Why marketers should pay attention to voice
Audio and voice are by far the most natural interfaces for humans to interact. We have been speaking and listening for ages. We speak and listen for many reasons. We speak to give information and to form social bonds, we listen to get information and to make life easier. The smart speaker devices make it possible to speak and listen to a computer. We believe it’s important for marketers to pay attention to these devices, and this is why.
The growing voice movement
NPR (National Public Radio) and Edison Research have released new findings indicating that one-in-six Americans now owns a voice-activated smart speaker. That number is double what it was in July 2017. The numbers speak for itself. Smart speakers are popular and the popularity of smart speakers is likely to grow in the coming years.
As human beings, we care a lot about our time. We get pissed off when the train is two minutes late or our computer takes ten more seconds to start. The fastest growing start-ups tend to have products or services that save people time. They capitalize on our craving to get back the time, we had to spend on the things we don’t want to do. We value time so much, that we want to pay for it.
Voice recognition speakers save us a lot of time and make our lives easier. The possibilities are endless. You can turn on the lights, listen to your mail being read out loud, order food and play your favourite music all from a simple command from your lips. One-in-six Americans already understand the value of the smart speaker and the rest will follow, probably sooner than later.
Why marketers should pay attention
According to Addison Research, audience and consumers are quickly adopting the smart speakers. Already 16% of the Americans owns the smart speaker now since the first smart speaker Amazon Echo entered the market in 2015. The adoption rates are already outpacing the smartphone and tablets. 65% of the smart speaker owners, strongly agree with the following sentence: “You wouldn’t want to go back to your life without your smart speaker.” Within a matter of days, we can’t live without the smart speaker devices anymore.
People pay attention to the smart speaker and that is why marketers also should. People’s time is limited, that means when someone uses his/her time to listen to a smart speaker, other devices are getting less attention. Smart speaker users say that they use traditional AM/FM radio 35% less than they did before they used the smart speaker. Another point worth nothing is that smartphones and televisions get less attention from the smart speaker users. When our attention is changing, it is important to be at the right place in the right time.
Smart speakers are forcing a change in marketing strategy. According to ComScore 50% of all search will be via voice tech by 2020. Toyota, Campbell’s Soup and Unilever are already leveraging voice-activated Watson Ads that allow viewers to ask questions to the brand ad and are seeing strong results. These personalized experiences empower consumers to ask questions, that truly matter the most to them during their customer journey, creating meaningful connections with the brand that may ultimately impact purchase consideration and reveal new brand insights. Advertising is changing from devices with screens to devices that have no screen at all. Off course we have seen this no screen advertising in radio commercials but now the audio ads must be personalized, it’s all about the conversation.
Smart speaker devices present engagement opportunities for brands. People frequently use more words and context when conducting a search via voice, providing brands and advertisers more insight into where the consumer is within the buyer’s journey. Knowing when and in which stage the consumer is, is invaluable to create the right content.
Right now, 72% of the smart speaker users say that they don’t know enough about their smart speaker to use all its features. Discovery of all the skills and apps that can be used on these speakers is going to be an issue for coming years. Consumers have only scratched the surface yet. The possibilities are endless and definitely a trend to keep an eye on. We will be following the most recent developments and cover this topic in our blog.
