Last week our Managing Director John Campbell was invited to talk at an event organised by Barclays Corporate Banking on the subject matter of data.
Alongside John on the panel was Claire Aldous – Head of Data Planning & Analytics, from Emerald Thinking, Chris Palengat – Founder, Freemavens and Raj Pattni – Head of Insights Platform, Barclays. The panel was chaired by Jo Aitken, Relationship Director, Technology, Media and Telecoms from Barclays.
The panel of sector specialists discussed how companies are using data footprints in marketing and how data can be best used to understand audiences. They spoke about the upside and downside of data and how it’s shaping the world of marketing today.
John was able to discuss several points related to voice which as we know is a hot topic:
Is Alexa listening to you all the time?
Alexa and Google devices can only hear the “wake word” (Alexa or Hey Google), only once the wake word is heard then the smart speaker starts to send voice data to the cloud. The general public’s knowledge of this is relatively low which is one of the reasons many people think Alexa is listening to you all the time.
The other reason for this perception from the wider public is due to incorrect wake word recognition. This is where the smart speaker hears a word that sounds like the wake word for example “hey noodle” could be heard as “Hey Google”. This results in assistants responded randomly which makes the user think the assistants are listening all the time.
How can insights be used when developing content ideas?
John mentioned about how posts on a forum had previously generated content ideas for an insurance brand. Customers had posted about how they required insurance for their gaming computer rig which they were taking on holiday, or for an ultra marathon abroad and how that insurer was one of the few to be able to offer cover. From that insight a content theme was developed.
The same method could be used for coming up with voice use cases, look at the common questions and problems that customers are talking about on forums, social media and your call center data. Is there a voice solution that could help serve the customers needs?
Privacy and advertising concerns
So far both Alexa and Google haven’t used their platforms for advertising in a direct fashion e.g. you ask a generic question about toothpaste and a sponsored advert from Colgate is read out to you.
The current norm for social platforms is you get access to the platform for free and in return the platform serves you adverts. Similar to watching ITV or Channel 4. However this “exchange” isn’t always clearly labeled when you sign up and the general public maybe don’t understand the level of data that the platforms have about you to which drive their advertising offerings.
It will be interesting to see how an “advertising model” will play out on Google and Alexa. Will they use your voice data to aid advertising on their existing platforms or will advertising be brought to the voice platforms?