Amazon Alexa

The new 30 second Amazon Alexa ad appeals to family values of love and relationships. A girl grew up listening to her dad’s favorite music, and when she moves out into her own place, she is homesick. The first thing she does is ask Alexa to play “Dad’s playlist” and the song playing throughout the entire commercial plays again.

The target market is young people who constantly have their hands full. It’s a hands-free device and is useful anywhere in the house. Forbes breaks down the target market to people ages 18-44. From my observations, Amazon Alexa’s are very popular within families. To connect the whole house, these families will often buy more than one, my family included. This family aspect is portrayed in this ad and the owner of the Alexa fits the ideal target market being an on-the-go 20-year old. Another market segment I see growing is children. I hear of Alexa becoming the new nanny in that it can entertain for hours. Amazon is also rumored to be making a more child friendly version.

Amazon’s brand insight is if you want something delivered quickly, go with Amazon. The company keeps getting better at this now introducing same day delivery. Why would customers need to spend hours at the store when they can get it delivered to their home almost as quickly. As for Alexa, Amazon understands the culture of young American adults. They are always on the go with their hands full and could use a little personal assistant to help with simple questions, reordering their favorite products so they can always have that cup of coffee, or entertaining their kids.

Alexa’s main competitor is the Google Home. I was gifted the Google Home for Christmas to take to school. I already unplugged it because it wouldn’t answer my simple questions due to voice recognition, nor could it place any of my calls. My personal user experience with my parent’s Alexa was better and part of that comes down to Amazon’s brand positioning. Alexa has a wider skill set and more options in the design of the smart speaker. It’s perfect for that on-the-go consumer, it’s easy to use, and as we saw in the commercial, can be a way to connect you and family together.

One of the strengths of the ad is how Amazon portrays Alexa’s high quality of speaker. Her dad’s favorite song is played first on a record player, then guitar, to her headphones, then on the Alexa. The quality of the music is best on the Alexa showing this is the new best way to play music. In fact, playing music is one of Alexa’s most used skills so highlighting that feature to potential customers is important. I also noticed that the girl moving out used a large Amazon box with their logo on it showing the family’s loyalty to Amazon.

On the other hand, the Echo Dot did not show off any other capabilities. The short commercial that I first viewed while watching Hulu only showed Alexa’s high quality speaker. Alexa is the next big thing in technology so I would like to see its other capabilities portrayed as a potential customer.