Partnerships
Walgreens to Test Drone Delivery Service with Alphabet’s Wing
The retailer has partnered with Alphabet to use the company’s Wing drone delivery service. “Walgreens continues to explore partnerships to transform and modernize our customer experience and we are proud to be the first retailer in the U.S. to offer an on-demand commercial drone delivery option with Wing,” said Chief Innovation Officer Vish Sankaran. He said the company wants to provide customers the products they “need wherever, whenever and however they may want them.”
Customer Experience
Disney to Offer More than 400 Plant-Based Food Items to Parkgoers Starting in October
The entertainment giant has announced “that it is massively expanding its selection of plant-based food items at its U.S.-based parks starting in October. Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, will have more than 400 food items that are free of meat, dairy, eggs or honey starting Oct. 1 at the park’s quick service restaurants. The table service locations will add new options two days later.”
Macy’s Will Test Free Same-Day Delivery in Select Markets for Online Orders over $75
The retailer is testing free same-day delivery in 30 markets. “Macy’s effort comes on the heels of Amazon announcing free one-day shipping for Prime subscribers in April, and it mirrors similar efforts from competitors like Walmart, which launched its own free delivery program for orders of $35 or more in March.”
The Raid on Area 51 Was Called Off, but Chipotle Still Delivers via Snapchat
A viral sensation on social media saw many preparing to ‘raid’ Area 51. In July, Chipotle promised delivery to the site. The raid, naturally, did not occur, but the QSR still launched an alien-themed Snapchat filter on the raid’s scheduled date. “Rather than delivering burritos to Nevada, Chipotle is having a dancing extraterrestrial creature deliver augmented reality burritos to Snapchat users via a filter on the messaging application.”
Tech
People Want Voice Assistants to Mirror Them: Study
According to a research conducted by Apple scientists, consumers prefer voice assistants that are conversational. “Researchers examined people’s tone, mannerisms, and other elements of conversation to learn how to build an assistant that users are more comfortable speaking with and using regularly. The report was presented this month at the Interspeech 2019 conference in Graz, Austria. According to the researchers, 70 percent of people prefer more conversational responses to terse answers and those people who identified as chatty preferred chatty responses, while those identified as non-chatty preferred non-chatty responses from voice assistants.”