With New Zealand in lockdown, and more time on my hands, now seemed to be the best time for me to finally work out how to use my Smart Speakers (Amazon Alexa and two Sonos One Speakers with Alexa built in) for anything other than music. I wanted to understand the Smart Speaker market further and what opportunities and skills were available to make life easier.
So what exactly is voice search?
Well it is simply and purely a technology that allows people to search the internet, website or an app by speaking to it rather than typing something in. Voice search has grown in popularity with Kiwi’s and in the last month according to research by GWI 743,000 people have used voice search or voice command tools.
Why the growth?
Over the past five years, voice-enabled home digital assistants announced themselves to the New Zealand Market and include Amazon Alexa & Echo which were the first, followed by Google Home and finally Apply HomePod. Now we have the technology available, the use of voice enabled digital assistants is becoming more popular with consumers, and in NZ for 2019 according to GWI there are currently 96,000 people who own a smart home device which equates to 3.4% of AP16+. If we look at a more mature market like the USA penetration of smart speakers was around 21% of households in 2018* with that number likely to grow exponentially.
Opportunities with Smart Speakers
One of the biggest hurdles for Smart Speakers is trying to convince consumers they are a necessity for making your life easier rather than a nice to have. The main thing is that you have to demonstrate that these smart speakers can do more than your standard mobile phone. With the introduction of ‘commands’ or ‘skills’ that brands can create for these smart speakers, it will help to justify to consumers why they need them.
It is about the ease for the consumer and making their life simpler. As our homes are becoming smarter and these products more popular, smart speakers are able to work with other technology to seamlessly connect your smart-enabled products. It allows you to do everything from set a timer, play music, provide weather forecasts or traffic updates to more complex skills like setting up your lights, heating your house, turning on your TV or washing machine or even telling you what’s in the fridge!
Voice has a completely different use case as opposed to other media channels. As brands we need to think about why and how people would use our products to create an experience that works for them and adds value.
So what are some of the things that voice search can do for brands:
- It can position brands as innovative and modern
- Create talkability with consumers
- Facilitate engagement with the brad
- Provide a useful tool that offers value to consumers
- Drive consumers to purchase products
How are NZ brands jumping on board?
So far from a brand perspective, only a few NZ brands have jumped on board with creating content or skills for smart speakers with the likes of Air New Zealand and entertainment brands like Sky TV, TVNZ, MediaWorks, Stuff and NZME.
A few of the brands have very similar skills, but all fill a need for the consumer.
- Air NZ focusses their skill around information on flight times, cancellations and updates to their flight status.
- NZME has four different skills for their various products:
- Newstalk ZB allows you to listen live and news and sports bulletins that are updated on the hour every hour.
- NZ Herald is around news flash briefings where it collates top stories across NZ and the world.
- ZM skill allows you to listen live, listen to the podcasts of their key shows and of course the favourite Swipemares.
- Radio Sport like ZM is around live streaming or live Super Rugby commentary.
- TVNZ is for 1 News product where you can get morning and evening updates on national and international news and sports headlines.
- MediaWorks has two different skills one for Newshub that has hourly updated news flash briefings and Rova which has live streaming of key radio stations, exclusive music channels and curated podcasts.
- Stuff like many of the others has a one minute long daily flash briefing.
- Sky TV which focusses on what programs are on now, when a specific program is on, what channel or Sky Picks of the Day.
With the penetration for smart speakers here in NZ still being in its infancy, there is an opportunity for key brands to jump on board early to show themselves as innovative and modern and cement themselves within the technology before it goes mainstream. While it is still in growth mode, there are plenty of basic skills available now that will help to make life easier. I have been using Alexa to turn my lights on, my TV off, setting a timer, news highlights and of course play my music on Spotify.
While voice search overall is still in its infancy it is where mobile was back in 2010 – on the cusp of massive shift in human behaviour.
