DISCUSSION
New shoppable ad tech creates opportunities across AR, search and voice
Written by RetailWire Staff
Sources: Fishermen Labs; Google
Shopping looks a little different in 2019. With 70 percent of customers more likely to purchase when information is customized by their location and 50 percent of shoppers inspired to purchase via an image, shopping has gotten more complex, requiring platforms to frequently iterate and adapt.
These trends were made apparent at Shoptalk last week, with Snapchat, Amazon and Google all addressing important changes in their ad formats.
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In augmented reality, Snapchat seems to be the dominant player. The platform has expanded its AR lens capabilities like target tracking that allows brands to affix immersive content directly to a real-life item versus having the product solely serve as a visual marker to unlock it digitally. The most promising early example we’ve seen of this came from Adidas, which used the feature at the House of Hoops to recreate Lebron James’ very first iconic dunk as an L.A. Laker. While the future of AR is still uncertain, this example certainly showcases Snapchat’s potential for brands.
At Shoptalk, David Isbitsky, chief evangelist for Amazon Alexa, took the stage to tackle voice commerce. With over 80,000 skills already uploaded to Alexa from world class brands, Alexa seems to know it all. Rather than going to a destination to shop, Amazon’s goal is for Alexa to allow people to conveniently shop “in the moment.”
Mr. Isbitsky described the voice tech as “the new HTML,” fully expecting “Alexa’s speed and convenience will quickly change consumer behavior” despite still being in the early days of voice commerce. Brands that see speed as being of the essence are ideally matched to take advantage of this new frontier.
And lastly, in search, we heard from Surojit Chatterjee, vice president of product management at Google, who announced updates that allow retailers to create richer “shoppable” content while they search. By letting brands upload product information to paid and unpaid images, customers can get to what they need faster, removing the hundreds of touchpoints they are expected to encounter when they shop. “By bringing the ad to a Google image search, brands can reach consumers at the beginning of their purchase journey,” said Mr. Chatterjee.
While this might be a simple update, it was obvious that this feature directly competes with Pinterest, leading to increased capabilities for retailers already advertising across Google’s properties.