As a follow up to my post about Alexa+, this is the inflection moment for voice assistants.
Adding “true” AI capabilities will either expand their use cases and, therefore, adoption. Or it will prove that they’ll merely be an extension of other tech and not a new platform of sorts.
GenAI as customer lock in
Alexa Plus is $19.99 per month on its own or free for Amazon Prime members — a better deal, considering Prime costs just $14.99 per month or $139 per year.
Prime is the digital version of Costco or Sam’s Club. People pay a membership fee with the expectation of receiving more value through savings. Then a bunch of secondary benefits sweeten the deal.
By paying a fee, members are more likely to spend money to justify the initial fee to themselves.
Amazon’s primary retail customer is Prime. Everything else funnels there.
via The Verge
Promotions and sales are a lever. But if pulled too often they become your brand. (See: JCPenny)
discounting and promotions in general is a place where retailers all too frequently get caught up in the short-term goal of juicing sales, get caught up in the short-term goal of taking advantage of promotional environments by using promotions as a lever, again, to drive conversion and the short-term.
what gets very dangerous there is that you can really erode the value of your brand.
Competing on price is hard.
Compete on something that makes you unique and use sales and promos as sprinkles.
The 2024 holiday shopping season proved splintering is still the trend.
One other thing that I saw was this growing divide between higher and lower, and middle income consumers.
There really is a growing divide between people who feel pretty good, are spending, they’re going out to eat and those who are pinching pennies.
you see a growing split on the haves and have-nots within retailers.
…
It sounds like the haves and have-nots are really maybe going to be the water we’re all swimming in as we enter this new year.
Like when a frozen pond cracks, the splinters are still spreading.
Brand vs. Performance marketing? Trick question.
Brand equity is the foundation—it’s Job #1 for any marketing team.
Brand marketing is now discovery marketing. Discovery leads performance.
Without a brand, there is no performance.
Performance marketing can drive quick sales, but it’s brand-building that gives consumers a reason to buy again and again.
Brand marketing and performance marketing aren’t two different disciplines. They’re just measured on two different timelines.