Can marketers overcome the challenges of VUI & acquisition?

The art of conversation, you sit with family, in a meeting room or with friends and naturally you converse, engaging with the people around you. You don't often think about it, but all of your memories will at some point involve dialogue.

The cognitive activity related with voice arouses different parts of the brain opposed to looking at your smartphone, meaning the potential for brand personality/equity building on the channel is rather large, this holds the potential for an early adopter to win big from voice. This also means there is potential for industry disruption using voice; think about the rise of Uber, AirB&B etc. from smartphone apps, and how voice user interface could tap into different use cases.

The statistics behind the spread of Voice Assistants are at least mind-blowing, as close to 50 million adults in the US own a device, meaning the eco-systems of Amazon & Google are opening up a new media channel. Leading minds within these well know companies are debating how best to deliver content and they have two key options: either through their own products, amazon music or audible, or of course by working with third-party developers or brands to create Skills (apps) that drive usage of the assistants.

Hardware providers still has a large challenge ahead regardless of the route they decide. Moreover, acquisition of new customers on to the platform is still a huge hurdle for brands seeking to use voice. Despite integration into smart devices, cars and offices developers are going to be looking to agency and brand partners to drive the behavioural shift needed to make the products a success with real adoption. 

Voice User Interface (VUI) means there are bigger hurdles to jump over. I suspect there is a huge lack of understanding from consumers around how to navigate a voice device, as VUI is an entirely new form of user interface that people need to be educated around similar to previous user interface advances in the past.

Whilst Amazon and Google are doing their best by engaging uneducated consumers with e-mail marketing campaigns or television adverts, there is a great deal of investment being driven into the development space to create a reason for consumers to learn how to use voice, or 'utility'. The Amazon Alexa Fund is a great example of this and it is gaining increasing levels of traction with third parties building on the voice platform. I'm sure this will only get more interesting as the likes of Facebook, Apple and Microsoft join the party.

The twist here is that when approaching VUI you need to think differently, utility can't be a replication of a smartphone app, you need to think 'voice-first' with the purpose or experience you are delivering. Driving this on voice could be in my opinion shaped by the following:

- UTILITY / FUNCTIONALITY : Voice can provide utility to consumers, becoming integrated into everyday life by doing the "assisting" part excellently. Think banking, food shopping or healthcare for elderly etc.

- CONTENT DELIVERY / BRAND EXPERIENCE: Delivering voice first content is a format that is much more engaging than reading from your screen or listening to a podcast. Think explorable news stories, the delivery of weather with sound effects, or your favourite wine brand sharing witty ways to redeem unique Valentines day offers.

Have a quick think about how your favourite brand may deliver the above to you?

Assuming there is a strong use-case that delivers value to your target audience or entertains more effectively than other channels, the next hurdle is getting the consumer to pro-actively enable to the skill.

Enabling of the skills require either a voice command, e.g. "Alexa, enable The Fishery news flash", or the activation of the skill via the mobile app. In my eyes, this challenge is best overcome by creating a memorable or catchy boolean to enable the skill (we'll leave this one to the creatives...). From a personal perspective, I cannot remember any of the enabling commands from my current Skills on Alexa, making that journey less frictionless. 

So you have to make consumers aware of this value so they go out of their way to activate, meaning in my opinion integration into wider marketing activities, with voice acting as a supplementary channel.

It surprises me that companies such as the BBC, who are really pushing forward voice skills are not yet including ques to enable the BBC news skill through their TV channels. Perhaps they do not feel the BBC voice experience is strong enough just yet to drive consumers, but for me linking Television or Social Media advertisements to a interactive VUI Content Piece is a great way to drive voice channel acquisition for brands with high-involvement purchases, such as cars or consumer electronics, both sectors that are integrating voice devices into their products.

When it comes to FMCG or low-involvement products, on-pack promotions or direct mail present a great way for a brand to drive their voice skill directly to their consumers. Taking this one step further, I'd love to see FMCG brands running voice-assistant first promotions, enabling an entertaining way of redemption and a huge opportunity to deliver a unique brand experience. Of course when penetration rates of the hardware make this viable or the target audience is niche enough to make it worthwhile.

It's going to take a gutsy marketing team to trust an agency to deliver this for them, yet the integration of the skill could potentially maximise the wider campaign spend by leveraging the creative further. This would require digital and creative planners to treat a skill as a channel in the mix of activity from an early stage.

I'd love to see a brand take a real leap with this, perhaps an upcoming FMCG brand or charity, to read the rewards of delivering a viral voice skill. Of course the eco-system in early-stages and analytic platforms and monetisation needs to catch up with this, but companies such a Snips and Veritronics breaking ground in joining the dots back end and I'm sure agencies will be considering these points internally.

Either way, you can't deny it's an interesting space on the start of a big journey.

Thanks for reading.

Ben