15/02: Digital Consumers & Brands
First things first. If you haven’t seen the Cluetrain manifesto web site I urge you to. Yes many of its statements may seem like plain old common sense, but taken as a whole this infamous landmark web publication was the first to discuss the real impact of digital networks on consumer markets.
I've been fortunate to have had a front row seat on the dawning and maturation of the Internet. I've worked both client side and agency and have seen brands and their consultants wrestle with making the electronic democracy we call the Web help them gain market share. The earliest attempts where the mass repurposing of offline collateral - brochures and catalogues where scanned and published online.(Hewlett Packard certainly increased their market share!) Then brands began to leverage the interactivity of the Web and this has grown into the rich media broadband ads we now see online. And today with all of this creative activity online, digital media planners collect terabytes of data that tell us what consumers are clicking on, when, how, and why.
But during this interactive evolution another quiet, and some would argue more significant, revolution has occurred.
Back in the 90’s as consumers moved online they began to connect and communicate with one and other through email, instant messaging, chat rooms and forums. Early participants in these digital consumer networks talked largely about the products and services offered by the network economy pioneers – think Cisco, Dell, AOL and Microsoft. Granted, the conversations where largely about technical issues and these issues attracted consumers who were largely interested in technical products but never-the-less digital conversations where taking place. These peer-2-peer digital exchanges were largely ignored by brands.
In the late 90’s and early millenium niche forums began to sprout - places where people could discuss products, services and brands from hundreds of different industries - today it is possible to find discussion forums about every industry and issue imaginable from colour dyes in our food and the testing of our cosmetics to the safety of our children’s car seats and fashion must haves in 2006. As one can see, these forums are no longer the exclusive domain of the home PC technical expert!
Such is consumer’s reliance on these forums for brand advice, they frequently extend their digital conversations to email, instant messaging and SMS - these conversations are portable and on the move. And, the conversations that these consumers have are based on mutual trust - each participant knows the other has nothing to gain but the satisfaction of sharing a brand experience – the good and the bad.
Today, these connected consumers move closer and closer to purchase decisions with the help of their online ‘advisory networks’ and ignore most attempts by brands to advertise to them digitally from the sidelines. What can brands do in the face of this growing phenomena? Locate the e-fluentials and start a conversation, any conversation, with them. The sooner the mistakes are made the sooner success will come.
I've been fortunate to have had a front row seat on the dawning and maturation of the Internet. I've worked both client side and agency and have seen brands and their consultants wrestle with making the electronic democracy we call the Web help them gain market share. The earliest attempts where the mass repurposing of offline collateral - brochures and catalogues where scanned and published online.(Hewlett Packard certainly increased their market share!) Then brands began to leverage the interactivity of the Web and this has grown into the rich media broadband ads we now see online. And today with all of this creative activity online, digital media planners collect terabytes of data that tell us what consumers are clicking on, when, how, and why.
But during this interactive evolution another quiet, and some would argue more significant, revolution has occurred.
Back in the 90’s as consumers moved online they began to connect and communicate with one and other through email, instant messaging, chat rooms and forums. Early participants in these digital consumer networks talked largely about the products and services offered by the network economy pioneers – think Cisco, Dell, AOL and Microsoft. Granted, the conversations where largely about technical issues and these issues attracted consumers who were largely interested in technical products but never-the-less digital conversations where taking place. These peer-2-peer digital exchanges were largely ignored by brands.
In the late 90’s and early millenium niche forums began to sprout - places where people could discuss products, services and brands from hundreds of different industries - today it is possible to find discussion forums about every industry and issue imaginable from colour dyes in our food and the testing of our cosmetics to the safety of our children’s car seats and fashion must haves in 2006. As one can see, these forums are no longer the exclusive domain of the home PC technical expert!
Such is consumer’s reliance on these forums for brand advice, they frequently extend their digital conversations to email, instant messaging and SMS - these conversations are portable and on the move. And, the conversations that these consumers have are based on mutual trust - each participant knows the other has nothing to gain but the satisfaction of sharing a brand experience – the good and the bad.
Today, these connected consumers move closer and closer to purchase decisions with the help of their online ‘advisory networks’ and ignore most attempts by brands to advertise to them digitally from the sidelines. What can brands do in the face of this growing phenomena? Locate the e-fluentials and start a conversation, any conversation, with them. The sooner the mistakes are made the sooner success will come.
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