Tag: amazon

Amazon Brings Automatic Reordering To More Connected Home Devices

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Following Whirlpool’s announcement at CES to incorporate Amazon’s Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) into its smart appliances, Amazon has announced today that a slew of connected devices have gained automatic reordering capability via DRS. The line-up includes select models of Brother printers, a GE washing machine, and the Gmate SMART blood glucose monitor, which will be able to reorder printing ink, detergent, and testing strips and lancets, respectively, when supply runs low.

What Brands Need To Do
Automatic reordering is a great tool for developing and maintaining consumer loyalty. Amazon’s DRS makes it easier for CPG brands to forge win-win partnerships with manufacturers of smart appliances so as to cultivate a long-term relationship with consumers that encourages habitual re-purchase.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Amazon Brings In-Flight Binge-Watching To JetBlue

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
JetBlue first announced its plan to add Amazon’s Prime Instant Video and Prime Music service to its flights in May. Now the airline says that the streaming services are available on the majority of its WiFi-enabled planes. All JetBlue passengers with Amazon Prime memberships on those planes will be able to access Amazon’s media library for free, and non-members will still be able to purchase videos and songs a la carte from Amazon’s services.

What Brands Need To Do
This deal marks the first time Amazon has partnered with an airline to power an in-flight entertainment service, which should help to expand the reach of its OTT content. Passengers confined to their seats make great audience, and now Amazon will be there to capture their attention. Other media and entertainment brands should consider similar partnerships to make their content more widely accessible and attract a new audience.

Source: TechCrunch

On Trend: How Ecommerce Is Eroding Black Friday

Posted on by Richard Yao

Amazon might have just severely undermined the cultural relevance of Black Friday.

On Wednesday, the ecommerce giant announced its plan to start offering its Black Friday deals on Nov. 20 – a full week ahead of Black Friday. Amazon Prime members will be granted a half-hour earlier access to many deals than the general public. Facing pressure from Amazon’s aggressively proactive approach, traditional retailers like Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Kmart, and Sears are all starting their Black Friday sales early this year so as not to be left out.

More importantly, as more and more people start shopping online and taking advantage of easier comparison shopping, most retailers are now offering the same Black Friday deals online, giving customers less incentive to visit the store. No more lining up for the doorbusters at Walmart this year, as the retail giant has opted to provide nearly all of its deals both online and in stores, with the online deals becoming available at midnight on Thanksgiving day, 18 hours before the stores open.  

Overall, the disruption ecommerce has caused what analysts call the “graying” of Black Friday, where holiday sales start earlier and are spread out evenly throughout the holiday, thus making Black Friday less relevant. For retailers, this means a longer holiday sales period that starts earlier. Some retailers, such as Amazon and Toy “R” Us, are offering their loyalty program members early access, which creates smart sales windowing to incentivize the shoppers.

Besides starting early and rewarding loyal fans with early access, retailers should also consider making a push for mobile shopping this year. Amazon, for example, plans to offer a slew of mobile-only deals in hopes of driving more consumers to its app. Using mobile-exclusive deals to incentivize more shoppers to download branded retail apps can help retailers establish a digital touchpoint on shoppers’ smartphones, allowing them to connect with shoppers on the go. Apps can also provide consumer data for retailers to learn valuable insights into consumer insights.

Ecommerce may be eroding Black Friday’s importance as the biggest annual sales event, but it is also what will help retailers to reach today’s connected consumers and stay relevant in the long run.

 

Amazon Echo Pushes Into Traditional Retail Nationwide

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
More than a year after its debut, Amazon Echo is finally coming to third-party physical retail stores for the first time. Amazon’s smart speaker will be available at Staples, The Home Depot, Sears, Fred Meyer and various other big box and electronics stores. Amazon plans to make it available in more than 3,000 retail locations across the U.S. in time for holiday shopping.

Market Impact
Making the Echo widely available in traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores signals Amazon’s confidence in pushing its leading product in the smart home to the mass market. The expanded shelf presence in turn can help familiarize consumers with connected devices like Echo, propelling the smart home market forward.

 

Source: GeekWire

How Amazon Powers Its First Physical Bookstore With Data

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon may be responsible for the demise of traditional bookstores, but that certainly won’t stop the ecommerce giant from opening one itself. The company that first started as an online bookseller has opened its first ever physical retail store – a bookstore, to be exact – in Seattle’s University Village on Tuesday.

Unlike other brick-and-mortar bookstores that typically categorize books by genre, the store will be relying on Amazon’s existing data — including customer ratings, sales totals, and Goodread popularity — to decide which books to stock and how to display them in store. In addition to books, Amazon is also setting aside a section of the store to its hardware products such as the Kindle, Echo, Fire TV, and Fire Tablet.

What Retailers Need To Do
Amazon’s physical bookstore showcases an interesting example for retail brands to take advantage of the data it gathers from online shoppers and use it to optimize the offline shopping experience. Visiting physical retail stores also allows customers to browse at leisure rather than searching for specific items, encouraging the kind of serendipitous buying that is rare in ecommerce. With some ecommerce brands dipping their toes into the brick-and-mortar space, it is key for retailers to bridge the gap between online and offline shopping with user data.

