Digiday Research: Voice marketing is still nascent among retail marketers
Voice devices are quickly becoming ubiquitous in U.S. households, but most retail marketers aren’t jumping on the bandwagon just yet.
Nearly 20 percent of U.S. adults now have access to a smart speaker, and that number is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. But despite the hype surrounding their potential most retailers aren’t currently using voice devices for marketing or commerce, according to new Digiday research.
Of the retail marketing executives Digiday quizzed with at the Digiday Retail Forum last month, 79 percent said they’ve yet to use voice devices in any capacity.
For those who have the most common use cases are to deliver ads and to sell products, but each of those are only being done by 8 percent of retailers. In general marketers have placed a low priority on voice marketing with many viewing it primarily as a way to collect consumer data.
Amazon, a major player in the voice space thanks to its Alexa-powered devices, is tempering expectations for voice search. The e-commerce giant is still figuring out how to prioritize between paid and organic results in search requests.
Other areas like branded podcasts are unlikely to ever gain mainstream adoption by retail marketers because of their high costs, generally at least $500,000. Some retailers in the Digiday survey have experimented with them, but one of the main hurdles with branded podcasts or podcasts in general is that measurement standards are still in their infancy.
Other brands are gravitating instead to branded “skills” for voice-activated devices. Lego is testing out creating storytelling Skills on Amazon, for example.
-
Digiday+ Research deep dive: YouTube holds strong as a reliable marketing channel for agencies and brands
YouTube might not be considered the most exciting marketing channel out there, but brands and agencies see the platform as a reliable marketing channel that delivers consistent success.
-
Pringles goes all in on social to put college athletes front-and-center for ‘March Mustache’ campaign
Pringles is turning to social media — particularly Instagram — to leverage some of the college athletes playing in the March Madness basketball tournament, with the goal of reaching college basketball fans on second screens.
-
Short-form video needs better monetization, creator funds aren’t the way to do it
Creator funds have almost been like a stepping stone before a more permanent solution is either considered or put into place.
-
SponsoredHow advertisers are leveraging omnichannel attribution and measurement to power CTV
Sponsored by MNTN Connected TV advertising has joined and expanded the larger ecosystem of campaigns that advertisers deploy. As such, omnichannel marketing strategies now encompass television and mobile devices, tablets and other screens such as out-of-home. And as customers engage across these different touchpoints, brands are seeking and moving their measurement and analytics efforts to […]
-
L’Oreal uses social listening, in-house teams to tap into beauty trends ‘at the speed of culture’
The beauty behemoth is turning to in-house teams to accelerate content production that taps into trends within days, rather than the weeks or months of traditional marketing and advertising timelines.
-
With Canva and Adobe’s new updates, the generative AI race enters the brand design space
Canva and Adobe are just two of several major design and visual platforms that are rapidly introducing new generative AI capabilities in the service of brands.
