Brands are increasingly investing in voice services like Alexa and Google Assistant. The document provides a playbook for brands to succeed in this new channel, with strategies like building a voice skill or action, promoting it widely, and using conversations to better understand customers. It also outlines opportunities for voice services to expand shopping functionality and provide more data to help brands.

1. 2019
THE VOICE
PLAYBOOK
FOR BRANDS
JANUARY 2019 VER. 1

2. 02 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
here’s no question that voice services
are currently among the hottest trends
in consumer technology. As of January,
Alexa-enabled devices sold to customers
hit more than 100 million worldwide,1
Google announced its Assistant will soon be on 1 billion
devices,*2
and CES deemed 2019 “The Year of Voice.”3
But
with the Gartner Hype Cycle placing voice on the declining
slope toward the “trough of disillusionment,”4
is it the
most relevant trend for CPG brands to put their marketing
dollars against now?
If you’re like most consumer companies, you’re
questioning how to prepare for a voice-first world,
balancing the heat and hype of the market with budgetary
constraints and demands for immediate ROI. Here at
The Mars Agency, where we are pragmatically focused
on marketing to shoppers, we posit that yes, you need
to invest now to take the lead in what is proving to be
an invaluable consumer channel, with faster consumer
adoption than anything we’ve seen since the smartphone.
We believe (and we aren’t alone) that smart speakers will
become a top commerce channel, right alongside web
and mobile, and the effects of this movement will change
your business (and ours) profoundly. As an agency that
works closely with companies like Amazon and Google,
and hears from brand and retailer stakeholders every day,
we are uniquely positioned to offer a vision for voice in
2019. That’s why we’ve compiled this playbook, offering
advice to the consumer brands that are wondering
what to do in voice now, in order to win a piece of the
demonstrably large opportunity to come. We’ve also
included our wish list for voice services, noting the
technical capabilities we’d love to see unlocked, which we
think would propel voice commerce in 2019.
“yes, you need to
invest now to take the
lead in what is proving
to be an invaluable
consumer channel”
GOOGLE HOME HUB
*NOTE: Including mobile devices.

3. 03 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
As consumers invite smart speakers into their homes
(in not one, but usually multiple rooms, averaging 2.2 per
home),5
they are quickly adopting new behaviors. The top
reasons for using a smart speaker include that it’s hands-
free, easy and fast.6
This means using it is rewarding, and
rewards can shape new behaviors. Shopping via voice is
a prime example. While the numbers were initially low,
today one-third of Amazon Echo owners have shopped via
voice, while half of Google Home owners have.7
We believe
this behavior is primed to accelerate significantly in the
next 1-2 years, and the data so far bears that out.
Analysts predict voice commerce will hit $40B in value
across the US and UK by 2022,8
and we can be sure
there will be share leaders and category winners, as well
as laggards. Brands can’t afford to take a conservative
approach with voice like they did in E-Commerce, where
offline category leaders are losing to upstarts and
furiously playing catch-up.9
GOOGLE HOME MINI
CASE IN POINT—
BEVERAGES. In 2017 a
challenger brand, Bai, became
the number one beverage brand
sold on Amazon,10
beating out
the big, national brands that lead
in the offline world. Presumably
those brands initially thought
the opportunity was too small,
and they didn’t start making
the necessary investments in
product, logistics, content,
media, etc., to capitalize on the
retailer’s massive growth, until
it was too late, and Bai had a
significant head start. Don’t
underestimate the commerce
potential of voice services
the same way so many brands
underestimated the significance
of Amazon.com.

