5 Reasons Why Amazon’s Alexa Is About To Change Everything For Brands

The Amazon Alexa is on the verge of changing the way we work, rest and play.

And the sooner brands get on board and start utilising the power of this new technology for marketing purposes, the more established they’ll be.

These early adopter brands will benefit from a less crowded (and expensive) space. Remember the free marketing a Facebook page gave in 2009? That. First is everything.

There are other voice-activated virtual assistants, of course. And sure, Siri & Cortana have been available on smartphones for a while. But wonderful as they are, smartphones still mostly rely on touchscreen.

Alexa currently sits inside the Amazon Echo and Dot speakers – though this is just the beginning – and here’s five reasons why she’s going to make a world of difference.

Barrier to entry is low

Amazon is savvy enough to make the tech cheap and technology easy. Echo Dot retails at just £49.95, and you can use Alexa immediately. However it is her ‘Skills’ that really make the most of her.

Skills are the equivalent to Apps and can be practical or entertaining. Using Skills simply requires enabling the Skill and using a key phrase that ‘wakes’ it, e.g. ‘Alexa, play Twenty Questions’. Once the Skill is enabled, a four-year-old can command Alexa without needing to navigate tech, type or read. It just requires the ability to speak.

Alexa doesn’t just work with Amazon

Although the Amazon Alexa is currently housed in Echo and Dot, that’ll be expanding soon. Automotive brands and products like Lenovo are already planning to integrate the tech. So on a freezing cold morning you can ask Alexa to start warming up the car while you’re sitting in the house.

Amazon have also opened out the API and actively encouraged developers. They can’t (and wouldn’t want to) create all the Skills themselves, so making it available to brands, publishers and hobbyists means a richer and more credible library.

She’s going to be your ‘go to’ for search

Statista estimate that by 2020 over 200 billion searches per month will be done with voice. For comparison, in 2015 Google estimated it performed around 100 billion searchers monthly. By entering the search market they tap into the paid search space that Google have long dominated and there’s an estimated $12 billion up for grabs by 2022.

Want a recipe for Spaghetti Bolognaise? Jamie Oliver will probably have a Skill for one soon. Tesco might have one that shops ingredients and delivers…and brands will eventually pay to be discovered first, so it reaps rewards to get on board now.

It’s Frictionless Technology

One of the main reasons Alexa will work is because it will make your life easier.

‘Internet of things’ has been waiting to happen for a while and it’s struggled because of the fragmented tech (which app do I download? Do I have to change my energy supplier? Why do I need a fridge that talks to me?). Alexa acts as one interface for all this and once people are used to their voice switching off the lights, this behavior becomes instinctive.

Frictionless takes away barriers. Instead of watching an advert for a product, getting distracted and letting the moment pass, Alexa lets you act on it immediately. By saying ‘Alexa, buy product on TV’, all the barriers between you wanting that product to owning it are gone.

It integrates with the rest of the Amazon ecosystem

But what about Google, Apple and Facebook? Absolutely, the big three understand the importance of voice-activated technology. Google is investing in ‘Google Home’, Apple has Siri and Mark Zuckerberg built Jarvis.

But the Amazon Alexa has a trump card. The company started as an ecommerce business and account for 40% of it worldwide. Amazon’s many arms now branch out to support this, from Oscar-winning media channels to ‘one click’ to buy apps. Alexa is Amazon throwing down the gauntlet in the investment of voice tech and my prediction is that it’s going to be one that pulls them ahead of the rest.

If you want to know more about how your brand can benefit now, then Brazen is holding a free-of-charge Breakfast Briefing all about Amazon Alexa Skills – going through everything from how they work to how to build one. To book onto this Free Workshop – on the 8th March at 8am at the National Football Museum, Manchester – book now via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/free-amazon-alexa-workshop-tickets-32527531723

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