Wednesday, October 29, 2008

2018: The not so distant future

Lisa Bradner, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research

Consumer 2018: Separating Fact from Fad

  • People change...what's a truth and what's a phase?
The convenience conundrum
  • Meeting the four needs (connection, uniqueness, confort and variety) with convenience is what drives adoption. 
  • In marketing, the convenience has sometimes been prioritized around our needs...which is thet masss approach. Marketers attempt to provide comfort and convenience to the top of the bell curve, ignoring the uniqueness at either end of the curve.
  • Claim: 72% of consumers say prior experience drives brand loyalty [I trust me, not your ads]
  • Claim: 58% of online adults say they trust online reviews more than any other medium except email from friends [in other words, it's the people!]
  • It's not about the channels [i.e., it's not the vehicles]
  • It's not about messages [interest ebbs and flows based o n macro factors]
  • It's not a one size fits all approach to needs [somtimes I need variety...other times not so much]
The new P's
  • Company focused P's: Product, price, place, promotion are replaced by consumer focussed P's: Permission, Proximity, Perception and Participation
  • Permission: people derive confort by having control over who and when they connect. 68% of US adults subscribe to DO NOt Control list; 59% use popup blocking; 69% have opted out of an email list they opted into. What do you have to do to get their permission? Give them product samples (34%) or enter a sweepstakes (22%). Only 18% would do it for relevant informaiton.
  • Proximity: people tap into the networks and affilitaions based on comfort. 75% online have read customer ratings and 76% say it influences thier purchase decision. 87% say they friend are people they know well. only 8% friend companies or brands. [It's people!]
  • Perception: people inhabit multiple personas. 49% of online youth have more than one online identity. 73% have more than one email address they only share with certain people. [youngest people already are managing their online personas].
  • Participation: 51% online willing to participate in online communcaty organized by a company. 56% willing to give back to a community by writing online reviews.
  • Marketers cannot drive the consumer P's...respect them and try to meet them..letting hteconsumers drive it.
Getting ready for the next decade
  • Brands matter...they are how you sort out the cesspool of the internet (Eric Schmidt, Google CEO)
  • 59% say they were influenced to feel favorable about a brand based on branded content
  • 53% of youth are willingt to receive email from brands. [but what youth use email?]
  • 43% willing to receive texts [which means 57% are not]
  • Permission is paramount...if you don;t have it you have nothing. Use exclusivity to gain permission...you only get access with an invite from a friend [Augusta National??]
  • Engage the persona that the consumer shows you.
  • Connect where the consumer wants you to.
  • Embrace participation.



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