4. 04 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
AMAZON ECHO
We’ve already seen robust studies put out by other
companies: Voicebot. ai, Adobe, and Dashbot are a few
who’ve published reports full of statistics related to
user behavior on smart speakers. If you need additional
validation to answer the “Why Voice” question, check out
one of these papers. What we’re going to focus on here is
the “how”— how brands and retailers should act in 2019
to capitalize on this new commerce channel.
—— Smart speaker reach was officially
reported at 57.8 MM in the US
back in September,5
but the impact
of the holiday has yet to be tallied,
with at least one pre-holiday
consumer intent survey indicating
we’d see 48% of consumers owning
voice-first/smart-speaker devices
after Christmas.11
—— Nearly 75% of smart speaker
owners use their device daily.12
—— >65% of users say their devices
have changed their daily
behavior.12
—— 43% of Alexa/Google Home users
have made a purchase through
voice.12
—— Multimodal (Voice + Video) is on
the rise, as devices with screens
proliferate, driving engagement
rates up (see ‘The Rise of
Multimodal’ on page 8).
—— The race to “VSEO” (voice search
engine optimization) is on, and the
best content wins.
‘WHY VOICE, WHY
NOW?’ SHORTLIST:

5. 05 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
MOST VOICE SHOPPING TODAY OCCURS THROUGH A
VOICE SERVICE’S NATIVE CAPABILITIES (i.e., “Alexa,
buy paper towels from Amazon”), and that leaves the
experience very much outside of brand influence. The
most direct way of providing your own structured and
branded shopping experience through voice is to create a
skill for Alexa, or an action for Google Assistant.
Building a skill or action actually pays doubly, as it will
help your customer discover your brand on this interface.
It is important to claim real estate in the voice space now,
to win in the long run.
There are several ways to increase discoverability of your
skill or action (and therefore your brand) on Alexa. You can
make it easier for customers to find and engage with your
skills by adding support for the CanFulfillIntentRequest
(beta) interface. Alexa combines this information with
a machine-learning model to choose the right skill to
use when a customer makes a request without an
invocation name.
Building a skill that helps shoppers with their skin care?
You can make it easier for Alexa to recommend your skill
when consumers ask Alexa a relevant question about how
to care for their skin. You can do the same with Google
through its ‘Implicit Intent’ functionality. This concept
is called Nameless Invocation, and it represents one of
the biggest opportunities for brands to get their skills or
actions discovered. It also represents the greatest urgency,
as the early-mover window is closing fast. If you’re not
there with a relevant solution for the consumer, you can
bet another brand, or Amazon itself, will be.
The longer you wait, the more competition you’ll have.
The first brands to activate in the skill/action space will
have time to optimize their experience, and build their
relationships with Amazon or Google, in ways that will be
favorable in this fight.
01
THE VOICE
PLAYBOOK
FOR BRANDS
01_BUILD A VOICE SKILL OR ACTION, NOW.

6. THE MARS AGENCY | PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL06
Clients frequently ask us whether it’s best to publish an
action for Google Assistant or a skill for Amazon Alexa.
The answer depends on your goal.
Google is best if you want to drive transactions through
partnering retailers (like Target, Kroger or Ulta), because
of the Google Express network. But Google has created a
voice shopping ecosystem that really only works well if you
know what you want. This leaves a huge opportunity area
for brand-retailer partnerships that create elevated shopping
experiences, to guide users to your products without
depending on them knowing your brand or product name.
Building a skill on Alexa has many advantages, including the
superior market penetration of their smart speakers* (which
has held above 60% this year5,7
) and the ability to transact
and commercialize digital content within skills. There’s
one hitch—as of today, you cannot transition a shopper
to the Amazon cart from within a skill. Therefore, if you
lead a consumer through a purchase path for a consumer
good (i.e., non-digital content), they can’t simply “add to
cart” from within your skill, unless that cart is fulfilled
through your own D2C infrastructure. We expect that this
circumstance will change in the near future and advise our
clients not to be deterred.
Voice shopping on
smart speakers is in its
nascence, and at The
Mars Agency we are
working with Amazon
and Google to ensure
that our brands can
offer their consumers
the ideal voice shopping
experience. If you have a
great idea, reach out, and
we can work together to
make it a reality.
*NOTE: Voice services are available on several different categories of devices, so be sure to take
that into account when thinking about shopping via voice. For example, customers might be
more inclined to shop from their smart speaker at home than in other situations, but there may
be unique on-the-go shopping use-cases you can facilitate as well (like in cars, or on mobile).
or ?

