Amazon Echo Case Study

Category Introduction

With the rise of new technology, more and more home digital voice assistant (HDVA) devices are being not
just to drive awareness for the category but also introduce the category itself. The marketing technique they
used not just influenced the customers, but also brought a change in the Indian market space. The always
listening mechanism takes all commands, however what is unknown is the threat that is possess to the
security of the it’s customers. used at home. Every other household posses one or more such devices which
are easy to access and tends to make one’s life easy. Moreover, it is forecasted that the use of such devices
will grow to thirteen-fold from 2015 (1.1 million) to 2020 (15.1 million).One such HDVA device that has
brought a change in almost every Indian household is Echo by Amazon. Acting as a helping hand it not just
let people listen to their favourite music but also ordering food, shopping online, scheduling an appointment,
checking weather, making a payment, controlling smart devices, to name a few.

Brand Introduction

Be it a small town or a metropolitan city Amazon has connected the sellers all around the globe with their
potential market. It has become a part of this fast moving 20th century, not just with their 24 hours buying
selling and delivery facility but also with the new line of product that it launched i.e Echo. Though they
managed to be the best, however their journey was not easy and were faced with the unique challenge of
introducing the category as well as the product.

Product summary

Echo, an Amazon smart speaker enabled with Alexa, an AI assistant, was launched by the company, as they
understood the market need of a personal Artificial intelligence that shall make life easy. In doing so, they not
just dwelled into a deep research and development sector but also used YouTube as a primary source for their
pre roll campaign.
Though useful this voice commanding device has been reported as a serious threat, resulting in household
burglary, security breach, fake orders and attacks. The major issue with the device was that it accepted voice
commands no matter whether any persons are nearby or not.

Creative Idea

Amazon launched it’s Echo as a forever hearing device connected to a cloud based Amazon voice source,
Alexa. Working on voice command it can control all the smart home devices. A simple command after waking
it up, connects it to a remote voice processing cloud via Wifi Network. A survey conducted showed how this
device was a major revolution especially in the regular music hearing of the consumer.

Problem Statement/Objective

A cost effective campaign in age of smart devices.

Challenges

 Introducing an artificial intelligence market in an age of smart phones.

  Finding the right target audience.
 An engaging campaign, which influenced the audience.
 Creating an urgent buying need.

Solutions

While Youtube was found to be the most interactive media for people to understand the concept of Alexa, yet
there was a delima of people skipping ads. Thus there was a need for creating interactive ads that could
connect to the emotions of Indian audience. The major USP of the device then became the easy access for kids
and a major learning and entertainment source. Thus advertisements must created as to attract the working
parents for whom this device could help them their kids learn on their own in most interactive way. The old age
and the housewives should also be made the target audience for whom artificial intelligence voice command
was a new concept. An emotional connect must be created as to make people comfortable with the concept of
AI and thus create an urgency in buying the product. Since hearing to music is also one of the most popular
time pass for the audience of every age, the Echo could use this as a major turning point for their campaign.
The price of the echo dot was placed relatively at a low rate than the google device, highlighting this also could
attract the major chunk of the audience.

Execution

In October, Amazon rolled out Echo, Echo Dot and Echo Plus in India. It was the first time that Alexa devices
were made available in the Asian market. Echo speakers were made available on an invite-basis on Amazon.in.

Amazon made the deal extra sweet for Indians by clubbing a year’s subscription to Amazon Prime (that
includes Prime shopping benefits, Prime Video and the soon-to-be-launched Prime Music) with Echo.

A family campaign generated which was highly scalable, lending itself to a wide range of databse about the
general family needs.

Further a Youtube pre roll survey was made, which was highly successful and left the company with a huge
information which helped the company capitalize more than expected.

Alexa was made as a “localised experiences” for users. Alexa has also been empowered to understand the
Indian accent, something Google took several years to bring to its voice search. It can also interpret Indian-
sounding names of places, music and movie titles, and so on.

Amazon released a new India-specific skill for Alexa, wherein it could broadcast PM Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki
Baat audio programme.