hey Google, how do I use a smart speaker to enrich consumer research?

by: Katherine Savage

When we found out that General Mills and Aigora had conducted pilot research on smart speaker surveys, we had to know more. In-home testing is very much our bread and butter at PLAY, so when the opportunity then came up to test smart speaker surveys in this setting, we were game.

In partnership with Aigora, a US-based consultancy specialising in applications of AI in consumer research, we had the chance to trial a new way to collect data hands-free and in-the-moment. Given their advancements in this space, we also wanted to experience the benefits of smart speaker surveys for ourselves; including getting greater detail from participant responses, offering a more engaging way to do in-home tests and hopefully receiving richer, more accurate results for our clients.

Today, we share with you the highs and lows and our recommendation on if this is right for you and your brand.

 
LEARN OUR SECRETS FOR DRIVING BRAND GROWTH 
 
 

Do Australians really use smart speakers?

They do, and their usage is becoming more widespread. It’s fair to say that we’re still in the early adoption phase with smart speakers, so we can expect their usage to grow over time. In fact, as of 2020, 17% of Australians owned smart speakers. But not all smart speakers are equally popular.

In Australia, the penetration of Google Home is significantly higher than Amazon Alexa. To give you an idea, Voicebot AI found that in July 2018, Google Assistant was outselling Alexa in Australia at least three-to-one. The trend continued in 2019 with Google Home taking almost 70% of market share thanks to their first-to-market strategy. 

With Amazon slowly becoming a bigger deal in Australia, this may shift in the future.

 

smart speaker ownership is growing in Australia

 

Our first hurdle: setting up our smart speakers.

Before we offer any new tech to clients and consumers, we try it ourselves to iron out any bumps. In this case, we definitely had a few bumps when it came to setting up Alexa at home and accessing our test survey.

Once we had enabled ‘Australian’ Alexa from the accents list and sorted our wifi connections, we were ready to begin.

For the purpose of our experiment, we set up two different surveys using different apps, with one using Alexa’s ‘skills’. These skills can be downloaded to enable different functionalities, including access to interactive surveys. For us, this was hit and miss as it relied on using the same email address across the speaker set up and survey invitation. With smart speakers generally shared in the home, this could be a future hurdle for participants.

Of course, once set up is complete, taking part in future surveys is a relatively seamless experience, making it much easier to build a dedicated community of smart speaker survey participants that can be called upon to provide unique insights.

So, without further ado, let’s explore the current pros and cons.

 

ways consumers interact with smart speakers 2020

 

The good stuff.

Similar to talking to a person, smart speaker surveys have the potential to remove some communication barriers and give participants a better survey experience.

 

1. Voice can ease the cognitive load of communication.

A 2017 study by JWT, Mindshare and Neuro-Insights in the UK found that the neurological responses from voice communication while carrying out tasks on a smartphone were better than from other types of tasks. Coupled with a familiar environment (in-home), we hoped that this would make answering surveys quicker and intuitive. For hands-free tasks, like reviewing a detergent while washing up, this could work as with other short surveys that require short, simple responses.

 

2. Voice has personality that connects to human emotions.

At PLAY we like our surveys to have some personality in order to enhance the quality of responses. Adding voice into the mix pushes this even further. And in the future, voice assistant surveys have the opportunity to become even more engaging by using data collected on the respondent to translate the survey into a tone that is tailored to the individual. As a bonus, they recognise conversational language, more formal responses and can be customised to speak in different dialects, allowing them to work well across many different demographics.

 

3. Voice offers users more possibilities to respond in a way that suits them.

We’ve mentioned hands-free, but smart speakers also allow different types of people to easily interact with them, from children to grandparents. The current usage of voice assistants also points to situations where voice assisted surveying might be more suitable than current methodologies. Currently, voice technology is useful in the following situations

 

  • The ‘convenience’ led situation: When a user is on the move or doesn’t have their hands or eyes free to use a device, such as when they're cooking or using bathroom products. When testing a product where immediate impression is important, such as fragrance, you can imagine how helpful it would be to allow a participant to respond in the moment, rather than asking them to recall a memory.

  • The ‘time limited’ led situation: When users are in a rush and need a fast result.

  • The ‘entertainment’ led situation: When users want to have fun and ask something just to get amusing answers or out of curiosity, often when in a group of people.

  • The ‘inertia’ led situation: When users are feeling lazy or feeling tired and their phone is out of reach.

 

Smart speakers can also encourage longer open-ended answers. But in our experience, this function isn’t necessarily something they’ve nailed just yet.

 

penetration of google home in the australian market

 

Nobody's perfect... Yet.

As much as we enjoyed Alexa’s many benefits, she did have some limitations when it came to conducting surveys that are still worth mentioning, although they may be addressed very soon.

 

1. Voice doesn’t yet allow for detailed answers.

As a naturally chatty bunch, it won’t surprise you to hear that when Alexa asked a question, we responded with a bit of a longwinded answer. This posed a problem.

Unfortunately, the technology doesn’t currently support responses longer than 8 seconds, meaning that surveys need to be to the point, rather than prompting detailed answers. At this stage, this rules out many qualitative approaches.

