Dubbed ‘Let’s Get Ready,’ the concept has been designed specifically for the Echo Show - Amazon’s first Echo device with a screen - and launched in the UK this week. Using Amazon’s Alexa voice service, ‘Let’s Get Ready’ offers users on-demand beauty tutorials, occasion-based look planning and shopping opportunities. Coty’s explains the strategic choice of Echo Show and the Alexa voice service by the need to focus on voice-driven beauty services with visuals, which are critical in Beauty.
Curated makeup looks
The personalized beauty offering provides curated makeup looks, visual ‘how to’s’ and quick tips, as well as recommended corresponding products from Coty’s beauty portfolio, which includes brands such as Clairol, Rimmel, Max Factor, Bourjois and Sally Hansen. The technology is capable of delivering over 2,000 unique combinations of looks for hair, eye and skin colour, as well as by event type. It can be synced up to Facebook profiles, in order to suggest specific looks for upcoming events, and allows users to add products from each look directly to their Alexa shopping list.
According to Coty, the looks and events are based on extensive consumer insight and engagement, social listening and trend scanning to deliver an authentic beauty experience focusing on both classic and trending looks for most any occasion.
"Digital innovation with a focus on voice and virtual assistants is a key part of our digital strategy as we aim to bring consumers frictionless beauty experiences," said Jason Forbes, Coty Chief Digital and Media Officer. "Further, this skill allows us to deliver an authentic and personalized experience for beauty enthusiasts that happens near real time, delivering customized looks in the context of a person’s lifestyle and personal attributes."
Virtual aide market a "wildfire"
Sales of smart speakers are expected to nearly double in the US, to US$3.8 billion, from last year according to Lesley Rohrbaugh and Steve Koenig, researchers with the Consumer Technology Association, which organizes the annual CES trade event, which took place earlier this month in Las Vegas.
Being able to order items, select music, get information, and more by speaking to digital assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, Google Assistant, and Microsoft’s Cortana has been such a hit that pressure will be on for more ways to interact with machines using voice, the researchers predicted.
