Voice Apps Build Better Brand Loyalty

How retail brands Copper Compression and
Mars Wrigley launched & measure voice tech

Voice technologies and AI have grown popular among brands seeking consistent customer interaction. Whether it be attracting new or engaging existing customers, there is a tremendous opportunity for manufacturers, marketers, and retailers to embrace voice commerce and voice technology as they are creating their marketing and sales strategies.

Venturing into the voice space

Copper Compression, a high-performance athletic and recovery apparel brand, is one example of a forward-thinking brand seeking an avenue to reach new and existing customers.

Matthew Mangione, Amazon advertising and operation manager at Copper Compression, joined us at VOICE Global to share how the company first got involved with voice. After reviewing advertising and purchase data from Amazon, it became clear how voice technology could make digital purchases frictionless and help with increasing return customers and brand loyalty.

Copper Compression called Shilp Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of Blutag, a SaaS platform enabling retail companies to deliver voice apps to help elevate the brand user experience.

Betsy Fitzgibbons, Shopper Insights - eCommerce & New Transactions at Mars Wrigley, and Shari Aaron, senior vice president, Growth & Innovation at Radius, also joined VOICE Global to discuss how they took advantage of the new opportunities available with voice commerce.

“At Mars, we believe that the better moments make the world smile,” said Betsy Fitzgibbons of Mars Wrigley when asked why the brand chose to execute voice-enabled technologies. “The work that we get to do does make you smile; it makes other people smile. And part of that is being ahead of the curve and thinking of forward-thinking in our business.”

“The way that we are now looking at Voice really is a lever that can be used along the whole consumer shopper journey, starting with awareness to consideration, to conversion. In fact, we're looking at Voice as an integral component in an omnichannel strategy,” said Betsy.

Getting ahead of the curve

According to Matthew, bringing voice tech on board early on would prove more beneficial than risking being left behind five to ten years down the road. “I want to be at the forefront as that adoption curve continues to move over.”

As Matthew likened the early adoption of conversational technologies to the early users, and eventually proliferation of the masses to social media platforms like Facebook: “When I look at my elderly friends and family and their adoption of Facebook connection, and they’re the powerhouses on there. They’re getting so much information and making decisions on that. I see voice being the exact same way.”

At some point voice will be the first contact with customers. “I can see when the iceberg flips over. It's going to at some point. So I want to be well-prepared for when it does do that, because my feeling is that things are going to flow through voice instead of with voice on the side,” said Matthew.

To heighten Copper’s mission to make protective performance and personal care solutions available to everyone, the company brought in pro quarterback Drew Brees to educate new audiences on the connection between healing the human body with proven, powerful targeted compression.

“We've already started seeing a pretty significant jump in the amount of usage that we get. Especially when people are getting notifications about their order status, even people using that to track their orders through Alexa. And then obviously just making the ability to quickly place an order or reorder like their knee brace or something like that,” said Shilp Agarwal of Bultag.

Measuring Voice Commerce

So how does a brand measure the effectiveness of a voice campaign? With voice technology-based commerce still in a nascent stage, research methodologies to learn and measure this new technology have not been fully established. As a result, creativity and collaboration are critical between insights teams and research suppliers.

Mars Wrigley’s research partner, Radius, offered guidance on how they collaborated to build effective research that easily translated into compelling insights, “aha moments,” and a clear direction for future voice commerce strategies.

Radius understands how unobtrusive voice tech can be when compared to typing or texting. One example of a successful research campaign conducted through voice was an inquiry into how people who were experiencing cough and cold symptoms were caring for themselves and how they decided which treatments were best for them. Normally, it would be a big ask for people who are sick at home to respond to a survey by typing out their answers. But the campaign was a resounding success because the respondents simply needed to speak to their Voice assistant. Voice tech in research has the precious ability to capture experiences, behaviors, and attitudes.

“Since the first pilot and proof of concept, we've solved many business issues using voice devices that capture that in the moment experience or in the moment behaviors and attitudes,” said Shari Aaron. “We call this solution, ConnectLive.”

When asked why many brands are venturing into conversational tech, “We can not afford to not be on voice anymore,” says Shilp Agarwal.

Watch these open conversations between Blutag and Copper Compression, along with Mars Wrigley and Radius, which took place during VOICE Global 2021.