Is voice-activated shopping the future of ads?

Alexa+, via the Amazon Firestick, will allow users to search for a specific scene in a film or TV show by describing what happens, using a direct quote or recalling what song was playing in the scene and vice versa. This feels like the natural progression of the ‘X-Ray’ service that Prime provides for shows and movies watched through the platform where it shows you who the actors in that current scene at the bottom of the screen. Firstly, I love this product update. It’s two things – extremely useful and secondly, really fun! How many times have you watched something and the song in the background has caught your ear, but you can’t load up Shazam quick enough to find out who sings it? Or heard a song on the radio and thought – what movie was that in again? Anyway, I digress – advertising, how will this impact advertising and specifically the holy grail of TV spots and advertising creative – the Super Bowl?

It's not hard to imagine that the next step for this type of feature is its application to live adverts to create a more seamless and streamlined purchase journey. Amazon Prime has already announced a voice-activated ‘add to basket’ feature within its CTV offering for one of its new formats, but this feels like the next step on from that. Using the Firestick means that in theory, they could incorporate ACR (automatic content recognition) tech into their targeting, like some of the large TV manufacturers already do.  

Picture the scene – you’re sat on the sofa during your Super Bowl watch party, face painted bright colours in support of your beloved franchise/city/team (delete as appropriate). The one event of the year is taking place where you actually pay attention to the adverts because Super Bowl ads exist in the same space as the pre-film trailers at the cinema – almost as exciting and in some cases more so than the main event itself…

The first quarter finishes and your global fried chicken brand’s new quirky Super Bowl-themed ad, with a huge celebrity in, starts and you think to yourself – ‘we could do with a bucket actually’.  You fire up Alexa+ and ask her to order the special Super Bowl family party meal deal that was just advertised and 45 minutes later your doorbell rings and your bellies are filled. Nice! 

OR

Half-time hits. You’re now full after your easily voice-ordered Super Bowl meal deal and the famed halftime show is about to start! You’re in your mid-to-late thirties so have no idea who is performing but this second song is really hitting the spot, so you ask Alexa+ once more; ‘who’s performing this song at the Super Bowl right now and what’s it called?’ and Alexa+ immediately informs you and offers you the chance to purchase the song through Amazon Music and add it to your ‘getting pumped for work’ playlist. Win!

And if you’ll indulge me one last time… 

One of the many thousands of breaks in play takes place and the camera starts to pan through the cheering crowds to find celebrity fans and show us how they’re getting on. Look! There’s Taylor Swift! Your daughter loves her jacket and wants to know where it’s from so she can bankrupt you for her birthday – ‘Alexa, where’s Taylor’s jacket from?’. Alexa+ tells you where it’s from (how much!?!) and also suggests similar jackets from more reasonably priced retailers and adds them to your Amazon wish list to browse at a later time. 

Ok – maybe that third one isn’t realistic right away, but you can see the trajectory and the potential!

Amazon is in a unique space to make these types of advertising integrations a reality due to its ownership of different mediums (content production, shopping platforms, tech) and the data it has that underlies it all. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to never having to Google ‘what film uses a song that sounds a bit like this with lyrics that are a bit like this’ ever again!