Digital Marketing
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17. November 2018

Brands get a voice: How conversational interfaces change marketing.

Marketing and „Digital“: It’s complicated (again). After all these years with exciting new technologies and communication channels, it feels like we are stuck in a vicious cycle that prevents us from making the next, really disruptive step towards the future.

Let’s face it: „Digital“ in 2018 is in a dead end street. TV is far from dead and social media has turned from enabler of freedom to a tool of oppression. Time for a short Tabula Rasa.

I mean, look at the state of Digital 2018:

  • Websites can be dynamic and interactive like never before — but development takes forever and companies innovate far to slow.
  • Programmatic sounds nice — but where is the point when more and more ads are getting blocked anyway.
  • There is an App for everything — but downloads are declining, notifications muted and people use only 9 apps daily anyway.
  • Influencers are still hot — but fake followers, ad fraud and bad coops are damaging brands.
  • Facebook was #1 — but fucked up big time and feels pretty dead right now for everyone under 30.
  • Twitter used to be full of chatter between real people — but has become a playground of celebrities and bots having conversations with each other, plus ads mixed in between.
  • Instagram is in its prime — but the feed starts to get crammed and the interface becomes messier every day (how many more buttons and features will come after IGTV?).
  • Snapchat, the ephemeral king — always innovating, but not really taking of outside US youths and right now in deep struggle.
  • Vero, let’s not forget Vero, the one month wonder — Does this still exist, by the way?
  • AI is supposed to be the shit — but is taking off slowly besides some tech giant publicity stunts.

Ok, maybe it’s just me, but: where is the point in betting on the next shitty ad format on facebook stories? Or new ways to play vertical video content somewhere? Or the next hype app like TikTok?

I believe it’s time to radically change direction towards a new marketing approach. Because we are ignoring a fundamental evolutionary leap in digital technology that is happening right now, with the potential to change the relationship between consumers and brands forever:
The rise of conversational interfaces.

Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

WTF is a Conversational Interface?

The attempt of a definition: Conversational Interfaces enable people to interact with machines (and brands) in the most natural way — Language.

Remember HER?

Ok, we are not there — yet. Maybe we don’t even want to go this far. Because Singularity and Skynet, you know?

But still: After the era of search and social, conversational interfaces (CI) are considered THE next step in the evolution of technology..

The evolution of user interactions with internet powered technology.

This has not only implications on the way humans interact with their smartphones, smart homes or technology in general. It will also disrupt the majority of our current marketing approaches and agency business models.

  • Why would people visit your beautiful and expensive website, or use your polished smartphone app — if every information or service they want gets delivered by deviceless bots or smart agents when they ask for it?
  • Why should someone engage with your social media content or ads — if there is no feed anymore or smart assistants are filtering out all interruptions anyway?
  • How do you achieve visibility of a brands content, products and services in search — when there is only ONE search result on Google Now or Alexa?

Even the very meaning of „brand“ and its role in marketing could change dramatically.

Think about this: Brands could finally get a real voice — and communicate directly with consumers like never before.

A well designed bot or smart agent with a distinctive, brand specific behaviour might only be the beginning. In a radical scenario, one day „brands“ could no longer be linked to companies publishing content, selling products or services and interacting with consumers through human employees.

Brands could evolve into a sheer software that feels like a virtual person and accompanies consumers everywhere they go!

This would fundamentally change the way we work — creative wise, but also in brand management and marketing in general. From inventing ways to make people click on ads or share brand contents to creating a voice for a brand that people can and actually want to talk to.

The evolution of advertisings main jobs in the digital era.

Last but not least, we will also need innovative ways to create awareness for brands in a dramatically different (and maybe limited) channel landscape in the first place.

In short: CIs open up opportunities for radically different creative ideas.

I. Opportunity: Messengers

Messaging apps use a text based conversational interface that might seem oldfashioned and unsexy, but is in fact insanely successful and wide adopted.

