Moving from Real World to Digital (and Back Again)

A constant challenge for marketing managers has been how to bring consumers from their every-day non-digital lives to the relevant website or social media presence. Traditionally posters and TV and magazine ads rely on their viewers Googling the brand name, typing in a URL or find them on Facebook. There have been a plethora of solutions attempting to overcome this barrier, including:

• URL Short Codes and QR Codes
• Blippar
• Shazam
• Beacons
• NFC
• Mobile Phone ‘assistants’ such as Siri, Google Assistant and Microsoft Cortina
• Dedicated ‘always on’ speaker devices such as Amazon Echo and Google Home.

They all aim to help consumers to find the information (and products) they are looking for online with ease.

“There are now tens of thousands of developers across more than 150 countries building new devices using the Alexa Voice Service, and the number of Alexa-enabled devices has more than tripled in the past year. ” Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon, July 2018. In a recent release reporting sales of over $50bn, Jeff Bezos (recently announced the world’s richest man) focused much of the company’s success on the company’s virtual assistant, Alexa. So, who and what exactly is Alexa? I decided to go straight to the device itself and ask her directly from the comfort of my own living room! “I’m Alexa talking to you through an Amazon Echo… (the Echo) is a device designed around your voice that can provide information, music, news, weather and more. ” I then asked her what Google home is and she replied “it is a voice enabled wireless speaker developed by Google announced on May 18 2016 at Google IO. ” First to market, Amazon have now sold over 50m Alexa devices globally and the demand is increasing exponentially. While Amazon has double Google’s Smart Speaker Market Share, Google has shown aggressive growth in recent months with the Apple HomePod with surprisingly only 6% market share. But, with the overall smart speaker market growing rapidly, all boats continue to rise in this expanding bubble of “voice recognition”.

Siri was the first to capture the world’s imagination in the world of “voice recognition” on mobile devices but for once, we saw a reverse shift from mobile to inhome with the launch of Voice Activated Devices (VAD). Categorised broadly under the “Internet of Things”, these inhome smart speaker devices can control internet enabled devices such as smart fridges, security alarms and washing machines. So beyond just a fun gadget that summarises the weather and plays music, it is actually useful to households, enabling the user to find out answers to questions in seconds, creating shopping lists and ordering groceries and other products and services all through voice commands.

Amazon enabled a transition to digital through book sales in 1998 and quickly expanded to selling almost anything via an on-line, digital experience. How did they bring a mass consumer market with them into the digital world and out of the high street? Why did VAD in-home start with this on-line retailer as opposed to Microsoft, who strived to have a ‘PC in every home’ or likewise Samsung who has a TV in almost every home? Amazon’s key strategy in bringing customers into the digital age is to minimize the transition by enabling people to do things they frequently do but do it more easily and at scale. Amazon were successful in leveraging every day actions (shopping) and bringing that into the digital age. Other notable examples include, Netflix for movies and TV, Youtube for video content, Google to find ‘anything’ (when was the last time you went to the library?). An on-line and connected audience makes for a very sticky and receptive audience, where the buyer experience can be managed more intimately. Hence, transitioning customers into a digital experience can significantly increase their customer lifetime value.

For the modern marketer, these devices have revolutionized the way in which the consumer shops and purchases. The bad news is that marketers now need to shift their thinking (and fast!) from building mobile apps to building a clever branded voice strategy that literally speaks to the consumer!