7. 07 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
WHILE CLAIMING YOUR SPACE AS A BRAND ON THE KEY
VOICE SERVICES IS A FIRST PRIORITY, MAKING YOUR
EXPERIENCE MEANINGFUL is just as important as being
there. Google and Amazon don’t just want brands to have
a presence—they are asking for more and expecting
that brands bring real value to their services to create
something consumers not only use, but love.
To win in this space brands must:
—— Launch skills and actions based on real
user input and research
—— Use data to define clear “time of day” moments
when users could benefit from a voice touchpoint
—— Monitor their skills and actions to collect
impactful user data
—— Employ that data to make informed design
revisions and changes to improve their products
for their audiences.
While these steps are emblematic of successful
human-centered design practices, the key here for
voice is determining your skill’s “time of day,” or the
moment that your users could benefit from a voice-
delivered brand touchpoint in their daily routines “72%
of people who own a voice-activated speaker say
that their devices are often used as part of their
daily routine,”6
so aligning with these moments is key.
Unique to voice services, brands will be challenged to
think about their user’s potential shopping moments in a
24/7 cycle, beyond the omni-channel touchpoints they’re
used to, opening up new opportunities to intersect with
their customer’s day. Voice services will increasingly be an
important part of your shopper’s path to purchase.
Additionally, Amazon and Google want to support brands
that embrace the medium and push the limits of what
voice devices can offer. This might include adding a
screen experience to your action, or allowing users to
send messages across devices or buy products directly in
your skill. These companies are always playing with new
functionality, so unique concepts and ideas for APIs are
fair game. Swing for the fences, while keeping your user’s
needs and desires in mind.
02
THE VOICE
PLAYBOOK
FOR BRANDS
02_CREATE SOMETHING TRULY GREAT.

8. THE MARS AGENCY | PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL08
THE RISE OF
MULTI-MODAL:
Screen-Enabled Devices
—— According to a source at Amazon, multimodal
skills see 2X engagement compared to voice-only
experiences.
—— As of September, only 7% of smart speaker
owners had a device with a screen, vs. 93% who
owned speaker-only devices—but holiday sales
indicate a change.13
—— Over the 2018 holiday, Amazon
devices with screens (e.g., Echo Show,
Echo Spot) sold out in the U.S. and
had to be put on backorder.13
—— Over the same period, customers
used Alexa nearly twice as much
on Fire TV devices.13
—— When consumers report barriers to voice
shopping, almost all are intangible emotional feelings
of concern or discomfort (e.g., “I’m not comfortable...”
or “I don’t trust...”) — the type of barriers than typically
dissolve through trial and exposure. The only tangible
barrier reported by 21% of those surveyed by
Voicebot and Voysis in late 2018 was the lack of
a screen, suggesting shopping on multimodal has
a bright future.7

9. 09 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
DISCOVERY HAS EMERGED AS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE
ON THE VOICE ECOSYSTEM (notoriously referred to as the
“invisible interface”). Although in the past year awareness
of third-party branded voice skills or actions on voice
speakers has increased (so much so that now four-
fifths of Alexa users have experience with them), in our
observation metrics like Total Users, Retention and Return
Users remain relatively low, especially for CPG brands..
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t act now. It does mean
that you must consider a complementary media plan
when launching a voice skill or action.
—— Assign a reasonable budget, but leverage
owned media as well
—— Promote your voice skill or action invocation
everywhere, including in your national campaigns
(TV, print, etc.) and even packaging
—— Create a Nameless Invocation and keyword strategy
to aid organic discovery when combined with machine
learning models (see playbook item #1)
—— Consider inventive use of social channels, as
“friends” constitutes the top mechanism for skill
or action discovery16
03
THE VOICE
PLAYBOOK
FOR BRANDS
03_PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE.
“It is not
‘if you
build it,
they will
come.’”