„The messaging era is definitely now. It’s the one thing people do more than anything else on their phone.“

David Marcus // VP of messaging products, Facebook

The numbers don’t lie: Messengers are EVERYWHERE and more popular than social networks now.

In Asia, WeChat IS the internet — and people do everything with it.

Maybe that’s no vision for the rest of the world (although Facebook works really hard on this).

But still: Messengers are on the rise, because they adress all relevant requirements for modern communication. They are mobile, social and above all seamless and intuitive. No need for installing an app. Just text and go. Hell, even your Grandma knows how to use WhatsApp.

And the best thing: You can do pretty cool stuff with them.

Photo by louis amal on Unsplash

Photo by louis amal on Unsplash

1. Tell stories  —
Content & Campaigns.

Telling interactive stories with text based interfaces has a long history — anyone remembers ZORC, the first text adventure in 1980?

Ok, the 80’s are gone. But even in our era of realtime video and visual overload, this approach can be used to create unique and compelling consumer experiences. Here are some inspirational cases for:

Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash Photo by rawpixel on Unsplash

2. Make people play —
 Games & AR.

Using games and gamification for marketing purposes can be a successful, but also very expensive marketing tactic. It also comes with a built-in barrier: consumers have to download and install the programs or apps.

While no pure use of the conversational interface itself, the option to access games and AR functionalities seamlessly via messengers is a great opportunity for brands to create exciting experiences for consumers.

Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

3. Create tools  —
 CRM & Personal Assistants.

Making people’s lives easier through seamless consumer experiences has been one of the holy grails in marketing for several years now.

Messengers can dramatically reduce unnecessary frictions and barriers for consumers. From removing the need to sign in within apps to access their customer data, over moving the whole consumer journey into one messenger thread to providing virtual assistants and services that feel like real friends.

  • Simplified orders: Domino’s Pizza Messenger Chatbot let’s you easily order a pizza with two taps.
  • Seamless purchase process: Everlane enables consumers to run through the complete order process via one messenger thread— from product selection over payment and shipment tracking until after sales service.
  • Service channel: KLM provides tickets and flight status updates via facebook messenger.
  • Personal assistants: Walmart’s subscription based concierge service Jetblack makes mother’s lives easier with inspirational content, product recommendations and instant delivery.
  • AI friends: Replica, a lifelog app and personal assistant that behaves like a real friend.

KEY TAKEOUT: MESSENGERS are a conversational interface that is here, full of creative potential — and still rather un(der)explored.

II. Opportunity  —  Voice

VOICE is an acoustic-based conversational interface that uses spoken language and feels like the science fiction of Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey became real.

„40% of Consumers will use a voice assistant instead of a mobile app or a website, three years from now.“

„Conversational Commerce“ Study // Capgemini, 2018

Indeed, VOICE sounds like the biggest opportunity right now. Did you see that Google Demo?

Very impressive, huh? But remember: This is Google. And a very specific use case. In general, the natural language processing capabilities of VOICE applications are still very limited yet.

Maybe that’s a reason VOICE use is growing right now, but still in early stage of adoption. Regardless of what Alexa, Siri and Google Now ads want to make you believe.

But: there are also steadily more cases of creative communication and innovative services with VOICE.

KEY TAKEOUT: VOICE is the CI that holds the key to the future — but avoid being creepy and check adoption rate in your target group first.

CONCLUSION: How Conversational Interfaces change marketing.

Marketing and Digital are on the brink of a fundamental evolutionary shift. The rise of conversational interfaces like messengers and voice enables new ways of interaction between humans, brands and technology.

This is a great opportunity for marketers right now: Design these interactions and provide valuable, distinctive experiences with your brand, product or service. Simply put — give your brand a voice.

After all, the race for the interface has just begun. The question is — When will you join?

Alex Glasneck

Alex Glasneck is a Strategy Consultant for brand, social communication & digital innovation. He helps companies to do better marketing with less bullshit — and writes about new ways of communication, work and value creation in the digital era.

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