Tag: chatbot

The First Sports Chatbot For Facebook Messenger Is Here

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
If you ever wanted to receive sports updates via text but don’t know anyone who follows the same teams and loves texting, you are in luck. The Toronto-based sports media company theScore has created the first-ever sports chatbot on Facebook Messenger to keep fans in the loop. As it is, the chatbot is not exactly conversational; instead, it is designed to figure out which sports teams you would like to follow and then dispense news and updates about them to you via Messenger in a timely manner. The chatbot currently covers all teams in major U.S. sports leagues such as MLB or NFL, as well as most major European soccer leagues.

Why Sports Brands Should Care
As more and more smartphone users turn to messaging apps, sports brands would be smart to follow the fans and engage them on the messaging platforms they are already on, and chatbots should come in handy as a tool for promoting fan engagement and communications. This is not only true for sports media companies, but also for sports franchises as well. In fact, The Sacramento Kings, an NBA team, is working with startup JiffyBots to create a team chatbot on Facebook to serve fans with game stats and digital content upon request. They also plan to add more commerce features to the chatbot, such as guiding fans to purchase tickets or upgrade their seats, something that most teams should consider to boost ticket and merchandise sales.

For more information on how sports brands can make use of chatbots to connect with fans, please check out our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event.

 

Source: GeekWire

How Foursquare Turned Personalized Notifications Into A Chatbot

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Foursquare is jumping on the chatbot bandwagon with a new app called Marsbot, which learns about a user’s preferences for restaurants and bars from their Foursquare location data and recommends new places that fit their tastes via a text interface. Unlike most existing chatbots, however, Marsbot does not need users to initiate the conversation. Instead, it is designed to send out contextually relevant recommendations to users unprompted and gather feedback to enhance its future suggestions. Foursquare released Marsbot on the App Store on Tuesday, and says the app is still in an “early testing stage” so users are instructed to sign up for a wait list.

Why Brands Should Care
This new app from Foursquare provides an interesting example of a use case for chatbots as it reframes push notifications in a conversational interface. Unlike other local search and recommendation apps, the Marsbot app aims to capture user attention and engagement with relevant messages delivered via a text interface that most smartphone users are fond of. For brands vying for consumer attention on the increasingly crowded mobile space, it is important to create a touchpoint in environments that consumers are already familiar with.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: Tech Insider

 

Why Paramount Created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Chatbots On Kik

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
To promote the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, Paramount Pictures is jumping in on the chatbot craze with four bots on popular teen chat app Kik which allow users to chat with the four Ninja Turtles. Each chatbot has a personality based on their corresponding character, designed to reply with witty responses, fun GIFs, and, most importantly, links to the trailer for the new movie. Kik officially launched its chatbot store last month, attracting brands such as H&M, Sephora, and The Weather Channel to develop chatbots for its platform.

What Brands Need To Do
Paramount’s effort offers another example of an entertainment brand seeking engagement with their prospective audience with a chatbot, following the Messenger chatbot that UM built for Sony to promote the Goosebumps movie. As we pointed out in our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event, brands should consider developing useful bots to reach customers on the popular messaging apps they’re already using.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: AdWeek

Facebook To Add Analytics To Chatbot Platform

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Since Facebook announced its chatbot platform for Messenger at its F8 conference last month, chatbots have garnered a lot of attention from brands and marketers alike. According to Messenger’s head of product Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook has started developing “a full-fledged analytics system” for its platform to help brands better understand how their chatbots are doing by breaking down, for example, which calls to action or messaging schedules are most engaging. In addition, he revealed that there are currently “tens of thousands” developers building chatbots on its platform and cited Activision’s Call of Duty bot, which exchanged 6 million messages in its first week, as a standout.

What Brands Need To Do
As we pointed out in our Fast Forward analysis on Facebook’s F8 Event, brands should consider developing useful bots to reach customers on the popular messaging apps they’re already using. The upcoming analytics tool will offer a way for brands to monitor the performance of their chatbots and improve their services accordingly.

For more information on how brands can effectively reach consumers on messaging apps and other conversational platforms, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: TechCrunch