Grocery retailer Tesco has released the results of its first actionable audio smart speaker advertising campaign that enabled UK customers to access special offers and set notifications as part of The Tesco Christmas Party campaign.

During the festive season, smart speaker listeners who heard the Tesco ad across digital audio channels simply needed to say “Alexa, open Tesco” to gain audio access to all the retailer’s latest offers. Listeners then had the opportunity to set weekly notifications to hear about updated special offers from Tesco. They could also receive a Tesco website link to their phone that directed them to a page of live special offers. 

The campaign, created by  voice assistant ad tech firm, Say It Now, was designed to engage millions of listeners via smart speaker devices and help them access great value offers in the lead up to Christmas.

Data from the campaign revealed that 28.2 per cent of listeners who spoke with Alexa, prompted by the ads, requested a reminder or a link to view the Tesco deals online. Since Alexa started reading out the top weekly deals from Tesco, dwell time also increased to 53 seconds, extending the engagement time with listeners, and almost doubling the engagement of the initial radio advert of 30 seconds.

UK Government data shows that 39 per cent of UK adults have access to a smart speaker at home, while Juniper Research predicts that the growing use of voice assistants will drive the value of smart home payments to $164bn in 2025.

Recent research from Neuro-Insight, the neuro analysis company, has shown that the conversational concept behind smart speaker advertising can generate powerful responses in the human brain that can build deeper connections between brands and consumers. The study – The Power of Actionable Audio Ads –  found that voicing a brand’s name back to a smart speaker (in response to an advert) generates a 30 per cent uplift in overall levels of brain response compared to a standard audio ad.