Category: General Content

Now You Can Live Stream March Madness Matches In VR

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As we get deeper into the NCAA March Madness games, viewer enthusiasm is running high and the NCAA is set to capitalize on the fervor with VR live streams. Six games including the Final Four national semifinals and National Championship game — will be available for immersive viewing via the new NCAA March Madness Live VR App available on the Oculus Store.

Unlike previous sports VR streams that networks like NBC or Fox Sports have offered, which were accessible once viewers authenticate with their cable TV account to access a single-POV from a single courtside 360-degree camera, these six VR games will require viewers to pony up a few extra dollars on a tiered, pay-per-view basis. A higher-priced gold tier access will come with multiple camera angles, as well as dedicated in-game commentary and analysis from three analysts, providing viewers with a holistic VR viewing experience.

What Brands Need To Do
By combining the immersive power of VR and the immediacy of live streaming, sports events are a particularly good match for creating live VR content that more media owners should explore to fully engage their audience. This new NCAA VR initiative went one step further by creating a powerful viewing experience for the fans, representing a step in the right direction in terms of how media companies can work with content creators to fully unlock the potential of VR storytelling.

With the quickening pace of VR content development and the increasing number of platforms supporting VR content, virtual reality is fast becoming the next frontier for content creators and media owners to explore. As the audience size for VR content continues to grow, it is important for brands to follow the good examples set by early adopters like Marriott Hotels and JCPenney, and start developing branded VR content in order to capitalize on the growing consumer interest in immersive experiences.

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: TechCrunch

 

Snapchat Debuts Live Video Ad For Turner

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Snapchat continues to experiment with new ad products, as it aired its first live-streaming ad last night for Turner network to promote TruTV’s “Upscale with Prentice Penny” series. Turner ran the ad spot during a red carpet event for the show, which invites users to swipe up on the ad to watch a 360-degree live stream of the event, which offers viewers a behind-the-scenes look. After the live event ended, Turner also ran Snap Ads throughout the evening that redirect users to watch a trailer for the series.

What Brands Need To Do
This is a commendable attempt on Snapchat’s part to bring livestreaming into its ad offerings, injecting a sense of immediacy that goes well with Snapchat’s now-or-never philosophy of phenomenal messages. It also serves as the latest example of brands exploring the unconventional ad products that Snapchat offers. Just last Friday, whiskey brand Jameson ran branded Snapchat geofilters at 75 bar districts around the country to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. As Snapchat doubles down on its ad business as its user growth start to slow, it is time for brands to reconsider their media mix and consider adjust the ad budget to include it to reach mobile customers where they already are.

 

Source: Variety

 

Facebook Live Challenges Twitch By Adding Support For Gameplay Broadcast On Desktop

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook is one-upping Twitch by expanding its live video capabilities to all desktop users. Previously, only Page owners can start a live broadcast from a desktop device. Now, any Facebook user can go Live directly from Facebook’s desktop website via their webcam, or hook up their professional equipment and software to the desktop devices for a more polished livestream. This also means users can now broadcast gameplay from their computer, which will put Facebook Live in direct competition with Twitch.

What Brands Need To Do
As formidable as Facebook’s massive user base may seem, Twitch doesn’t have much to worry about in the short term as it will take considerable time and efforts for Facebook to cultivate a vibrant gamer community that Twitch has already locked in. Nevertheless, this move signals Facebook’s recognition of esports and the big media opportunity it presents. If it can continue to improve its Live video product to accommodate gameplay broadcasts, the social network might just carve out a space for itself amongst the fierce competition between Twitch, Ustream, and YouTube Gaming.

As companies race to capture the young, male-skewing eSports audience, brands, especially those seeking global recognition, need to start leveraging the massive reach of eSports events and platforms via sponsorships and ads.

 

Source: The Verge

 

Amazon Extends Alexa Voice Shopping To Include Prime Now Deliveries

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon Prime members can ask Alexa to get their groceries delivered within hours, thanks to the latest expansion of the voice assistant’s shopping capabilities. By integrating Prime Now programs into Alexa, Amazon is pushing the envelope on Alexa’s ecommerce capabilities and make it more deeply ingrained in Prime members’ daily lives. Beyond grocery products, Alexa can also order fast deliveries for smaller items such as video games from local stores. Some cities, such as Seattle, Columbus, and Cincinnati, will even get booze delivery via Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
As Amazon continues to improve Alexa’s capabilities and integrate it with existing services, users will likely get more comfortable with voice shopping, thus presenting a new dilemma for brands in reaching customers via a voice-based conversational interface like Alexa. Short of partnering with Amazon to put your products atop the voice search results, which Amazon has yet to start doing, a good solution is for brands to develop their own Alexa skills. For example, beer giant Anheuser-Busch recently launched an Alexa skill that guides users through various workout routines designed to burn off the calories of a beer, which is a cool way to establish a brand presence on Alexa devices while providing extra value to customers.

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 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: VentureBeat

 

Ford Tests Automated Kiosks For 24/7 Vehicle Drop-Off Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Ford is working with Panasonic and GoMoto, a company that specializes in car dealership technologies, to create Smart Service Kiosks that allow car owners to drop off their vehicles for repairs or basic maintenance tasks like alignment, oil changes, and inspections without having to talk to anyone. Once the dealership is finished with the tasks, owners will get an email alert to pick up their cars and pay the costs at the kiosks. The service will begin as a 90-day trial at a Ford dealership in Birch Run, Michigan.

What Brands Need To Do
This automated kiosk from Ford is a notable attempt to digitize the off-hour drop off service that some dealerships already offer. Essentially an ATM machine for car maintenance and repair services, the kiosk simplifies the process and modernizes the customer experience for car maintainance. By creating a digital interface for this service in the form of an automated kiosk enables users to manage their repair services and receive updates on their mobile devices, allowing Ford to establish a new digital touch point to reach customers for post-sale engagements. More brands should consider creating such digital tools to enhance their services or physical store experiences.

 

Source: Engadget

Pottery Barn Experiments With AR To Offer Virtual Furniture Previews

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pottery Barn joins a growing list of lifestyle and home goods brands that are experimenting with mobile-based augmented reality technology to create a better shopping experience. The company is set to launch a 3D Room View app, which will allow users to add and move holographic models of furniture items in your room. They can also change the color of certain items to see what fits their room decor best before they purchase.

The app is built upon Google’s Tango AR platform. Pottery Barn says the preview service will start with a trial program in San Francisco, although the app will be available for all to download later this month.The company also has two other AR-powered web-based virtual preview tools in the works.  

What Brands Need To Do
Many of Pottery Barn’s competitors, such as IKEA, Lowe’s, and Wayfair, have launched their own AR-powered preview apps, so it makes sense for Pottery Barn to catch up. Choosing to build the app on Google’s Tango AR platform limits the mobile devices that it can run on, but it works as a starting point as the Tango-enabled tools are intended for in-store demonstration only. As more and more furniture sellers embrace AR technology to address one of the biggest concerns of online furniture shoppers – “how will this item look in my room?” – more opportunities that AR can enable for the online customer experience await for brands to explore.

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

 

Source: Engadget

Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Pottery Barn

Amazon Brings Alexa To iOS Via Main App Integration

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has integrated Alexa into the iOS version of its main app, allowing iPhone and iPad users to interact with the popular voice assistant right on their mobile devices. IOS users can tap a microphone icon in the Amazon app to use Alexa to shop on Amazon.com by voice, play music and audiobooks, asking Alexa questions, checking the news, and accessing the 10,000 and counting Alexa skills, including the one we made for getting Miller Lite delivered to your door using Drizzly.

The move by Amazon makes Alexa available for a much wider audience who might not have Amazon Echo or Fire devices, expanding the reach and introduce more users to its ecosystem of Alexa-powered services and hardware products.This would help Amazon further conquer the digital assistant market and, in turn, give Amazon more conversational data to improve Alexa.

What Brands Need To Do
For brands, the expanded reach should make Alexa a more attractive platform to develop voice-based conversational experiences for. Earlier this week, Amazon announced it is applying promotional credits for developers that use Amazon Web Services for hosting Alexa skills, making it free for brands to build and host their Alexa skills.

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 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
Header image is a promotional image courtesy of Amazon

Google Home Tests Audio Ads With A Partner Message For Beauty And The Beast

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Starting on Thursday, some Google Home users started receiving a short message informing them of the upcoming release of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast live-action remake when they ask for a summary of their day ahead. The message is delivered via the regular Google Assistant voice, so it blends in seamlessly with the other information typically included in the “My Day” summary such as weather, commute, calendar, reminders, and news. Some Android users are reportedly also getting the ad through Google Assistant on mobile.

The message does not appear to be targeted based search history or movie interests, and some users have expressed their dismay at the random insertion of this message into the “My Day” summaries. Google released a statement denying that this is an ad, claiming instead “the beauty in the Assistant is that it invites our partners to be our guest and share their tales,” which seems to categorize this message as a sponsor message. Whether Disney paid for this Google Assistant integration is still unclear.

What Brands Need To Do
As voice-activated digital assistant services start to take off and reach more and more customer, figuring out how to monetize them with ad products seems like the natural next step for a company like Google, whose lion’s share of company revenue comes from advertising. So, it makes perfect sense that Google has started testing this type of audio ads on its Assistant service. Unfortunately, Google failed to consider how intrusive an unprompted brand message would feel to customers who don’t find the message relevant to their interests, which sparked a minor online backlash among users. Down the road, Google will certainly have to start fine-tuning the targeting of such messages if they want this type of audio ads to work. For now, chatbots and branded voice skills are still the best bets for brands to reach customers via conversational interfaces.

 

Source: The Verge

GrubHub Launches Alexa Skill For Quick Food Reordering

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Online food delivery service GrubHub has created an Amazon Alexa skill to allow users to quickly reorder a recent meal. After activating the skill, users can get food delivered simply by asking Alexa to “open Grubhub” or “tell Grubhub I’m hungry,” before choosing between their three most recent GrubHub orders for delivery. Once confirmed, Alexa will also tell users how long they will have to wait before the food shows up.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first food delivery skill that Alexa has added to its fast-growing list of capabilities. Both Pizza Hut and Starbucks have created their own Alexa skills for voice ordering. As tech giants such as Google and Amazon continue to make strong pushes for their conversational products, more and more mainstream consumers will soon become reachable via those emerging voice-based devices. Therefore, brands will need to explore opportunities in building advanced applications for these emerging platforms with highly engaging user experiences and conversational interactions.

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: The Verge

 

SXSW 2017: Visa Puts An NFC Payment Chip On A Pair Of Sunglasses

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Visa has been experimenting with mobile and IoT payments for a while now, previously launching a digital commerce app and collaborating with Brita to built payment into water filters. Today at SXSW, the credit card company showcased its latest creation – a pair of sunglasses with an NFC chip built into the frame. Once linked with a Visa user profile, it can replace plastic cards to complete purchases at NFC-equipped terminals. Visa says it is scouting for a fashion eyewear brand to collaborate on turning this prototype into a viable product.

What Brands Need To Do
While it is highly debatable whether it is a good idea to integrate a credit card chip with easily misplaced items like sunglasses, this prototype points to a future where ordinary devices and objects can become connected via 5G, Bluetooth, or other proximity technologies, and thus able to perform tasks and complete transactions. In fact, Visa has already inked a partnership with IBM to plug Watson’s machine learning smarts into its payment solutions for connected devices.

Imagine a future when your connected home appliances can search for local handyman services when it detects a repairing need, or when your smart fridge automatically order milk from local grocery stores when you’re running low. That future of IoT-powered ecommerce may seem far from us now, but it is an inevitable future that all brands need to start strategizing for. By expanding their messaging to connected devices, brands can establish a consistent presence guiding consumer throughout their customer journey.

Source: Engadget