog post. This API enables developers to access user locations and use that information to customize the conversational experiences they make, such as food delivery or finding the nearest drugstore. Previously, companies like AccuWeather and Just Eat have been testing this API. It is worth noting that this API is not a location tracker like GPS, but rather allows developers to access the address of the device owner according to their Amazon profile.

In addition, Amazon also launched a new metrics dashboard, which lets Alexa developers track things like unique customers, sessions, utterances and intents so that they can track the performance of their skills in one place.

What Brands Need To Do
As Amazon continues to build out Alexa’s capabilities and improve its measurement tools, brands will have an easier time to design their conversational brand experiences and track their performances in one place. Opening access to user addresses removes friction for delivery-oriented services and allows developers to deliver a more localized user experience. 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. For more on this, check out the Advanced Interfaces section in our brand new Outlook 2017 trend report.

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 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: VentureBeat

Amazon Prime Wins Streaming Rights Of NFL Thursday Night Games

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has reportedly shelled out around $50 million to livestream ten NFL games of the new season, five times more than what Twitter paid last year. Interestingly, Amazon won’t stream the games to anyone who wants to watch online for free as Twitter did. Instead, the NFL Thursday night games will be a new addition to the ever-growing list of perks for Amazon Prime members.

What Brands Need To Know
On a larger picture, this deal signals the continuing shift of live sports viewing from TV to online streaming. Amazon reportedly beat out the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube for the bid, which underscores how determined the ecommerce giant is about growing out its streaming offering. The decision to only allow Prime members to stream this also points to the company’s core strategy that positions the membership program as the lynchpin for fostering customer loyalty.

This marks a very different approach than Twitter, who bought the rights last year to raise its profile as a live-streaming platform and generating revenues from selling the ad slots allocated for local TV ads at a high price. In comparison, Amazon wouldn’t necessarily be interested in selling ads (although it could very well use those ad slots to promote its services and original shows.) Researches have shown that Prime members on average spend two times more than regular shoppers on Amazon every year. Therefore, it makes sense that Amazon would pay the big bucks to secure the live-streaming rights of NFL games and use it to drive signups and retain subscriptions for Prime. Other brands should learn a thing or two from Amazon’s strategy and start thinking about ways to improve and integrate their loyalty programs so as to establish a long-term relationship with customers.

 

Source: Re/Code

YouTube TV Goes Live In Five U.S. Markets

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Wednesday YouTube officially launched its live TV streaming service YouTube TV in five regional markets, including New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay area. This marks yet another high-profile entry of a tech giant into the OTT streaming market, as the battle for retaining TV subscribers and, more importantly, selling TV packages to cord-cutters and cord-nevers, continues to heat up.

Announced a little over a month ago, the “skinny bundle” from YouTube will cost $35 per month and cover live TV programming from all four major U.S. broadcasting networks —  ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC — as well as their affiliated cable channels such as ESPN and Bravo. YouTube also says it will soon add several AMC Networks channels, such as AMC, BBC America, BBC World News, IFC, Sundance TV and We TV to the service’s standard tier. Previously, the AMC Networks was reportedly working on an ad-free streaming service of its own for cable subscribers.

What Brands Need To Do
This launch marks another channel for brands to reach the audience that has abandoned linear TV viewing in favor of time-shifted viewing, as YouTube TV will carry all the live TV ads. Taking the vast user data and the sophisticated ad operations that Google owns into account, it seems likely that the search giant will be offering some ad tech integrations with the streaming service and allow brands to target audience in a more granular, personalized manner.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Header image courtesy of YouTube

Nielsen Plugs AI Into Marketing Cloud Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
TV ad measurement firm Nielsen has become the latest company to plug artificial intelligence into its Marketing Cloud platform. The company created Nielsen Artificial Intelligence capable of processing multiple external circumstances simultaneously, making it possible for brands and publisher clients using its platform to create dynamic audience segments for real-time targeting. Right now, Nielsen says it is mostly applying the AI internally, but about a half dozen Marketing Cloud clients have started using it.

What Brands Need To Do
Nielsen joins a growing list of marketing and ad tech companies that have incorporated AI-powered solutions into their platforms. Last Friday, marketing personalization company Monetate announced an Intelligent Personalization Engine that uses machine learning to help B2C brands provide individually customized experiences to consumers. 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 can get ready for the rise of A.I. and tap into the transformative power it brings to marketing, check out the Augmented Intelligence section of our brand new Outlook 2017.

 

Source: AdExchange

Starbucks Launches An iMessage App That Let You Text Friends Gift Cards

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Starbucks is bringing gifting into your text messages with an updated iOS app released on Tuesday. The Seattle-based global coffee chain added a new “Starbucks Gifts” iMessage applet to its mobile app, allowing users send digital gift cards through Apple’s iMessage and pay for them using Apple Pay. Users can choose from a selection of images that fits the occasions and customize the gifted value for the gift card before completing the purchase with Apple Pay. Then the customized gift card is ready to be sent via iMessage.

In addition, the updated Starbucks app come with a few other improvements, such as enhanced push notifications, a revamped mobile order and pay user experience, and a store locator with new filtering options.

