| | May 20188CIOReviewARE BRANDS READY FOR THE ECONOMY OF "ASK"?By Kundan Joshee, Sr. Vice President, Account Service, Cheil Indiamagine a Voice recognition system that will allow you to pay your bills via your voice. Your simple command "Pay bill on every 1st" will then never have to worry about the creditor again. Just think, how convenient would it be for your in-house device-cum-personal assistant to simply get your car turned on or buy a product after watching its advertisement with just ONE command? Going a few steps further, imagine if you are reminded by your car to pick up groceries while driving back home from a nearby store? This is not just imagination anymore. I expect the voice economy will change the way consumers interact with brands or ask for things."Hi Bixby" or "Alexa" - A simple trigger word to ask a question and get a response. Hidden behind that simple word is a rapidly evolving world of technology which will have the ability to complete a whole lot of useful tasks and can help us function in hands-free or eye free scenarios. Be it in the kitchen, lying in bed, entertaining or even while we are driving. An easy guide to navigate us from search to shop, making the journey a lot more seamless and easier.However, one needs to evaluate whether Voice technology will change everything? Change the way we search, the way we shop? Impact our choices for everyday things? Impact our current consumption of content? Impact the brands we prefer? Impact the choice for us to choose from? Will we ask for a specific brand or will we end up trusting the assistant to choose? Will we fall to regulated ordering by our assistants or change our preference?Smart assistants and voice-activated devices have been available for some time but mass adoption has not really happened and after the initial excitement consumers were not really incorporating it into their lives. The simplicity of "Hi Bixby" or "Alexa" has put everything in order, Voice conversations with devices are becoming casual and intimate, just like the way with friends or family. Picking up a phone and searching for a query is a deliberate act, which is why people still prefer asking things instead of looking them up. Voice brings interaction to an instinctual and conscious act.I believe there is however massive long-term potential. Voice is naturally fast and sometimes magical to input informationWhat does it all mean for our brands and for marketers?These changes will bring their own challenges and marketers will need to continuously build their brand relationships in the days to come, especially: I IN MY OPINIONBrands need to be ready to make sure they make the consumer evaluate what he asks for and also have an answer to what he might ask for
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