10. 010 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDSJANUARY 2019
THE SINGLE MOST UNDERVALUED ASPECT OF BUILDING A
PRESENCE ON A CONVERSATIONAL VOICE ASSISTANT IS
THE CONVERSATION ITSELF.
Imagine if someone told you that you could be a fly on the
wall of your consumer’s home… while voice assistants are
not “always on” (nor should they be), there is a value they
provide that goes beyond listening, and that’s the value
of interaction.
Voice enables you to have a direct conversation with
your customer. You have the opportunity to engage your
shoppers, to listen to what they have to say (once asked),
and to make business decisions based on that feedback.
There are a few important caveats: No, you don’t get
unlimited access to what everyone is asking their smart
speaker for. No, you can’t buy user data from companies
like Amazon and Google (but see our Wish List on the next
page). But you can thoughtfully design an experience that
gathers information relevant to your brand.
Imagine that you are a greeting card company,
and you have created a voice skill or action that helps
users create custom digital greeting cards. Imagine
all of the valuable data you could collect regarding the
sentiment, occasion, tone and content users deem worthy
of a greeting card. You could reinvent your product line
with that kind of insight.
04
THE VOICE
PLAYBOOK
FOR BRANDS
04_UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMER & GET BETTER.
“You could
reinvent your
product line
with that kind
of insight.”

11. 011 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDS
—— Customers purchased millions
more Amazon Devices this holiday
season compared to last year.
—— Amazon Echo Dot was the top-
selling product on Amazon.com for
the third straight year.
—— It was a record holiday season for
Amazon’s Kids Edition devices;
customers purchased more Echo
Dot Kids Edition and Fire Kids
Edition tablets than ever before.
—— Alexa Voice Shopping more than
tripled during the 2018 holiday
season, compared to the prior year.
—— Customers requested nearly 3X
as many recipes this holiday
season compared to last, and
asked Alexa for cooking-related
advice twice as much, including
hundreds of thousands of
cocktails, demonstrating increased
consumer engagement in the food
& beverage category.
OUR VOICE SERVICES
wish list
01_Expand shopping functionality. Allow “Add to Cart”
functionality within a skill/action for CPG brands to offer
elevated shopping experiences for your voice service.
02_Provide brands with category-level data on organic
search requests so that they can respond to what their consumers
are asking for.
03_Amp up marketing and co-marketing to consumers,
highlighting interesting use-cases to help them understand
functionality on the voice service.
04_Facilitate test & learns in partnership with brands and
agencies, to surprise and delight consumers at different points
along their path to purchase (from awareness all the way to delivery,
customer support and re-ordering).
05_Allow brands to control or influence the search results
on your voice service when their brand is mentioned.
A HOLIDAY UPDATE
FROM AMAZON:14
With these doors opened, we believe brand activity
on voice services would accelerate.

12. 012
As consumer search behavior and commerce behavior shifts to voice,
there will be tangible benefits to the brands that move first:
—— Stake your claim in voice search
—— Create touchpoints and daily patterns with your shoppers
—— Collect data early to make insight-driven product decisions
and revisions to best engage your customers
—— Have an influence on what’s possible for your brand by working
with us to participate in exclusive betas and test & learns with
Amazon and/or Google
—— Avoid missing out on revenue as shoppers begin to turn to
voice solutions for their shopping needs
It isn’t often that a technological innovation comes around that’s so
disruptive it fundamentally changes human behavior. Voice interfaces
are changing how we communicate, access information, consume
entertainment, and shop—and they present brands with an opportunity
to dramatically transform their businesses. Don’t miss out on the
opportunity to influence the future of shopping.
THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDS

