What Does Voice Mean For Australian Brands

For those of us old enough to remember, the start of search engine marketing, app development and social media wasn’t all fireworks and glitter. It snuck up on most of us marketing professionals and we went from wondering whether it was a thing, to feeling so far behind it was hard to know how we were ever going to catch up.

The digital landscape has been stable since, and we’ve gotten used to these digital norms. Consumers expect to talk to brands on social media, they’re finding answers to queries instantly through Google and parents are keeping kids busy through mobile apps on our marketplaces.

We have teams dedicated to these three disciplines and whole industries have been born

Voice Is The Next Big Thing

For those contemplating what the ‘next big thing’ is, then wonder no longer. It’s Voice or Voice Experience (VX), more specifically.

We already have over 500 million devices with voice preloaded including Google assistant, Siri, Alexa and Cortana (Microsofts answer to voice services) and the numbers are growing every day.

Amazon who has 84% market share in the US with their Alexa Voice Services will soon be in almost every appliance we own. Take Samsung as an example, who have recently announced there will be Alexa Voice Services included in all its products by 2020. That’s just over two years away!

There will be 33 million voice first devices in use globally by the end of this year which is a staggering growth statistic given that Amazon only launched Alexa less than three years ago.

We expect there to be well over 50 million voice first devices within the next five years, which would have seemed crazy a few years ago but now seems fairly conservative.

So What Does This All Mean For Australian Brands?

For Australian brands, it means there is a new channel that will enable an even deeper relationship with users. That the concept of ‘human centred design’ is just about to take on a whole new meaning as there is no room for not thinking like a consumer when it comes to voice. It also means there is an opportunity to own a space that is new and exciting for consumers and allows brands to build a deeper, more connected and engaged experience..

So I hear you saying ‘that’s all well and good but, lets be real here, how could my brand ever translate into a voice environment’?

Well, there are currently 15,000 skills (Amazon’s version of the app but using voice only) available on Alexa so there are many different examples of how brands are using voice.

People are using voice to deliver recipes, ideas and solutions to consumers without the need for them to pick up a device. They are allowing consumers to buy their regular coffee, pizza and grocery order without the need to login. Consumers to use brands as a daily utility, which in turn allows the consumer to hear and interact with the brand several times a day.

As marketers, we are constantly searching for opportunities to make our brand front of mind, so imagine if your consumers spoke to your brand every morning and was delivered something useful… we would be lining up for sure.

So What Does This All Mean For Australian Brands?

For Australian brands, it means there is a new channel that will enable an even deeper relationship with users. That the concept of ‘human centred design’ is just about to take on a whole new meaning as there is no room for not thinking like a consumer when it comes to voice. It also means there is an opportunity to own a space that is new and exciting for consumers and allows brands to build a deeper, more connected and engaged experience..

So I hear you saying ‘that’s all well and good but, lets be real here, how could my brand ever translate into a voice environment’?

Well, there are currently 15,000 skills (Amazon’s version of the app but using voice only) available on Alexa so there are many different examples of how brands are using voice.

People are using voice to deliver recipes, ideas and solutions to consumers without the need for them to pick up a device. They are allowing consumers to buy their regular coffee, pizza and grocery order without the need to login. Consumers to use brands as a daily utility, which in turn allows the consumer to hear and interact with the brand several times a day.

As marketers, we are constantly searching for opportunities to make our brand front of mind, so imagine if your consumers spoke to your brand every morning and was delivered something useful… we would be lining up for sure.