 

Source: The Verge

Amazon To Launch Shopping Channel On Fire TV

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has been the undisputed leader in ecommerce, but can it conquer TV shopping as well? After quietly rolling out buyable banner ads on the homepage of its Fire TV set-top box in the past few weeks, the Seattle-based company announced on Wednesday its plan to launch a QVC-style home shopping channel exclusively on Fire TV. Expected to roll out sometime next year, the channel will allow viewers to purchase products directly from the screen.

What Brands Need To Do
Amazon enjoys some unique advantages in transforming TV into a direct sales channel, given that it can seamlessly integrate ecommerce functionality into the Fire TV devices by syncing up users’ Amazon accounts and enabling one-click purchases. The new Apple TV, which hits retail this Friday, allows ecommerce brands to reach viewers via dedicated apps. For brands that are currently selling on Amazon, it may be worthwhile to tap into these new TV shopping initiatives to get a better understanding of the emerging shoppable TV experience.

   

Source: GeekWire

Salesforce Launches IoT Platform To Gather Data From Everywhere

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Last month, popular CRM solution provider Salesforce announced its entry into the Internet of Things (IoT) market with IoT Cloud, a platform designed to help businesses connect with and respond to their customers using connected devices. Powered by the company’s new real-time processing engine Thunder, Salesforce aims to process huge amounts of IoT device data, while helping businesses build customer profiles and provide better customer experience based on the data acquired. Similarly, last week, Amazon also launched its own IoT platform to support the growing market of connected devices, posing a formidable competitor for Salesforce.

What Brands Need To Do
The new IoT platform from Salesforce provides a platform for connected device makers to help their clients better monitor and respond to their customers, while Amazon’s new platform allows connected device makers to tap into Amazon cloud services for voice interaction with Alexa or data processing on EC2. Brands can benefit from IoT data through partnerships with a device maker to tap into the capabilities these platforms boast. For example, a bread brand may learn valuable insights on breakfast preferences from connected toasters, just as auto brands can utilize data from connected cars to better serve their customers.

 

Source: Marketing Land

Amazon Reportedly To Create A Live Online TV Service

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon is exploring the possibility of creating a live online TV service and has been in talks with major media companies including CBS Corp. and NBCUniversal to discuss carrying their channels, according to Bloomberg. No further details are available at the moment, but it seems very likely that the service will be tied into the existing Amazon Prime Instant Video service and likely to be subscription-based, and not ad-supported. However, if Amazon does manage to strike a deal with the broadcasters to carry their live programming, it would have commercial spots available to brands.

Market Impact
A live service would expand Amazon’s involvement in the OTT video space and bring it into direct competition with pay-TV providers like Comcast and AT&T Inc. Meanwhile, Apple has long been reportedly working on the creation of a live online TV service, which was expected to launch in September along with the new Apple TV, but was delayed into 2016 due to alleged difficulty in negotiating with content owners. Only time will tell if Amazon can pull it off before Apple.

As the digital transition of the TV industry continues, we expect to see more twists and turns in the changing TV landscape that all brands and media owners need to be aware of, so as to keep up with the shifting audience behavior.

 

Source: Bloomberg Business

Amazon’s New Fire TV Adds Alexa, Takes On Apple TV

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Earlier today, Amazon unveiled its answer to the new Apple TV – a souped-up Fire TV box equipped with support for 4K videos and digital assistant Alexa, recently freed from Echo. The addition of Alexa will bring its voice-enabled remote control to Fire TV, as well as powering some content searches on the TV. Last week, Apple unveiled the new Apple TV with Siri integration and an App Store.

What Brands Should Do
Previously, brands can get their content onto Fire TV through its app store, and the addition of Alexa spells more opportunity for brand integrations. Presumably, Amazon will soon allow Alexa to help users reorder Amazon.com items through Fire TV. For more information on how brands and content owners can make use of the new generation of set top boxes, click here to read our in-depth Fast Forward analysis on the new Apple TV.

The Lab has extensive experience working with brands to reach their audiences in the OTT and digital video space. Earlier this year, we led our parent company Interpublic Group to invest in Samba TV, a startup that specializes in advanced real-time TV analytics and cross device retargeting. Using Samba’s tools, the Lab can develop a second-screen retargeting campaign to reach audiences on ad-free OTT services. To learn more about how to reach your audience on advanced TV, contact our Engagement Director Samantha Holland ([email protected]) and schedule a visit to the Lab.

 

Source: The Verge

Amazon Expands Dash Button Program To Add More Brands

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Now that all prime members can get their own dash buttons, Amazon is expanding the program from 18 brands to include a total of 29 different brands, adding new household names such as Orbit, Smartwater, and L’Oreal. Moreover, the ecommerce giant is also offering credit refund for the first Dash button purchase to incentivize users to try out the physical “one-click buy button”.

What Brands Should Do
With the new expansion, Dash Buttons now cover more than 500 CPG products for Amazon shoppers to purchase with a simple press. As we previously wrote, any brands with a regularly-replenished consumer product would be wise to get on board now and develop their own branded buttons to cultivate a long-term relationship with consumers.

 

Source: 9to5 Toys