Smart speakers have been at the top of many Christmas gift lists for the last few years, and now spreading into new markets and in more languages.
Where you once had to turn on a radio or search on your smart phone, you can simply ask your smart speaker to play your favourite station.
Jaime Chaux is the Head of Digital for Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) and discusses the key learnings he’s discovered to help you design your future in a voice controlled world.
“In Australia, the awareness of smart speakers is quite high, while the sales remain very low”, says Chaux speaking at Radiodays Asia 2019.
“82% of Australians are aware of smart speakers, but only 13% of the population owns a smart speak. Well behind the USA where 23% of the population owns a smart speaker.”
There is a huge potential for growth in smart speaker sales, so the industry needed to get it right. Commercial Radio Australia identified six issues that needed to be addressed to ensure listeners could access their favourite station via smart speakers. They are:
1. Initially Australian radio didn’t work on smart speakers
2. Some radio brands changed, making it difficult to find your favourite station
3. Ensuring access to consumption data
4. Creating new commercial opportunities
5. Being ready for the future use of smart speakers
6. Making friends with big technology
Commercial Radio Australia created the Radioapp, in conjunction with All In Media, where all commercial stations (including the public broadcaster) was available to stream via the app. They also begun working with big tech companies to create rules and language smart speakers could easily recognize and make it easier for listeners to find their favourite station.
“You need to spend time building relationships. The easier you make it for them, the better. And remember, the value for (big tech companies) is not in radio listening”, Chaux went onto explain the learnings from big tech companies
Chaux continued to explain with AI (artificial intelligence) there is no easy solution and all sides are learning as you go. And the relationship requires constant monitoring and maintenance.
“Remember, it’s still early days. This is now part of the cost of doing business, and consider your future steps carefully”, Chaux added on what CRA have learned through working with smart speakers.
Commercial Radio Australia continues to work with big tech companies, and is now using their Radioapp on smart speakers. Chaux also announced this morning at Radiodays Asia 2019 that CRA have begun discussions with other markets to license the Radioapp at minimal costs.
For more information, contact Jaime Chaux at [email protected]
In one of the closing sessions of the day, Jaime also participated in the fast paced Five Ideas in Five Minutes session. Here’s what he had to say:
