Category: General Content

VoiceLabs Launches “Sponsored Messages” Service To Deliver Ads Via Alexa Skills

Posted on by Lab Team

Update June 15: VoiceLabs has suspended its Amazon Alexa skill ad network following Amazon’s change of ad policy for Alexa skills.

 

What Happened
On Friday, voice computing analytics firm VoiceLabs announced the launch of Sponsored Messages, an ad network that aims to allow Alexa developers monetize their skills with advertisements. Brands including ESPN, Wendy’s, and Progressive Insurance have signed on to use this service, which will allow them to inject short audio blurbs into skills made by developers using VoiceLabs’ analytics platform and having opted in this ad network to monetize their skills.

What Brands Need To Do
Two weeks ago, Amazon updated its developer policy for Alexa, banning ad messages in all skills except for the ones for flash briefings, streaming music, and streaming radio. About 3,000 skills currently in the Alexa Skills Store fit this description, according to VoiceLabs, although only a fraction of them is using VoiceLabs’ service. This launch marks an important step in monetizing Alexa skills and pioneering audio ads delivered via digital voice assistants. This creates a new opportunity for brands that want to reach Alexa users without committing to develop their own conversational skills, and brands that have already created their skills can use it to promote their branded voice 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 Barrett ([email protected]) to schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: VentureBeat

 

Liquor Brand Diageo And Amazon Team Up To Create A Shoppable Show

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
British alcoholic beverages company Diageo teamed up with Amazon for a shoppable video series to promote its “Reserve” portfolio of premium liquor brands. Titled “World Class List,” the series is done in the style of an unscripted travel documentary that sees a host visiting and tasting locally flavored cocktails in five cities around the world: Barcelona, Mexico City, San Francisco, Sydney, and Taipei.

The show is now available on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, with further video-on-demand partners and markets to follow. Curiously, the shoppable version is not currently available in the U.S., but U.K. and German viewers can click on embedded links to shop the liquors featured in the show from Diageo’s ecommerce site.

What Brands Need To Do
This is an interesting case of a CPG brand leveraging an OTT streaming platform to distribute shoppable branded content and directly drive sales. Amazon Prime currently boasts over 76.2 million users worldwide, which makes it a valuable channel for brands to put their branded content on. In addition, recent reports claim that Amazon Prime Video is coming to Apple TV soon, which should further expand its reach.

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: AdAge

Header image courtesy of Diageo’s YouTube

Pepsi Puts Snapcodes On Bottles To Engage Fans With Filters, Games & Sweepstakes

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pepsi is adding a bit of interactive fun to its packaging by printing Snapcodes on the bottles of its coke products. For a limited time this summer, customers can use the Snapchat app to scan the codes and unlock exclusive selfie lenses, geofilters, as well as a Pepsi-themed mini-game. By playing the mobile game, they can also enter a sweepstakes to win weekly prizes such as gaming consoles or a trip to Lollapalooza.

What Brands Need To Do
Snapchat first introduced the Snapcodes in 2015 to let users add each other without having to type out usernames. Soon, brands like Sprite, FOX network, and Universal Pictures started featuring customized Snapcodes in their billboard ads and packaging to drive mobile users to check out more branded content on Snapchat. This Pepsi campaign is the latest example of how CPG brands can use Snapcodes to spice up their packaging. More brands should consider experimenting with new technologies such as augmented reality or Facebook’s updated Messenger codes to add an interactive digital experience to their products to further engage with customers.

 

Source: PR Newswire
Header image courtesy of Pepsi

Microsoft Unveils New VR Controller For Windows 10

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On day 2 of its annual Build developer conference, Microsoft unveiled a new set of VR motion controllers for virtual and mixed reality headsets running Windows 10. The controllers will be able to work without external tracking sensors, offering “precise and responsive tracking of movement in your field of view using the sensors in your headset.” The controllers will ship later this year during the holiday season, and they will be bundled with Acer’s upcoming entry-level headset selling for $399. Unfortunately, the controllers will not work with Microsoft HoloLens.

What Brands Need To Do
As with the voice assistant space, Microsoft has a lot catching up to do when it comes to the virtual reality headsets. A recent report from IHS Markit estimates that Samsung will sell 4.1 million Gear VR units by the end of the year. IHS is also estimating that Google has sold 120,000 units through 2016, with 2.3 million selling in 2017. As VR headsets inching closer to breaking into the mainstream market, brands need to be proactive and start working with content creators to explore the immersive medium and create engaging branded content.

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

 

Source: CNET

Brawny Uses Snap Spectacles To Capture Kids’ POV For Mother’s Day Ad

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Paper towel brand Brawny found a unique usage of Snap Spectacles for this year’s Mother’s Day campaign. The company worked with ad agency Cutwater to create a 60-second commercial titled “Once a Mother, Always a Giant” that uses footage shot by putting the camera-embedded camera on kids to capture their point of view. The result is a heartwarming montage of mothers looking like “giants” from the kids’ perspective.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time a brand has used Snap Spectacles to generate unique video content for marketing purposes. Both Marriott and Hyatt have been leveraging Spectacles to create authentic video content from their properties around the world. While Snap’s first quarterly report as a public company released on Wednesday doesn’t exactly paint a rosy perspective for the company, CEO Evan Spiegel says he’s not bothered with Facebook’s aggressive imitation of Snapchat features while re-stressing the company’s camera-first strategy. Regardless of which company will prevail in the race to make the camera the first mass platform for augmented reality, brands need to start exploring using new tools to spice up their campaigns.

 

Source: Marketing Dive

Image courtesy of Brawny’s YouTube

Twitter Scores A Lot More NFL Content (Sans Actual Games) For Live Video

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Twitter continues its aggressive push for more live video content on its site by signing a new multi-year deal to distribute official NFL video and other types of NFL content year-round. During football season, a new half-hour live show featuring NFL network personalities will air on Twitter five nights a week. In addition, the deal also includes live pre-game coverage such as Periscope broadcasts of play warm-ups and sideline interviews that grant football fans behind-the-scene peeks. However, the deal does not contain any actual NFL game.

What Brands Need To Do
Earlier this year, Twitter lost the bid to stream the NFL’s Thursday Night Football games this year to Amazon. But the microblogging service has been adamant in ramping up the video content on its site, as it works with Bloomberg Media to launch a 24/7 live news channel and signed content deals with 12 digital publishers for more original content earlier this month. Twitter is hoping these new video content will attract enough viewers to sell video ads against, and its ad-supported live video provides brand marketers with a valuable channel to reach sport fans, especially those whose viewing habits have shifted away from traditional linear TV and are therefore hard to reach via TV ads.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Microsoft Launches Cortana Skill Kit In Public Preview

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
After over a month of delay, Microsoft finally launched the Cortana Skills Kit in a public preview earlier today at its 2017 Build developer conference. This SDK will allow third-party developers to build new skills or convert conversational experiences from the ones made for Amazon’s Alexa or Microsoft’s new Bot Framework. In addition, the company also announced that it is working with HP and Intel to create Cortana-powered smart speakers and other smart home devices.

At its Build event, Microsoft also shared some usage statistics on its products. According to the company, its latest operating system Windows 10, which ships with Cortana embedded, is now active on 500 million devices worldwide, while Cortana currently enjoys 141 million monthly active users. There are currently 130,000 developers using its Bot Framework, a sizeable increase from the 46,000 developers it had in September.

What Brands Need To Do
Being a bit late to the party, Microsoft has a long way to go to catch up with Amazon and Google, but this SDK launch is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. (Alexa, currently leading the race of digital voice assistants, now has over 10,000 third-party skills available.) 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.

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: Engadget & Axios

Pinterest Updates Object-Recognizing Lens Feature With QR Code Support

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Pinterest launched an object-recognizing, image-search Lens feature earlier this year, which enables users to use their smartphone cameras to scan real-world items and get related results on Pinterest. On Tuesday, the company updated the in-app feature to include a Visual Guides function meant to help users narrow down the objects captured by their cameras and figure out what the users really want to search for. Moreover, the social scrapbooking site is also adding QR code support to the Lens feature, allowing users to use it to scan basic QR codes and be redirected to either a Pinterest page or any third-party webpage. A 3D-touch shortcut is also added to the iOS Pinterest app to allow for quick access to this Lens feature.

What Brands Need To Do
This update for the Pinterest Lens feature should give its search platform a much-needed boost and make it more useful for Pinterest’s over 175 million users, whose interests around specific topics such as fashion, design, home decor, and food have kept the social platform competitive against the likes of Facebook and Snap.

With the quick advancement of machine learning and AI-powered solutions, we are starting to see examples of brands primarily using the camera as an input source of the mobile user interface and leverage images to learn about user intent. Snapchat is a prime example of leveraging the camera to engage with mobile users. This trend should provide some inspiration to brands looking to update their digital user experience to be more intuitive and convenient for mobile users.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Apple Acquires Sleep-Tracking Firm Beddit To Dive Deeper Into Sleep Tech

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Apple has acquired a Finnish sleep tech company called Beddit, which makes a sleep monitoring device which tracks heart rate, breathing, and sleep cycles. Users can download its iOS app for further analysis of their sleep data. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but it certainly indicates Apple’s ambition in expanding its sleep-related products and software features.  

What Brands Need To Do
As we witnessed at this year’s CES, sleep tech is booming and quickly becoming a key growth area for many tech, lifestyle, and fitness companies. Now with Apple jumping into the ring, we expect to see more innovations pop up in the sleep tech sector. This emerging trend opens up a new product category for brands to explore. Integrating biometric data into your brand’s existing digital ecosystem will bring a better understanding of your customers and their habits, allowing brands to offer a holistic lifestyle product with added value to customers.

 

Source: VentureBeat

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