The smart speaker revolution is well and truly here.
According to a study undertaken by Canalys, smart speaker ownership is set to grow globally 82.4% through 2019 to over 200 million models by the end of the year.
28% of UK adults own one now, according to the most recent RAJAR.
That number is set to skyrocket with Christmas coming up.
That’s all well and good. But how does this affect my job as an advertiser?
In short: massively.
Whilst technically, most smart speakers are created ‘ad-free’ by the likes of Amazon and Google, companies are rightly scrambling to find loopholes in this to present their message to the consumer through their smart speakers.
Photo by Oscar Nord on Unsplash
Radio is often touted as advertising’s “most trustworthy” source .
This is seen most recently from the Radiocentre’s 2018 study ‘Breaking News’, in which it was found that 77% of UK adults consider radio to be a “more trustworthy news source” than any other media.
Naturally, there are a number of factors at play: it is one of the first advertising spaces, established historically. There is the subliminal argument of passive listening. But mostly, in my opinion, the radio offers a conversational intimacy with the consumer that creates a bond of trust.
This intimacy is created between consumer and smart speaker. More so, in fact. The owner of the speaker unwittingly becomes dependent on the speaker: bringing together a radio, a clock, and an encyclopaedia into one device that chats back to you. This creates an unparalleled level of trust between consumer and medium.
And this will only increase as adverts become more interactive through this medium.
You can only imagine what this means for the future, as a new generation of children grow up in a world where they may access information readily before becoming literate; developing a relationship from infancy with their clever friend Alexa.
The rise of smart speaker is creating more listeners of both radio and podcasts, with both mediums adapting to match higher demand. These are two of the more obvious ways you can meet your consumer through their smart speakers.
“Skills” are the next must in every marketer’s armoury.
“Skills” are branded applications for your speaker that will help you with brand-appropriate tasks. One of the best examples is Patrón’s cocktail menu, which tells you when prompted recipes for cocktails; of course plugging their Tequila at every opp’.
These skills are attempting to take over voice searching from search engines, and they work!
I’m not saying that search engines are obsolete of course.
The increasing numbers of voice searches through connected devices have SEO marketers scrambling to learn a new skill in voice search optimisation , placing your desired brand in front of the customer following a voice search.
This brand exposure is invaluable; even more so when we consider that consumers can buy directly from their device, with 60% of British users telling Artefact UK that they’ve purchased through smart speaker in the last year.
The smart speaker is the most significant technological advancement since the advent of the smartphone and is already changing the way we interact with technology and ultimately brands. Audio advertising has never been more important.
It’s time for you and your business to get ahead of it.
If you’re interested in speaking with me about the power of audio advertising and the use of smart speakers, come have a chat.
Henry Clark
