Big brands prefer not Alexa ask buyers.
The growth of the popularity of voice search assistant is threatening the largest producers of staple foods. Already struggling with aggressive competitors, changes in consumer tastes and increased e - commerce and personal care products packaged food manufacturers have to understand how to take advantage of the technology .
Unlike stores or online where to get a number of brands a lot of exposure, the participants of the voice search as Amazon.com Inc. AMZN -0.66% often Alexa lead consumers to a single product, usually it is selected an algorithm without entering seller. It's not a big deal now, like Voice Search be a shopping mall. But it could be.
In the next five years, half of all web searches are done by voice, says Sebastian Szczepaniak, an old frame now runs Amazon E - Commerce Nestle SA NSRGY -1.19% packed in the largest companies in the food world. Consultancy Capgemini , the wizard voice user said to spend 18% of their total expenditure language assistants over the next three years, compared to 3% today.
"Of all the changes that occur in technology introduced into our room, the voice is one of the most concerned about," said Graeme Pitkethly, CFO of Unilever PLC. "In the digital investment, it is our greatest attention."
For decades, manufacturers of packaged food, personal care brands at home and bought a warehouse space at retailers such as Wal - Mart Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp. to ensure their exposure to national level. Billion poured brand their products immediately recognizable.
Sale websites offer some of the same advantages: brands can pay for the placement of a website and presentation packaging and logos.
Purchase of votes that currently only one or two product options could erode the customer tested this model and proven offers.
"When it comes to expression comes first look or you go home, because on the first or second position, there is no future," Szczepaniak said.
In a test in October conducted, Bain & Co., that had found for customers to make a purchase for the first time without a brand statement, more than half the time of the first recommendation Alexa was a product of "algorithm selection Amazonas" a nominal fine which implies that prices for items that come with the first. Bain also found that in categories where Amazon has its own label, 17% of the time Alexa first own brand product is recommended, even if these products represent only sold 2% of the volume.
"The choice of Amazon is just our recommendation, and customers can always ask for specific brands or products if they want," said a spokesman for Amazon.
Amazon does not disclose the formula used to make product selection. A person with the algorithm says Alexa that is not always a product from Amazon, even if one is available, taking into account the selection depends on the current element in part is what the customer has bought from Amazon. The algorithm used to detect a machine learning model, which is the customer most importantly the demand for each product so that improve the recommendations over time, this person said.
For now, brands can not pay Amazon to offer their products to customers in response to a general demand for a product like detergent or paper towels.
Procter & Gamble Co., maker of Tide detergent and Pampers layers, payment would be interested in finding was an option, said Vedran Miletic, Brand Manager P & G fabric care delivery in North America.
Without this option, search, paid P & G has come up with ways of tinkering customer assistants to get noticed voice delivers like a Alexa Tide brand application tips on how to clean more than 200 points, but does not mean products flood.
"We do not want a massive push our brands to consumers. We want to be agnostic and we hope that you "choose us, said Randy Limes, digital and e-commerce manager at P & G
Unilever, which owns Hellmann mayonnaise and Domestos toilet cleaner has developed Alexa applications free recipes and tips provide cleaning, which can not contain Unilever brands or. Unilever sees applications as a way to market their products to provide customers with useful information when they need it.
"This is a new marketing model, how we respond to something the head, the less interference than advertising on television," said Pitkethly.
Alexa dominates 70% of the chip market speakers in the United States, according to Bain. There are other options for Google Voice as a shop assistant, so that for example people things at Walmart.com purchase using the Google main speakers. It provides consumers with brands based on previous purchases in stores and on the website of Walmart.
Some executives predict Voice Search, consumers could help encourage big brands to gravitate products that are high on the or strengthen existing preferences. When customers buy a particular brand, Alexa takes the same brand in the future in general.
"The man, the guy wins, the brands and products is iconic," said Oreal L ' Digital Lubomira Rochet SA boss, working on how to L'Oreal - Products by the algorithm Amazon elected to receive. "I think the voice is as big as the Internet and Google when it has come."
Write Saabira Chaudhuri in saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com to and Sharon Terlep sharon.terlep@wsj.com
It looks, February 28, 2018 print edition "risking brands to lose their voice." As
