An ad agency is 'hacking' search results on Amazon's Alexa, and it shows how voice is the next battleground in advertising

• As consumers increasingly adopt digital voice assistants, big brands know they need to cash in on the opportunity.
• But when it comes to commerce on voice assistants, people fall back on the default option — meaning that brands need to get creative in getting people to buy their products using voice.

• Ad agency Mindshare thinks it has found a "hack" around commerce on voice assistants, and is training its clients to take on a future with voice through various other ways.

It's time for brands to find their voice — literally — and ad agency Mindshare thinks it's got the perfect trick up its sleeve to help them figure it out.

As consumers increasingly adopt digital voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant on the Google Home, brands are beginning to realize that they need to cash in on the opportunity. 

"Simply put, you can’t ignore this medium," said Jeff Malmad, executive director at Mindshare's media innovation unit, whose clients include big names like General Mills, Tyson, American Express, and Campari. "Brands need to be where their consumers are."

But here's the catch: people may be interacting with their voice assistants more, but when it comes to shopping, they aren't necessarily picking specific brands. 85% of consumers surveyed for a recent report, for instance, said they chose the default option that popped up while doing a voice shopping search rather than requesting a brand.

So it is incumbent upon brands to shape people's preferences on voice.

Mindshare thinks it has found a 'hack' around commerce on voice assistants

Mindshare thinks that commerce on voice platforms will be important, and has been prepping brands ranging from Unilever to Pandora through voice workshops and sessions tailored specifically to their category and marketing objectives.

The agency came up with an Amazon Prime Day "hack" for a large consumer packaged goods client based on the insight that Amazon Alexa is only likely to recommend two brands in a category when a consumer is looking to shop.

"The way you shop with voice is different from other mediums – you don't have a visual shelf in front of you, or a long list of search results of products," Malmad said. "Amazon Alexa and Google Home will only give you one or two things from the 'voice shelf' – if you want other products in a voice search, you need to actively ask them for more."

To ensure that the CPG brand (Mindshare declined to name the brand) would be one of the brands recommended, the agency ran an offer for consumers of the brand on Amazon in the days leading up to Prime Day so that its search results would peak, and Alexa would be more likely to recommend it when someone searched for it using voice.

"By playing out current media trends to their most disruptive ending, we're able to remain ahead of the curve," said Mindshare's chief instigation officer Joe Maceda.

Mindshare is also coaching its clients on the concept of "incidental loyalty" and coming up with way to overcome it. The term refers to when people re-order the same thing over and over again not because they care for the brand but because it's coming up first in their voice search.

"When it comes to voice shopping, second place is the first-place loser," Malmad said. "Brands need to be prepared for that."

It is also helping brands plan for the future

To be sure, there's no guarantee that consumers are going to go from primarily asking their voice assistants for the weather to shopping for everyday items anytime soon. The Information, for instance, recently reported that voice commerce has yet to catch on in a big way. But voice is undeniably starting to become part of the overall digital ecosystem, and that's only going to accelerate.

Mindshare is emphasizing how voice connects back to brands' larger digital content strategy, search strategy, and other media placements, Malmad said. It is, for instance, starting to train people to use specific brand names when conducting voice searches, spreading that message through branded ads across platforms, even TV and digital.

One of the agency's CPG brands, for example, is tagging its creative – not just in print, but in digital as well – with an Alexa call-to-action about ordering its product via voice, to encourage consumers and future-proof against incidental loyalty. 

"When you look at the world of voice, we're at day one of where all this is going to go," Malmad said. "But there needs to be a foundation, and the first step is to get the basics right with your current digital ecosystem."

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