There are also limits to the functionality of a smart-speaker survey. They can’t show images or describe complex ideas. The number of answer codes it is practical to test is limited by participant memory. Both of these can be overcome by incorporating voice into a survey on a device with a screen, where you can show stimulus and answer codes at the same time.

 

2. Voice penetration tends to be skewed towards certain demographics.

With many new technologies, in the short-term the profile of those willing and able to use voice-enabled surveys is likely to skew more towards younger and more technologically savvy people. Currently, smart speakers are no different. Although not particularly pricey, they might be more of a feature in middle and high income households, at least for now.

In the near future, this could be addressed through creating a specific smart speaker panel or even offering devices as incentives for people to participate in studies as a means of diversifying the respondent profile.

 

3. Voice is not yet a survey substitute, it’s a complement.

The voice recognition technology isn’t 100%, but we can expect this to improve over time. Not all languages are currently recognised by the leading voice assistants, which is generally not a problem in Australia, but we can also expect the number of languages recognised to grow. 

Functionality will also increase as new skills are added, getting us closer to a point where a survey could be conducted entirely through a smart speaker. In fact, Aigora has recently built out a diary function that enables participants to record their observations during a product test. We haven't yet tried this feature, but we're keen to give it a go.

Today, smart speaker surveys serve as a nice addition, particularly if there is hands-free activity to complete, but they're not yet ready to replace your typical survey structure.

 

australians using smart speakers in their homes

 

Hey, Alexa. What's next for smart speaker surveys?

Our journey with smart speakers is just beginning. Whilst there’s a few use cases that would be immediately relevant, the true potential of smart speakers is yet to be fully realised - and we'd love you to join us on this new journey. 

In the short term, our top tips to maximise your smart speaker survey are:

 

  • Ensure your surveys are on non-sensitive or uncontroversial topics.

  • Focus mainly on closed questions with few answer codes.

  • Only ask short open-ended questions e.g. the name of the brand used most often.

  • Use it to complement an online survey for sections better suited to hands-free tasks, rather than completely replacing an online survey.

 

There’s work to do before we can guarantee more accurate results for our clients but your experience and your feedback will be invaluable in ensuring that everything we test and explore is something you're interested in knowing more about. It's not just smart speakers that we're experimenting with either, we’re thrilled to be working with AI experts, Aigora, to explore the benefits of machine learning and automation for other areas of research. We'll make sure to keep you updated along the way.

Want to join the fun?  If you’d like to throw your hat in the ring to trial a smart speaker survey, please get in touch with us.

 

LEARN OUR SECRETS FOR DRIVING BRAND GROWTH 

 

read it, love it, share it.

about the author

Katherine Savage

Katherine is PLAY’s account director and resident packaging expert. She started life as a qualitative specialist before becoming a qual-quant researcher. Her 12 years of experience spans across FMCG, retail, tech, media, financial, auto, social, employer, and B2B: she loves diving into new categories and exploring the forces at play. She’s a fan of setting herself arbitrary goals and trying to complete them like translating the first Harry Potter novel from Portuguese (she hasn’t got to Hogwarts – yet!).

ask the author

related posts

smart choices in AI: how to evaluate consumer research AI tools

Arrow

the art of failing forward into successful NPD innovation

Arrow

beyond taste: 6 key sensory testing tips for FMCG product success

Arrow

the reduce, reuse, recycle of innovation

Arrow

PLAY’s 2023 product picks: innovation, indulgence and automation

Arrow

3 tips for turning NPD stage-gate into a benefit, not a burden

Arrow

create a triple win by trying NPD “yes, and” with retail buyers

Arrow

4 Overlooked Opportunities in a Recession

Arrow

recession proof: ramping up innovation during an economic downturn

Arrow

listen or lose! the consumer-led way to avoid new product disaster

Arrow

preventing a costly relaunch misstep

Arrow

“PLAY’s ability to simplify what is sometimes a complex innovation research process worked perfectly for us."

Arrow

"PLAY have shown a strong understanding of research approaches, consumer brands and the FMCG categories we operate in."

Arrow

an action plan for FMCG businesses to avoid the ACCC’s campaign against greenwashing

Arrow

wins & woes in online grocery shopping: the experts weigh in

Arrow

UK HFSS legislation: understanding the impact on FMCG

Arrow

How to rally stakeholders to create a real “portfolio” of innovations (not just 28 line-extensions)

Arrow

how to find actionable NPD innovation insights

Arrow

tips for effective (yet effortless) product concept testing

Arrow

to benchmark or not? that’s not quite the question.

Arrow

4 tested tips to supercharge your NPD success in FMCG innovation

Arrow

Consumer sensory testing: fail forward or innovate fast?

