Brand Development And Marketing Of Amazon Alexa Smart Speaker – Discussion

Description of brand

With the effect of globalisation and internet in the business markets, revolutionary changes have been noticed in the organizational functionalities. Numerous devices, technologies and approaches have been introduced in compliance with the globalisation and internet which have generated opportunities for the organizations to grow and expand in the domestic and in the international market as well. Introduction of online business companies is another revolutionary change in the business industry and internet has played major role in the functionalities of online buying and selling of products and services. Amazon is one of the giant players of online retailing companies and it serves in more than 188 countries across the globe from approximately 12 registered offices in different parts of the globe. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon has adopted customer centric approach in order to satisfy its customers’ demands and wants as well as to retain their interest in the company for longer period of time. Apart from this, Amazon believes in improvement and innovation so that new products and services could be provided to its existing as well as potential customers in order to retain them as well as for the objective of enhancing organizational revenues, profits and to gain competitive advantage (Alexa, 2018).

With regards to the rapid innovation of products and services, organization has recently introduced Alexa which is a smart speaker and act as an artificial personal assistant. This device has capable enough to work approximately as human personal assistant such as booking appointments, playing songs from different platforms, giving regular updates for traffic, weather conditions, recording, setting reminders, etc. This device is introduced with the objective of making easier lives for the people who have busy schedules and does not able to execute its tasks on time. Primary target market segment for this device is people with sufficient individual disposable income, people with busy schedule, tech-enthusiasts, and every customer segment as Alexa is capable enough to provide help an individual in all manners. Primary competitors of Amazon Alexa are Google Home, Apple’s Siri, and Microsoft’s Cortana. From all these devices, features and performance of Amazon Alexa is much high in comparison to its competitors’ products and along with this, reachability ad availability of Alexa is also high in comparison to the competitors’ products (Alexa, 2018).

When an individual purchases a product or a service for the purpose of own consumption is said to be a consumer. Decisions made by consumers with regards to the buying the particular product or service is totally dependent upon the marketing and advertisement for that product. Although, there are various other factors which have a great impact over buying decision of a consumer but branding is one of the most crucial factors as it sets the first impression for the product amongst the consumers (Baumgarth, Kaluza & Lohrisch, 2016).

Brand inventory

Concept of brand value is one of the primary and major factor which plays vital role in terms of convincing customers for buying the product. Amazon Alexa has numerous features through which an individual could make its life easier. Apart from this, Amazon has adopted customer centric approach in order to build a strong and reliable image amongst its customers and Alexa has also been introduced with the objective of fulfilling customers’ demands and wants and to provide them unique experience through which separate image could be developed amongst the target audience in order to gain competitive advantage (Canbek & Mutlu, 2016).

Brand is an intangible asset for an organization and it helps the organization to differentiate between market value and book value and it is also known as brand equity. It is necessary for an organization to promote its products and services in order to enhance the demand of the particular product. Amazon has adopted unique themes for promoting its new device i.e. Alexa amongst the target audience in order to generate demand amongst the target audience as well as for making them feel the requirement of particular products and services. Branding act as the USP of particular product and it helps the consumers to make separate image for that product in comparison to the competitors’ products. In order to make an effective brand image, Amazon promotes Alexa by giving real life examples to create positive brand perception amongst the consumers. Thus, significance of branding is high as it helps the organization to gain competitive advantage along with enhancing the demand for the products and services as well as to boost up the revenues, profitability and sales in the marketplace (Chung, Iorga, Voas & Lee, 2017).    

Primary elements of brand value of Amazon Alexa are brand image, brand identity, brand association, brand awareness, consumer perception and brand loyalty. Although, organization has set up an effective and positive brand image, brand awareness and brand identity with its effective marketing and promotional campaigns. Nature of brand value is identified by determining that to what extent particular product fulfil the demands of consumers or matches with their expectations (Dale, 2015). With regards to Alexa, it fails to set up its separate brand identity but as it is a product by Amazon, it has a positive influence over target audience. Alexa has successfully created a positive image amongst the tech-enthusiasts and for attracting other customer segments, organization is continuously improving its advertising and marketing campaigns. From a rough survey, it has been evaluated that Amazon Alexa is present in more countries in comparison to its closes competitor i.e. Google Home. Thus, it could be said that Amazon Alexa is able to fulfil its target audience’s demands and wants along with matching up with their expectations. This has generated opportunities for organization to grab the large part of market share for attaining leading position in the artificial assistant market (Davies, Rojas-Méndez, Whelan, Mete & Loo, 2018).

Brand communication

Brand communication is considered an important tool used by brand managers for developing as well as for maintaining effective brand image amongst the target customers. This tool helps the organization to develop its separate image along with setting reliable image amongst the existing and potential customers. Brand communication is the process for developing and managing customer relationship and it affects brand loyalty. Brand communication also includes developing public relations along with the marketing and promotional campaigns. In order to make the brand communication process of Alexa effective and efficient, Amazon has adopted two way communication methods for getting feedbacks and suggestions from the consumers for analysing their requirements so that relevant changes could be done for making it more effective to fulfil target audience’s demands and wants (Demirkan, Spohrer & Spohrer, 2016).

Amazon has adopted two way brand communication strategy in terms of both traditional as well as non-traditional forms of marketing and promotional tools. With respect to these tools, major focus of the organization is on the digital marketing strategies as these are suitable marketing tools for promoting Alexa in comparison to the traditional marketing tools. Amongst the digital marketing tools, organization has adopted social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. platforms along with email marketing, third party website promotions. In traditional forms of marketing, organization has included television and board hoardings for approaching to households, people aged 35-60, and other customer segments (Fajardo, Zhang & Tsiros, 2016). Alexa was introduced in November 2014 in United States and till February 2018, it was present in approximately 38 countries and organization is planning to launch in other countries by introducing Alexa in several other languages. In order to make their brand communication process effective and efficient, organization has made their branding campaigns as per the requirements of target audience with strong and effective messages for making a positive impression amongst the target customers (Forrest & Hoanca, 2015).

Brand association includes two categories i.e. benefits and attributes. Benefits are the value seeks by customers with relevance to the consumption of a particular product or service. When a consumer purchases a product or service, he/she seeks for high values and benefits. On the other hand, attributes are the characteristics of the product and these attributes and benefits forms core association of the product. Secondary brand associations showcase the measures adopted by the organization for promoting its products and services in the manner to generate demand amongst the target audience. Value in branding is the major aspect for enhancing demand for the organizational products and services. Secondary brand associations are the connection with the brand and another entity. Secondary brand associations have direct appeal to the customers and it also has leveraging impact on the brand (Hoy, 2018).

In relevance with the organizational secondary brand associations, following are some of the attributes for Amazon Alexa:

Parameter	Indication
Modern/trendy	Alexa is a modern and trendy device as it is a smart speaker with appropriate skills to act as a smart personal assistant.
Uniqueness	Alexa is a unique device which is useful for young audience, business men, and other customer segment.
Edge	Alexa is a trendy device and with unique and attractive advertisements, Amazon is promoting the device across the globe.
Quality	With superior quality, Alexa is one of the most effective and appropriate smart speaker with sufficient knowledge and skills to act as the personal assistant (Keller, 2015).
Sub branding	Alexa is being made as per the requirement of their target audience. Quality will be merged with appropriate skills and knowledge in order to create brand association with the customers.
Focus	Organization is targeting different customer segments and in order to approach to all customer segments, organization is launching Alexa in different language options in order to fulfil customer’s needs and wants (Keller, 2016).

Branding is one of the pivotal strategies for developing an effective position in the target market with the objective of enhancing organizational performance in the target market along with gaining desired goals and objectives such as attaining competitive advantage. Alexa is a smart speaker and it is capable enough to provide appropriate information to its users along with providing various other services like playing music, giving live updates of weather, sports and other things and along with this, Alexa is also capable enough to book appointments on behalf of its users. Thus, Alexa is useful for almost every customer segment and with regards to this; organization is designing its advertisement and promotional campaigns on the basis of different customer segments for generating demand and to gain competitive advantage (Business Insider, 2018).

Core brand values of Alexa are its performance, uniqueness, quality, features and the brand communication strategies through which Alexa has been introduced in approximately 38 countries in a very short period of time. Further, organization is planning to introduce in other languages for making it effective for different customer segments as well as for the objective of enhancing demand in the other parts of the globe. Apart from this, organizational brand communication strategy is effective enough to promote in the target market along with spreading awareness amongst different customer segments through which organizational goals and objectives could easily be accomplished (Keller & Brexendorf, 2016).

Concept of brand positioning is crucial as it helps the organization to set up an effective brand image amongst the existing and potential customer’s mind-sets. In relevance to this, Alexa is being promoted with the objective of generating demand amongst the target audience. Alexa falls under consumer electronic goods category and it is a luxurious product, thus, it is necessary for the organization to promote its products and services so that when consumers thinks for buying smart speakers, Alexa should come first in their mind and in relevance to this, brand positioning is necessary (Keller & Brexendorf, 2017).

Alexa is not the only smart speaker available in the market; few other companies have also stepped into artificial assistant industry such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. and some other companies like Sony, Phillips, etc. are planning to enter into this industry by introducing their smart speakers. With regards to this, setting up separate brand image along with gaining competitive advantage is bit difficult for Amazon Alexa. In relevance to this, organization has adopted appropriate promotional and advertisement strategies for the objective of setting up image in the target market. Along with this, Alexa is much more effective than other smart speakers. Alexa is a product of Amazon and brand value and brand image of Amazon is huge as it has set up its reliable image amongst the target audience by providing relatively more features in comparison to the competitors’ products. Alexa’s primary competitor is Google Home and with relevance to the point of parity, both products are similar as both uses cloud storage for storing data, and features of both devices are also same. In terms of point of difference, Alexa has 9 micro phones whereas Google Home has 4-5 micro phones and Alexa has wide range in comparison to Google Home. These are some of the basic differences which differentiate Alexa from Google Home and this is the major reason why Alexa is in more demand in comparison to other products (López, Quesada & Guerrero, 2017).

Strengths · Huge brand awareness · Qualitative products · One of the giant player of online retail industry · Alexa is useful in making easier lives for individuals · Easy to access and user friendly	Weaknesses · Without internet, Alexa is of no use · Alexa is still struggling with voice recognition issues · Easily imitable business model · Less brick-and-mortar presence (Uzuno?lu & Kip, 2014). · Limited penetration in developing markets
Opportunities · Targeting developing markets · Enhancing presence in brick-and-mortar · Introducing in different languages along with enhancing the voice recognition for enhancing customers’ experience (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015).	Threats · Primary competitors are Apple’s Siri and Google Home and these are biggest threat. · Listen everything about the user and the information could easily be misused.

Brand equity is the added value to endow to the products and services. It is the set of attributes which adds or decreases the values in the product on the basis of consumers’ perception. In relevance to determine brand equity, consumers’ perception regarding the organizational products and services needs to be determined that what consumers think and feel about the particular product and service. Brand equity is considered as an intangible asset for the organization that adds value to the organization in terms of psychological and financial. Main attributes for maintaining brand equity are brand loyalty, brand awareness and brand perceived quality (Marinchak, Forrest & Hoanca, 2018).

Alexa is a trendy device which has generated curiosity amongst the tech-enthusiasts and other customer segments. Along with this, Alexa has numerous features through which organization could easily approach to different customer segments. While comparing Alexa and Google Home, it has been evaluated that Alexa is more useful and effective in comparison with the Google Home. These are certain attributes through which Alexa’s brand equity is high (Steinmann, Mau & Schramm?Klein, 2015).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it could be said that brand positioning is an essential element for an organization for the objective of spreading awareness amongst the target audience along with developing a separate image amongst the target audience. In this report, brand audit of Amazon Alexa has been executed with the objective to determine the market position of Alexa in the target market. The report has concluded brand inventory, core brand values, brand communication, secondary brand associations and brand positioning of the organization. Along with this, organizational SWOT analysis and brand equity has also been concluded in this report.

References

Alexa. (2018). Alexa’ Marketing Stack. Retrieved from: https://www.alexa.com/.

Baumgarth, C., Kaluza, M., & Lohrisch, N. (2016). Brand Audit for Cultural Institutions (BAC): A Validated and Holistic Brand Controlling Tool. International Journal of Arts Management, 19(1), 54.

Business Insider. (2018). The best smart speaker you can buy: Amazon Echo vs. Google Home vs. Sonos One. Retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/best-smart-speaker-amazon-echo?IR=T.

Canbek, N. G., & Mutlu, M. E. (2016). On the track of artificial intelligence: Learning with intelligent personal assistants. Journal of Human Sciences, 13(1), 592-601.

Chung, H., Iorga, M., Voas, J., & Lee, S. (2017). Alexa, Can I Trust You?. Computer, 50(9), 100.

Dale, R. (2015). The limits of intelligent personal assistants. Natural Language Engineering, 21(2), 325-329.

Davies, G., Rojas-Méndez, J. I., Whelan, S., Mete, M., & Loo, T. (2018). Brand personality: theory and dimensionality. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 27(2), 115-127.

Demirkan, H., Spohrer, J. C., & Welser, J. J. (2016). Digital innovation and strategic transformation. IT Professional, 18(6), 14-18.

Fajardo, T. M., Zhang, J., & Tsiros, M. (2016). The contingent nature of the symbolic associations of visual design elements: The case of brand logo frames. Journal of consumer research, 43(4), 549-566.

Forrest, E., & Hoanca, B. (2015). Artificial Intelligence: Marketing’s Game Changer. In Trends and innovations in marketing information systems (pp. 45-64). IGI Global.

Hoy, M. B. (2018). Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and More: An Introduction to Voice Assistants. Medical reference services quarterly, 37(1), 81-88.

Keller, K. L. (2015). Brand development processes and planning. The future of branding, 149-176.

Keller, K. L. (2016). Reflections on customer-based brand equity: perspectives, progress, and priorities. AMS review, 6(1-2), 1-16.

Keller, K. L., & Brexendorf, T. O. (2016). Strategic Brand Management Process. In Handbuch Markenführung (pp. 1-22). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

Keller, K. L., & Brexendorf, T. O. (2017). Measuring brand equity. Handbuch Markenführung, 1-32.

López, G., Quesada, L., & Guerrero, L. A. (2017). Alexa vs. Siri vs. Cortana vs. Google Assistant: a comparison of speech-based natural user interfaces. In International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 241-250). Springer, Cham.

Luxton, S., Reid, M., & Mavondo, F. (2015). Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), 37-46.

Marinchak, C. L. M., Forrest, E., & Hoanca, B. (2018). The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Personal Assistants on Marketing. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, Fourth Edition (pp. 5748-5756). IGI Global.

Steinmann, S., Mau, G., & Schramm?Klein, H. (2015). Brand communication success in online consumption communities: An experimental analysis of the effects of communication style and brand pictorial representation. Psychology & Marketing, 32(3), 356-371.

Uzuno?lu, E., & Kip, S. M. (2014). Brand communication through digital influencers: Leveraging blogger engagement. International Journal of Information Management, 34(5), 592-602.