What Happened
On Monday Dish Network launched an Alexa skill that will allow users to watch TV hands-free. Once activated and paired up, Dish says pay TV customers using either its Hopper or Wally receivers will be able to search for programs, change channels, as well as pause, rewind and fast forward television just by asking Alexa. This marks the first time a live TV content provider have integrated Alexa for voice control. Previously, Alexa is available as the voice interface on Amazon’s own Fire TV streaming player and Fire TV Stick products.
What Brands Need To Do
There is no denying that voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant are taking over smart home devices and conquering the smart TV is merely a part of that. Last week, Google announced it is working with GE and LG to integrate Google Assistant into a slew of connected home appliances for voice control. Alexa, on the other hand, has enjoyed an early lead in conquering the smart home space with various third-party integrations. Now adding Dish Network to its roster of supported device, Alexa is able to infiltrate the OTT TV experience as well, further broadening its reach. For brands, now is the time to start formulating a voice strategy and start thinking about how they can leverage Alexa skills to enhance their services and customer 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: Engadget
Header image courtesy of Dish Network
