Voice advertising likely to see exponential growth in next two years, says Shamsuddin Jasani of Isobar India

According to a Google analysis, 40% of India's smartphone users are already using voice search and the remaining 60% are expected to start in the next two years. Indians are ditching type searches for voice-based search, given the ease it provides.

Spotting the trend of growing voice searches and the advertising opportunity this domain holds, the advertising sector has also started thinking ahead of the curve and is experimenting with the medium.

The adoption of voice search by brands represents enormous opportunity for tech-savvy marketers. With it, one can deliver a digital brand experience that's more personal and human-like than ever before one that's consistent with the brand messaging.

“Google has said that voice search is really surging in India. Up to 40% of the total population of the county is using Google assistant rather than typing. The country comes fourth in terms of most-used voice search across the world. The tech is mostly used between 16-28 ages,” said Shamsuddin Jasani, Managing Director Isobar India.

Recently, Induslnd Bank launched its artificial intelligence-based Alexa Skill-Indus Assist, which enables its customers to conduct financial and non-financial banking transactions on Amazon Echo and other Alexa-enabled devices using voice-based commands.

“Voice search has become the easiest way of communication and will replace typing in the next two years. People from metros to tier III cities will get into the habit of asking through voice search rather than typing. The division would be such where Alexa and Siri be used in modern surroundings, Google assistant will be throughout, top to the middle end, and Jio will be in the bottom line. Voice search will be used by everyone. More than 200 million people have already involved voice search in their day-to-day life and in the next two years, more than 500 million will pick it,” Jasani added.

Jasani said the industry is still in the content creating phase and developing content-based voice search.

To a question on how beneficial voice advertising would be for brands, Jasani said that in India many brands have not woken up to the medium and it is going to grow big in the next two years.

If a consumer uses voice most in their day-to-day life, then it becomes obvious for any brand to reach them in that medium. Jasani described how Isobar in future will see more content integration on branded content in mobile on voice search.

What is leading to growth of voice search

The use of voice search is on the rise in India, fuelled by the adoption of smart speaker devices and voice query tools. The technology is leading us to an era of omnipresent, artificially intelligent assistant. Typically, people are performing voice searches for convenience and speed, i.e., to get a quick answer to a specific question while they are on the go or otherwise occupied. Google assistant and Reliance Jio are making it simpler for the mass to use it.

Not just in the urban sphere, voice search is actively used in rural areas too. With Jio handsets and network, using the tool is possible in outskirts as well. The low-priced phone has the Jio voice assistant enabled in it. To give a better experience of voice search to consumers, new phones from Reliance Jio are now Google assistant-enabled, which makes voice search easier for the rural masses most people in the hinterland use Jio phones.

In the Indian context, Google Assistant is the best-rounded virtual assistant. Not only does Google Assistant answer most questions correctly, it is also more conversational and context-aware. It also understands Hindi language and its accent. In the next one year, the regional languages option will also be available.

Currently, voice search is available in English and Hindi languages for phones. To make it more convenient for regional and rural consumers, Google focuses on regional language support and plans to expand to seven more Indian languages, including Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Kannada, Urdu and Malayalam, in the coming months.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com