What Brands Need To Do
Previously, early-adopting brands like Dunkin’ Donuts and Coach have also developed iMessage app to expand the reach of their mobile apps into texting, but none has bothered to integrate with Apple Pay for a smooth, frictionless user experience like Starbucks is doing now. The payment integration makes it easy and convenient for users to generate gift cards, while he integration with iMessage. creates a more intimate user experience that lends a personal touch to the gifting process. Together, they make for a great branded gifting experience that helps recruit more customers to use its mobile app and elevates Starbucks’ brand equity, Therefore, brands looking to stay connected with mobile customers should take a cue and develop similar initiatives to explore messaging and conversational environments.

 

Source: 9to5 Mac

Roku Offers Advertisers Demographic Guarantees Based On Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Monday, Roku announced it will start offering advertisers audience guarantees for that are based on Nielsen Digital Ad Ratings in an attempt to close the gap between OTT and traditional TV ad measurement.

This makes Roku the first major OTT streaming platform to offer such guarantees for certain audience demographics, such as “adults 18 to 49”, allowing advertisers to buy and plan ad campaigns using the same kind of currency they have grown used to in traditional TV advertising. Previously, Roku ads are sold based on impressions. The streaming set-box maker signed a partnership deal with Nielsen to measure demographics on the Roku platform about two years ago.

What Brands Need To Do
With viewers increasingly choosing on-demand viewing over linear TV, advertisers have been curious about the viewing data that SVOD services are collecting. But since many of those services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are not ad-supported, it is difficult for brands to reach the streaming audience. In addition, Roku says about 40% of its users are cord-cutters, meaning that are not reachable via traditional TV ads either.

Therefore, Roku’s ad offering is valuable for brands as it provides a way to reach those streaming viewers. And now with the new Nielsen ratings-based metrics, advertisers may have an easier time planning and evaluating their ad campaigns on Roku. As advertising on linear TV and digital channels continue to converge, brand marketers will need to reconsider their media mix and perhaps consider leveraging Roku’s ad products to reach cord-cutters and cord-nevers.

Source: Multichannel News

Header image courtesy of Roku

Amazon Invites Social Influencers To Curate Collections And Earn Money

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has launched a new initiative that aims to entice more social influencers to plug for sales on its platform. Similar to the existing Amazon Affiliate program, which allows anyone to sign up to create links and shopping ads for their own website or blog to get a referral cut of the sales, this new Amazon Influencer Program exclusively offers social influencers a chance to curate product collections on Amazon.com and generate income through affiliate sales. This makes for a more browseable shopping experience and let the influencers recommend a set of products to their fans at once.

What Brands Need To Do
With Amazon dominating online sales in the US, some brands and manufacturers have forgone e-commerce on their sites entirely, opting instead for sales and fulfillment operations managed by Amazon. This new program enables the ecommerce giant to leverage social influencers’ popularity to facilitate product discovery.

At a time when influencer marketing is becoming an essential business strategy for many marketers to reach new audiences and raise brand awareness, this is undoubtedly a smart move for Amazon to stay competitive in the ecommerce arena. More brands, especially fashion and CPG brands, should consider similar initiatives so as to leverage the personalized and authentic content created by influencers to garner social buzz and encourage customer loyalty.

 

Source: TechCrunch

How Peroni And Mountain Dew Used VR To Spice Up Branded Events

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Two beverage brands are using virtual reality to create unique on-site experiences and spice up their respective promotional events. Peroni is opening an experimental pop-up bar in London, where the Italian lager brewers invited attendees to try drawing in 3-dimension with Google’s VR app Tilt Brush after a drink or two. Similarly, Mountain Dew is putting together a free, two-day music festival called “Label Motel” in the Musicland Hotel in Palm Springs next week to promote its new Mtn Dew products. The event includes a VR experience that puts participants in a lounge party on an airplane, who will then be dropped out of the VR plane “as the beat drops.”

What Brands Need To Do
Those two brands are the latest examples in the growing list of brands that are starting to incorporate it into the production of branded content and events to deliver engaging and immersive customer experiences. As more mainstream tech and media companies rush into VR to capitalize on the booming popularity of the emerging medium, brands that wish to stay ahead of the curve should 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.

The Lab currently has several VR headsets, including a PlayStation VR, an Oculus Rift, an HTC Vive, and a Google Daydream, all ready for demos. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood, so come by the Lab and ask for a VR demo to get a hands-on experience and figure out how your brand can use it to excite and engage with consumers.

 

Source: Marketing Dive & PSFK

Header image courtesy of  Mountain Dew’s YouTube

Mode.ai’s Messenger Bot Can Suggest Similar-Looking Fashion Items That You Can Buy

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Friday, retail recommendation engine and chatbot maker Mode.ai launches a bot on Facebook Messenger that can find similar-looking fashion apparel items for users based on photos they submit. Mode.ai trained the bot’s AI engine with millions of pictures of products from online retailers, and if you like what it suggests, the bot also lets you shop directly from a number of fashion retailers like Levi’s, Louis Vuitton, Ann Taylor, as well as Amazon. In addition to its own bot, Mode.ai plans to offer computer vision services to several retailers and fashion publishers to be announced during F8, the upcoming annual conference for Facebook developers.

What Brands Need To Do
This new Mode.ai bot is a good example of how product discovery may work in the near future where AI-powered smart assistants are able to use the camera of your mobile devices to see what you are seeing. 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. As computer vision technology continues to mature, it opens up new use cases for brands to create new user experiences supercharged by cognitive ecommerce engines like Mode.ai.

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 NiroBot we built in collaboration with Ansible for Kia 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: VentureBeat