Tag: Fire TV

Amazon Debuts 4K TV With Fire TV OS And Alexa

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On Tuesday, Amazon announced a new lineup of 4K smart TVs that run on the updated Fire TV software. Integrated with Alexa support, users can evoke Amazon’s virtual assistant to conduct voice search for content or access Alexa skills via the remote control. As is the case with Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices, Alexa will show you many results visually instead of just speaking them back. Working with two TV manufacturers, this new Amazon Fire TV lineup will be sold under either the Element or Westinghouse brand depending on the regional market, with prices ranging from $449 for the 43-inch model to $899 for the 65-inch.

What Brands Need To Do
This announcement continues Amazon’s hot streak of integrating Alexa in smart home devices. In the past month alone, the ecommerce giant introduced two new Echo devices – the Echo Look and the Echo Show – to push deeper into the conversational home gadget space. The Alexa-powered smart TVs are but another way for Amazon to make Alexa omnipresent in a connected household. As conversational devices continue to conquer the smart home space, brands that wish to stay ahead of the curve need to start leveraging the developer tools available to create voice experiences for the likes of Alexa in order to reach 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: Fortune

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

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

Find Out Which OTT Streaming Apps Are Coming To Fire TV

Posted on by Lab Team

On top of the large number of over-the-top services that Fire TV already supports, a new array of branded video streaming apps, including WATCH Disney Channel, WATCH Disney Jr., MLB.TV, Animal Planet L!ve, and the WWE Network, are all coming to the Amazon’s platform. Adding to its exclusive deal with Rovio to bring Angry Birds Family to Fire TV, it is obvious that Amazon is stocking up Fire TV’s content by drawing from diverse sources—welcome news to its customers.