New shoppable ad tech creates opportunities across AR, search and voice
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.
https://twitter.com/brkicks/status/1093268770729193472
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.
- Snapchat Scores A Slam Dunk With LeBron James AR Lens – VR Scout
- Connecting you to visual shoppers with new ad formats on Google Images – Google Ads
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Where do you see the greatest opportunities — AR, search, voice — for shoppable ads to take off? Do you think brands and retailers have identified and budgeted to take advantage of the shoppable advertising opportunity?
Art SurianoChief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
Art SurianoChief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
Art SurianoChief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
Art SurianoChief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
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9 Comments on "New shoppable ad tech creates opportunities across AR, search and voice"
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Strategy & Operations Delivery Leader
Retail magic is all about sparking the imagination, and what’s better at doing that than augmented reality? Customers love to engage and by connecting popular social media apps such as Snapchat with brands, Foot Locker with their LeBron James interactive ad is leading the charge. These types of ads also enable consumers to use their mobile devices for an enhanced shopping experience.
Whether it’s apparent or not, artificial intelligence is already embedded within retailers’ and brands’ social media strategies, targeted ads/emails and the way we search and engage with brands. The millions of data points are slowly being harnessed as companies are slowly integrating AI technologies within their merchandising strategies. Amazon, Google with their personalization strategies, and now Instagram, with their shop now capabilities are leading the charge with the latest innovations.
Chief Executive Officer, The TSi Company
Director, Retail Market Insights, Aptos
While I think Gab is totally right that all three of these technologies will impact how we shop in the future, I think visual search may hold the most immediate short-term potential for brands. Pinterest Lens is already converting at extremely high rates, and Google Lens continues to fly under the radar while they keep adding features and sophistication. Once consumers start figuring out how powerful searching with their cameras can be, I think visual search will take off – and it would behoove retailers to understand the implications to SEO now, so they are ready when shoppers are ready.
Founder, Whereabout Studio
Totally agree Dave! I was surprised Google didn’t make these changes months ago for retailers and brands already advertising heavily on their platforms. Also glad they’re allowing retailers to leverage it both through paid and organic search. Definitely a customer first offering on Google’s part.
Founder, CEO, Black Monk Consulting
“Shoppable ads” are the beginning of a new retail experience, not an end state.
AR, search and voice commerce are all parts of a new “whole” that will fully connect consumers to a radically redefined shopping experience, one that can be engaged and customized anytime and anywhere.
They are tools in the future of retail’s tool box which — on their own — represent incremental opportunities but together, along with other emerging retail technologies, will create exponential change.
And no, I don’t see branders or retailers engaging at what I consider to be the right level. Playing at implementing point solutions is a dangerous game, especially in the face of a more sophisticated, and therefore more demanding, consumer.
I’m afraid lots of CPG and retail companies will be tweaking their AR capabilities all the way to bankruptcy court while a whole new crop of companies offering an integrated portfolio of complimentary digital tools sweep the market.
CEO, Dabbl
Global Retail & CPG Sales Strategist, IBM
AR is very slowly gaining some traction in specialized markets. This tech has definitely taken some time to get a foothold. Search is reaching a maturity, where voice is actually still in its infancy globally. Quite simply, brands need to ensure they can adapt to any trend tsunami that happens so they won’t be looked at as a “me-too” brand.
Marketing Strategy Lead - Retail, Travel & Distribution, Verizon
Shoppable ads, AR and voice-assisted ordering are all dramatically changing the shopping process. These technologies are all evolving very quickly and getting better every day.
I think voice-assisted shopping will be most impactful on the future shopping experience. Voice-assisted speakers are now becoming a standard feature for phones, cars and homes and consumers are getting more used to using them for a plethora of activities — navigation, music selection and volume, home controls, and the list goes on.
As we become more comfortable with the voice-assisted mode for all the activities, consumers will more quickly try and embrace voice-assisted shopping and buying. And as the voice recognition and response gets more accurate — watch out!
President, Protonik
Technology is so inadequate that today we can’t get video to run reliably in stores. So people are selling AR as a highly reliable approach that will take off? Count me down as a skeptic.
These vendors all have a lot to gain by selling their claims. So, once again, put me down as a skeptic.
Certainly there are tremendous tech opportunities. But the inherent sci-fi like nature of this pitch suggests it’s not real. If they had real power to offer, they wouldn’t have to dress it up so much.