Many consumers are still skeptical about whether and how voice assistants make sense. Can they improve their lives in the sense of an electronic butler? Is it an additional channel for entertainment? Or a continuous listening, an all-powerful patronizing by digital corporations? Loudspeaker or wiretap speaker?

However, since 25% of households already have a voice assistant, it is in any case an exciting new channel for marketing communication.

What do Siri, Alexa, Cortana or Google Home mean for marketing?

They directly increase knowledge of consumers' wishes, behaviors, and orientations. We can place offers and information directly with the customer at the right moment. And conduct a smart dialogue that is always based on the users' needs and thus creates utility.

The technology underlying the voice interfaces has improved enormously, allowing them to process natural language more fluently today. The first campaigns with Alexa still felt a bit clumsy at first, and some embarrassing examples seemed to prove critics right.

However, Jenny Wise, analyst at Forrester, is convinced that the trend toward voice interfaces cannot be stopped: "If voice interactions — going beyond mere 'not writing' — offer real added value, customer adoption will increase rapidly over the next two to five years.

The benefit for advertisers: data from people's everyday lives that enables a deeper dimension of consumer profiling. Because voice assistants are slowly but surely taking the 'work' away from search engines and websites. Even if the share of voice-based searches is still relatively low, the trend is clearly pointing upwards.

Performance marketing as we know it today could soon be yesterday's news. Instead of Google AdWords, we might carry out an advertising dialogue with consumers in the future. The consequence for advertisers: marketing and advertising must move away from the frontal presentation towards a conversational character — chat with your customers to sell them something!

Only those who internalize this will master this digital disruption and profit from it!

Five extremely successful application examples

See how brands have created new ways to improve the customer experience, increase sales, and build a brand personality using voice recognition.

Jamie Oliver launched a solution for Amazon Echo that allowed fans to ask Alexa for recipe recommendations from the famous British chef, discuss options, and once they decided on a specific recipe, have it emailed to them so they could buy the ingredients and follow the steps to create the dish themselves.

Aloft Hotels helps guests control their in-room experience through simple conversation. The voice-controlled in-room application uses Apple Siri to automate a series of in-room home appliances. Guests can ask the voice assistant to cool their room, turn the lights on or off, or sign in to their iTunes account and play their favorite songs. Siri also acts as a virtual concierge and can recommend local attractions and restaurants.

The pizza chain Domino's has integrated voice control into its app, where a virtual assistant named Dom simplifies pizza ordering: from creating personalized toppings to suggesting additional items for meals and finding coupons to help customers get the best value. Through an Amazon Echo solution, customers can order their favorite pizza simply by saying: "Alexa, open Domino’s and place my easy order" – a better experience than with many competing food delivery services.
Voice ordering helped increase sales by 11%, even though the overall category did not grow.

Children's toy manufacturer KidKraft has developed the Alexa 2-in-1 Kitchen Market playset, a new toy that interacts with the voice system to simulate cooking and shopping experiences for kids.
The playset, half kitchen, half grocery store, is designed to make playtime more interactive and fun, with the set also offering games, instructions, and recipe cards to cook a variety of meals and engage in different dynamic ways.

The Diageo Alexa Bar is based on the existing cocktail website thebar.com and was launched for voice systems. Users activate the age-restricted skill by asking Alexa to "Open The Bar." They then have three options: ask Alexa for recipes to make specific cocktails, ask for cocktail suggestions based on flavors, or get guides on mastering cocktail making techniques. The Bar also gives users the option to send orders for cocktail ingredients and gear to their Alexa mobile app or via the Amazon website.

Learnings – Do’s & Don’ts when introducing voice assistants

The rapid rise in the use of voice recognition raises a number of questions to consider. Experimenting intensively now can give brands a competitive advantage once this technology is fully established. What you should always keep in mind in any case:

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1) Marketing with algorithms

While many voice interactions still occur via a screen-based device, the surprising popularity of Amazon Echo and Google Home means that people could increasingly have non-visual brand interactions. These devices also create an ordering/fulfillment dynamic — e.g., "Turn on the lights," and the lights go on.

However, when it comes to ordering "Buy me laundry detergent," the lack of detail in the order means that the device chooses from a variety of brands on behalf of the user. Then, frequently purchased commodity categories are ultimately decided by an algorithm. The brands that are chosen will be those that win based on a combination of price, performance, or relevance. If your brand doesn't perform well on these factors, the influence of voice ordering could undermine sales.

For those using Amazon Echo, Amazon may simply offer its own merchandise as the default result, rendering all other brands irrelevant unless the user specifies a preference.

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2) Bound loyalty

When a brand becomes the default choice for a frequently ordered item, there is a major opportunity to benefit from brand inertia and be ordered regularly. Conversely, for "locked-out" brands, it can be difficult to break through the built-up inertia and convenience of being the default choice until the regularly purchased brand disappoints the user in some way.

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3) New standards for digital experiences

The speed and simplicity of executing tasks simply by speaking to a device may well set expectations for all digital interactions. If a brand experience can be as simple as speaking out loud, how poorly will people think of your impossible-to-navigate website, and how likely are they to choose an easier option?

Let us consider: People see voice as a pure input method, whereas in reality you have to see voice with their entire user experience.

Look at your answers to people's orders and questions, e.g., 'Buy a pizza', 'Order me dishwasher tablets', 'What is the best car' or 'Which phone should I buy?' from the perspective of the consumer's digital experience.

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4) Voice recognition is not suitable for everything

There is little people can do with voice-activated products that they can't do with a smartphone. So the key point is the question of where there is no need to look at a screen. For example, if someone wants to order a pizza and is looking for variety and deals, it will be faster to get the information on the screen and scroll through the options. However, if they simply want to order their favorite pizza, they could say: "Alexa, open Domino's and place my easy order." For these simple, routine processes, solutions for voice systems need to be developed.

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5) Developing a brand personality

Voice technology is an interesting way to convey a brand's personality, and it can help foster a more emotional, human-like relationship with consumers. But what does your brand sound like? What is its tone of voice? How can you make sure to infuse the company's values into these voice interactions? These are questions that could become increasingly important as more brands rely on voice to interact with customers.

The digital experts at IQONIC Consulting are happy to discuss with you, without obligation, how to meaningfully integrate voice assistants into your marketing mix, and with what offers you can create real utility for consumers.