Arrow

ingredient substitution: how to deliver perceived value AND increase profit margins

Arrow

fuelling the pipeline

Arrow

getting to market faster with design sprints

Arrow

package testing: how to spot unmet opportunities

Arrow

why FMCG product development should adopt sensible sustainability

Arrow

product performance analysis and inflation

Arrow

supermarket product shelf testing like you've never seen it before

Arrow

3 tips for packaging research success

Arrow

how to prioritise your research: when to invest or spend less

Arrow

how to use design sprints for superior innovation outcomes

Arrow

how to free up your time and educate your team to create killer concepts

Arrow

get ROI on consumer insights: failsafe tips to prove that innovation research is worth it

Arrow

dairy ideas that deliver to future focussed consumer needs

Arrow

balancing brand recognition with SKU differentiation on shelf

Arrow

understanding shopper response to a new type of cold & flu product

Arrow

using segmentation to inform a better, more consumer-focused approach to innovation

Arrow

identifying matches made in heaven (or hell!)

Arrow

bringing stakeholders and consumers together to develop powerful messaging

Arrow

expedite launch into a new category with innovation sprints

Arrow

pressure testing our product post-launch

Arrow

why products succeed and why they fail

Arrow

FMCG trends: post-pandemic predictions for 2022

Arrow

The new way to market zero and low alcohol products

Arrow

how much does market research really cost in Australia?

Arrow

how to write a product concept that delivers

Arrow

protecting your core range: is anyone 'normal' anymore?

Arrow

video: how do we take the start-up spirit into big business?

Arrow

PLAY's product picks of 2021

Arrow

2021 Product of the Year Awards: why did they win?

Arrow

upfront research: save money now, secure your product's future

Arrow

pivoting in a pandemic: what we can learn

Arrow

is your innovation process agile or fragile?

Arrow

how Amazon is impacting FMCG in a post-pandemic world

Arrow

the biggest soft drink trends for 2021 and beyond

Arrow

the biggest alcohol trends for 2021

Arrow

reimagining convenience with David Jones and bp concept stores

Arrow

busted: what consumers really think about popular product claims

Arrow

retail trends 2020: a COVID-19 Christmas

Arrow

our top 4 tips for running a remote innovation sprint

Arrow

hey Google, how do I use a smart speaker to enrich consumer research?

Arrow

how to find your product's sweet spot with rapid sensory research

Arrow

top natural trends for 2020

Arrow

gen z to boomers: how to market to every age

Arrow

the future looks rosé: top alcohol trends in a pandemic

Arrow

video: all you need to know about in-home product testing in 3 minutes

Arrow

get to market faster with innovation sprints

Arrow

video: FMCG trends and tips to gain a competitive edge during a crisis

Arrow

how you can nail your online offering with digital shopper

Arrow

solved: how to build a powerful brand

Arrow

3 ways sensory research safeguards success

Arrow

the biggest alcohol trends for 2020

Arrow

reaching new highs: Australia’s cannabis industry

Arrow

innovating in a complex category

Arrow

5 ways to deliver effective sensory research (without blowing the budget)

Arrow

5 top tips for a successful seasonal pack promotion

Arrow

how to build a sensory story at the largest CLT facility in Australia

Arrow

optimise path to purchase and protect your margins

Arrow

how eye-tracking will transform your shopper research

Arrow

why mini in-home usage trackers should be in your budget

Arrow

stretching beyond a brand's heartland

Arrow

Gen Z vs. Millennials: 6 ways they’re different

Arrow

sustainability: getting the green light from consumers

Arrow

how to minimise risk for new product launches

Arrow

how to effectively present and share insights within your organisation

Arrow

achieving faster sensory analysis with product clinics

Arrow

5 ways to get your product into consumers' healthy routines

Arrow

getting into the online shopper's basket

Arrow

natural trends: connecting with these consumers

Arrow

FMCG trends: the future of soft drinks

Arrow

video: the benefits of making market research more human

Arrow

concept testing: the basics

Arrow

sensory research: back to basics

Arrow

alcohol trends: tapping into health conscious drinkers

Arrow

innovation research: consumer-led product design

Arrow

packaging research: back to basics

Arrow

FMCG trends: the rise of small, innovative wellness businesses

Arrow

FMCG trends: adapting to an older market

Arrow

FMCG trends: the snacking revolution

Arrow

shopper trends: the changing face of Australia

Arrow

retail trends: leveraging the Chinese 'daigou' shopper opportunity

Arrow

FMCG trends: adapting to plant-based consumer demand

Arrow

packaging research: the e-commerce difference

Arrow

shopper research: applying semiotics for packaging success

Arrow

shopper research: how fear influences purchase decisions

Arrow

product testing: start ABC testing your product

Arrow

shopper research: packaging - mind hack your shopper

Arrow

product testing: is an in-home usage test the solution?

Arrow

shopper research: the paradox of choice

Arrow

putting sydney’s paddy’s market on the map

Arrow

coffee: enabling a strategic product call at lightning speed

Arrow

wild turkey bourbon wins with new pack design

Arrow

market segmentation: the Millennial mishap

Arrow

the beginner's guide to: animated concept testing

Arrow

co-creation: the secret to better packaging design

Arrow

packaging matters: new 'country of origin' food labels

Arrow

naming research: is your product name a winner?

Arrow

food trends: the reduced sugar rush

Arrow

chocolate trends: a sweet or sticky situation?

Arrow

it's 'go time' for convenience retailers

Arrow

online qual research: context collapse

Arrow