The keyboard is a vastly underutilized advertising real estate: Ankit Prasad, Bobble

While Bobble AI has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception, its founder Ankit Prasad is especially proud of one thing -- its unique keyboard. “We can be justified in saying that we were the first company to introduce stickers to keyboards, and since then it has become a standard feature across smartphone keyboards,” says Prasad.

The Past

Prasad and his associates started Bobble as a user-generated content app in 2015 with the vision to enhance smartphone conversations. “We felt that the conversations have already moved online, especially the smartphone. But the nature of conversation or the quality of conversation that was happening lacked expression, localization, and intelligent recommendations. For those reasons, we pushed Bobble as a user-generated content app where people could take a selfie. And we used to generate thousands of stickers,” he recounted.

“In 2016, we realized that we needed a more stable, sort of more scalable distribution channel for that content. And fortunately, during that time, both Android and iOS had opened the Keyboard API. Keyboard API. We leveraged that to create the Bobble keyboard in 2016, wherein we made content sharing seamless inside all the charges. Now, you don't have to go to a separate application to get content to be used in your WhatsApp conversation,” he said, adding that this is what led to the introduction of stickers into keyboards.

“We partnered with Xiaomi as well as several Indian smartphone brands to provide them with our keyboards, and because of the popularity of their brands and the fact that people enjoyed our product, gave us a lot of data on how people use their keyboards, and what we can do to enhance the experience,” said Prasad, calling the keyboard a vastly underutilized advertising real estate.

“Whether you’re searching for something, shopping, trying to find a location, finding something to listen to or watch, you’re always using your keyboard,” points out Prasad, pointing out that what Instagram did for pictures, Bobble is doing for keyboards.

The Present

It’s something he calls Conversational Commerce. “The most recently launched business model is Conversational Commerce, in which we monetize the consumer's engagement with our platform. Each of the three assets data, content sharing, and engagement we monetize to various different revenue streams.”

Bobble’s AI-powered Smart Keyboard with its flagship intent detection technology predicts with high probability the services a user intends to consume across smartphone usage. Examples of services include - cab booking, E-Commerce, grocery shopping, travel booking, etc.

Active intents for service consumption are served via non-intrusive prompts on the keyboard similar to a word suggestion. These integrated services are also discoverable via a permanent positioning in the premium keyboard real estate.

“Typically, an average user would open our platform on this smartphone more than 100 times a day and typically they would spend more than 30 minutes cumulatively throughout the day on the keyboard. This gives us a huge amount of engagement coupled with the real-time intent of that consumer. For example, if you're searching for a T-shirt on Amazon, then the platform understands your intent of buying a t-shirt right now, maybe in a couple of hours,” explains Prasad.

“Depending on what sort of intent it is, the lifespan associated with it, we monetize this consumer intent by recommending certain products and services and offering coupons to the consumer at the right time when they need it,” he adds.

And this recommendation comes on top of the keyboard real estate. Because this real estate is only present in smartphones, Bobble is able to match users’ expectations and assist them in doing a transaction on the smartphone or Internet which is in their best interest. The keyboard also assists them in discovering new products and services that they might have been used to this month.

The Future

“With Uber, we are running some pilot campaigns. Half of the journey happens on the keyboard. The other half, which includes payment, happens on the Uber app. If the Uber app is already present, and if the app is not present, then it happens on Uber’s side. But that is not the ultimate experience,” he says, adding, “But there are some large e-commerce players who have done back-in API integration with us in order to facilitate the end-to-end transaction within the keyboard real estate. That's the ultimate experience.”

Bobble is also gamifying it with various activities that you perform on the keyboard. Say, for example, sticker sharing. The more emojis you share, you get certain points, and then you can use those points to get certain discounts while availing of those services and products inside the keyboard.

The ultimate goal is to make your Bobble keyboard into a platform. “A platform where you don't use it only as a typing utility or you don't have the current expectation of users from the keyboard is. We want to expand this definition of the keyboard to say that it assists during not only typing but also various use cases you are performing on the smartphone,” says Prasad.

This means if you are searching for a product on an e-commerce app the keyboard can recommend the same products available in other e-commerce apps at a lower price. If you're booking a cab on a particular app, it can on recommend you the same cab on a different app at a lower price. Making a payment for your food order the keyboard can recommend which payment app or payment gateway you should use in order to avail of specific discounts.

“And with our proprietary tech stack, we are able to use that space and provide our users with solutions literally at their fingertips (instead of having to scroll around to specific apps), while providing advertisers with a brand new space to reach out to consumers who are looking for a product or service with intent to purchase,” concludes Prasad.