Patrón Brings Bartending to Your Home
Being 23, I am a cocktail newbie. I know some that I like, but I have no idea how to make any of them. Putting me behind a bar would be useless.
Insert Patrón.
Alexa, One Margarita, Please!
On National Tequila Day in 2016, the tequila brand launched a voice search service in partnership with Amazon. Users can ask Alexa for cocktails recipes or facts about tequila. You could even ask her if you should have another drink. I hope she knows the power she holds.
Following suit in 2017, Patrón released the Bot-Tender on Twitter. The user could indicate an occasion, flavor preference, and ingredients on hand, and the Bot-Tender would recommend a cocktail. According to Marketing Dive, 39% of the recipes recommended through the chatbot led to website views.
Patrón’s CMO, Lee Applebaum, said that the company chose Amazon as a way to “showcase [their] artisanal spirit and versatility, and begin to have a conversation with our fans…”. Twitter’s case study of the Bot-Tender indicated that the brand was looking for news ways to reach millennials of legal drinking age.
Time to Level Up
As I mentioned before, I really don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to making a cocktail. Tools like this seem really useful to me, especially now when people are so used to spending time at home. Sure, I could look up a recipe, but the ability for the recommendation to be slightly personalized to me makes it feel like I’m getting information from a human bartender. I’m at a point where I’m still trying to figure out what I might like, so I’ll take any recommendations I can get.
What’s Next?
Are voice search and chatbots here to stay? I’d say yes, at least for the next few years. Voice search hasn’t reached it’s prime yet. I personally still don’t trust Alexa to find the right answer to a question for me, unless it’s really straight forward. With voice search being so convenient and offering brands new ways to enter the home, I think the technology is only going to continue to be developed.
As for chatbots, I think they’re here to stay until they’re replaced with voice search. Why go on your phone to enter cocktail preferences when you could do it via voice search? There would be no need to stop what you’re doing to reference the recipe on your phone, because you would just need to listen to it.
For now, though, I think chatbots are a great way for brands to collect data about their users, and for consumers to feel like they can easily connect with a brand. With chatbots available, waiting for customer service to pick up the phone or reply to a Tweet could feel like forever in comparison to a robot immediately responding.
How do you prefer your bartender — human or robot?
