The opportunity for marketers is in adding value—not direct advertising. Smart home devices present marketers with many opportunities to add value to the user experience and build brand awareness. This gives brands an opportunity to reach new customers as well as a new touchpoint to connect with existing ones.

• Procter & Gamble launched features on Amazon Alexa to market its Tide and Oral B brands. Both the Tide cleaning app, which consumers can use to determine how to remove specific stains, and the toothbrushing timer for Oral B increased touchpoints for the company and helped it collect valuable data.
• HP attempted to remove one of its customers’ biggest pain points—cartridge replacement. HP Instant Ink monitors cartridge ink levels and automatically replaces them as needed. This subscription provides value for frequent users of printers and facilitates replenishment sales.

Marketers will go multichannel via IoT. Remaining channel- and IoT brand-agnostic will be vital for marketers looking to tap into new pools of consumers. Another key for brands will be optimizing for the IoT experience, such as orienting websites to search by spoken question rather than typed terms.

Smart home devices enable brands to lock in consumers through subscriptions and replenishment sales for products ranging from groceries to ink. If consumers are satisfied with product quality, brands have a lot of leeway and opportunity to add convenience through this mutually beneficial channel.

Source: https://www.emarketer.com/content/smart-home-adoption