13. 013 THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDS
The Mars Agency is a global marketing practice, specializing in
marketing to shoppers, consumers and retailers across the ever-
expanding omnicommerce environment. Mars uniquely refers to this
environment as the A-to-V CommerceSM
space, which incorporates
everything from Autonomous to Voice commerce.
Mars, proud of its independence and growth-for-clients focus,
operates internationally across the Americas, Europe and Asia
through its network of 13 offices.
REPORT AUTHORS
Bree Glaeser
Director of Shopper Innovation & Voice Practice Lead
glaeserb@themarsagency.com
Brooke Hawkins
Senior Voice Designer
hawkinsb@themarsagency.com
Ethan Goodman
Senior Vice President of Shopper Innovation
goodmane@themarsagency.com
1. Bohn, Dieter. “Amazon Says 100 Million
Alexa Devices Have Been Sold – What’s
Next?” The Verge, 4 Jan. 2019, www.theverge.
com/2019/1/4/18168565/amazon-alexa-
devices-how-many-sold-number-100-million-
dave-limp.
2. Bohn, Dieter. “Google Assistant will soon be
on a billion devices, and feature phones are
next.” The Verge, 7 Jan. 2019, www.theverge.
com/2019/1/7/18169939/google-assis-
tant-billion-devices-feature-phones-ces-2019.
3. Berkowitz, David. “CES Deemed 2019 ‘The
Year of Voice,’…” AdWeek, 14 Jan. 2019, www.
adweek.com/digital/ces-deemed-2019-the-
year-of-voice-meaning-were-still-years-away-
from-that-reality/.
4. Gartner, Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies
2018, blogs.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/
files/2018/08/PR_490866_5_Trends_in_the_
Emerging_Tech_Hype_Cycle_2018_Hype_Cy-
cle.png. Accessed 29 Jan. 2019.
5. Voicebot.ai. Voice Assistant Consumer Adoption
Report. Nov 2018.
6. Kleinberg, Sara. “5 ways voice assistance
is shaping consumer behavior.” Think With
Google, Jan. 2018, www.thinkwithgoogle.com/
consumer-insights/voice-assistance-consum-
er-experience/.
7. Voicebot.ai, Voysis. Voice Shopping Consumer
Adoption Report. June 2018.
8. OC&C Strategy Consultants. PR Newswire, 28
Feb. 2018, www.prnewswire.com/news-releas-
es/voice-shopping-set-to-jump-to-40-billion-by-
2022-rising-from-2-billion-today-300605596.
html.
9. Boston Consulting Group. The Myth of Unlimit-
ed Shelf Space, Apr 2016, GMA Online, www.
gmaonline.org/file-manager/About/BCG_
GMA_The_Myth_of_Unlimited_Shelf_Space_
Apr_2016.pdf. Accessed 29 Jan. 2019.
10. Pruett, Michelle. “3 Reasons Why Bai Brands
Became One of the Best-Selling Brands on
the Internet.” Criteo, 5 June 2018, www.criteo.
com/insights/bai-brands-marketing/
11. Adobe. State of Voice Assistants: Adobe Analyt-
ics Survey Based on Responses from 1,000+
US Consumers, Sept. 2018.
12. Merritt, Arte. “How consumers really use Alexa
and Google Home voice assistants.” Dashbot,
19 Nov. 2018, www.dashbot.io/2018/11/19/
how-consumers-really-use-alexa-and-google-
home-voice-assistants/.
13. Kinsella, Bret. “Amazon Echo Dot Sold
Out in France, Germany, and Italy Through
March While Smart Displays Sold Out in
U.S.” Voicebot.ai, 17 Dec 2018, voicebot.
ai/2018/12/17/amazon-echo-dot-sold-out-in-
france-germany-and-italy-through-march-while-
smart-displays-sold-out-in-u-s/.
14. Business Wire. “Amazon Customers Made This
Holiday Season Record-Breaking with More
Items Ordered Worldwide Than Ever Before.”
26 Dec. 2018, www.businesswire.com/news/
home/20181226005050/en/.
15. Kinsella, Bret. “Alexa Skill Engagement Rose
75% in 2017 Says Amazon Evangelist David
Isbitski.” Voicebot.ai, 8 May 2018, voicebot.
ai/2018/05/08/alexa-skill-engagement-rose-
75-in-2017-says-amazon-evangelist-david-is-
bitski/.
16. Voicebot.ai, Smart Speaker Consumer Adoption
Report. March 2018.
WORKS CITED

14. THE VOICE PL AYBOOK FOR BRANDS