Brief:

• Patrón, the premium tequila brand that Bacardi bought out this year, sees 6,000 to 7,000 sessions a month with its Amazon Alexa skill, which is an app developed for the e-commerce giant's voice assistant. In addition, Patrón has accumulated 36,000 users of the skill since its introduction in 2016, per Digiday.
• The "Ask Patrón" skill responds to voice commands for cocktail recipes and facts about tequila. While its user base may be small compared to the 20 million people who own an Amazon Echo device to interact with Alexa, the spirits brand has developed a loyal following as most sessions are initiated by repeat users, Adrian Parker, vice president of marketing at Patrón, told Digiday.
• The liquor brand in January adapted the skill for Amazon's Echo Show, which has a screen to show people what a suggested cocktail might look like. Patrón's goal for the voice platform is to have 500,000 people making Patrón cocktails at home instead of using another brand or kind of spirit, Parker said.

Insight:

Patrón has been very active in trying out new technologies and media platforms to promote its brand of premium tequila among younger adults who are more likely to be early adopters of voice-powered devices. The tequila brand last year boosted consumer response to mobile advertising with a social media campaign featuring its "Bot-Tender" chatbot that suggested cocktail mixes for users. More than two-thirds (67%) of chatbot conversations happened on Twitter, per a case study by the micro-blogging app.

Patrón was one of the first brands to test Twitter's direct message cards, a format designed to urge discovery of chatbots linked through organic sharing and Promoted Tweets, pointing to the spirits brand's efforts to position itself as an innovative brand. The best-performing direct message card ad triggered a 2.6% clickthrough rate, while the number of recipes served by the chatbot more than doubled Patrón’s goal.

Of course, Patrón likely wants to connect those chat sessions and voice skills with actual sales, so it's incorporated purchase intent signals into these voice devices, including Amazon Echo, Google Home and Sonos One. Patrón's Alexa skill can direct Echo Show users to an interactive purchase screen that asks for a zip code to serve up a list of nearby sellers of the tequila. The screen also displays information about sending Patrón as a gift through ReserveBar or a user's mobile phones. Patrón told Digiday that one out of every three purchases are made for gift-giving.

Voice-enabled devices are expected to grow more popular as their functionality improves with integrations with smart-home devices and skills created by third-party developers and brands like Patrón. More than 70 million U.S. households are estimated to have smart speakers by 2022, according to Juniper Research.