Marketers ‘not ready’ for voice assistants, despite Australians’ widespread adoption
Despite widespread adoption of voice assistants, Australian marketers are still trying to adapt to the new technology, a survey by The Works and the University of Technology, Sydney has found.
Unveiled at Mumbrella360 this morning, The Voice of Us surveyed 2,000 Australians to find how people are using voice assistants with almost seven in 10 people now using their voice to interact with assistants and smart speakers.
Douglas Nicol, creative partner at The Works said in releasing the survey: “The way we interact with technology has moved from clicking, to swiping and now we’re increasingly using our voices to make requests using assistants and smart speakers. This has major implications for business and advertisers, as it’s fundamentally changing the rules for how brands are discovered by consumers in the digital world – and many marketers are not ready for this evolution.”
When asked what industries they would consider using human voice interfaces to interact with, almost six in 10 (58%) said to get the latest news, followed by entertainment inquiries (53%); events (40%); transport information (37%); restaurants (34%); health (31%); travel (30%) and retail (29%).
However, while voice-enabled technology has been embraced by Australians, more than nine in 10 (91%) have concerns with using it. Being hacked was the major issue for 32% of respondents, closely followed by 31% who had worries their conversations were being recorded or saved.
The survey found smartphones are the most popular device to use assistants, with 61% of respondents making voice-related interactions, followed by tablets (17%) laptops (14%) and smart speakers (12%).
2.9m Australians now have a smart speaker in their home or office, making us one of the fastest adopters of the technology on a per capita basis. More than half (56%) own a Google device such as Google Home. Amazon’s range of smart speakers are the next most popular at 13%, with Apple’s HomePod coming in third at 8%.
When asked what industries they would consider using human voice interfaces to interact with, almost six in 10 (58%) said to get the latest news, followed by entertainment inquiries (53%); events (40%); transport information (37%); restaurants (34%); health (31%); travel (30%) and retail (29%).
But while marketers have invested heavily in search engine optimisation to ensure they rank at the top of text-based searches, the growth in the use of assistants and smart speakers poses significant new challenges, Nicol said.
“Human voice interfaces are here to stay and this will inevitably force changes in the search, content and loyalty strategies of advertisers. With voice, users are only typically getting just one answer to their query, which means having a coherent and robust voice search optimisation (VSO) strategy will become more important than ever.
“Appearing in Google’s position zero, also called the featured snippet, which shows web pages above the first search results, is vital as it’s what Google uses to respond to voice searches. While some larger organisations are now actively building capabilities in this area, the majority are not and this has the potential to impact on future revenue growth.”
‘The Voice of Us’ also asked respondents which celebrity they would prefer to be the voice of their assistants. The soothing southern drawl of actor Morgan Freeman topped the list for both male and female respondents, with Ocean’s Eleven star George Clooney coming in second, and the Scottish brogue of former James Bond actor Sean Connery third. Nicole Kidman – the only woman to make the top 10 – ranked as the fourth most popular voice, with the dulcet tones of global treasure and environmentalist David Attenborough at five, and Samuel L. Jackson at six.
US President Donald Trump was rated as the seventh most popular with Aussie heartthrob Chris Hemsworth coming in at eight. John Cleese and The King, Elvis Presley, rounded out the list at ninth and 10th respectively.
At the other end of the scale, the voice of the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, is a turn off when it comes to which celebrities Aussies would choose as their voice assistant. Former PM Malcom Turnbull was the second least favoured, Kardashian star Kylie Jenner (3rd), convicted sex offender Bill Cosby (4th) and British footballer turned model David Beckham was fifth.
