The rules of marketing have changed dramatically in the Web
2.0 era and while the capabilities that advancements in technology have brought
cannot be ignored, their impact should not be viewed without acknowledgement of
the enormous changes in social attitudes which have evolved with them.
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| Foursquare, pioneers of utilising crowd marketing |
Perhaps the greatest levels of social change have occurred within
the millennial generation, adults now in their twenties whose lives have
developed concurrently with the evolution of the internet. They are able to remember a
time as children when the internet had little to no fixture to today where its
influence has grown to an extent whereby for many it dominates both work and
social lives.
This segment coveted
heavily by businesses for their high levels of disposable income and
trend-setting capacity, behave in radically different ways to the previous
generation, utilising technology and brands in ways never
previously witnessed.
Perhaps the most radical departure from a marketing
perspective is the willingness to openly share information with not just a
close group of friends and family but a far wider audience of online followers whose
personal connection is considerably less well established. With Facebook
friends and twitter followers numbering into the hundreds individual tastes are
shared with a far wider audience than ever before leaving a digital imprint
which will outlast even their own existence.
Although personal content remains a leading priority for the
majority of social network users, it is evident that this generation is happy to align itself more strongly with brands than ever
before. This extends far beyond the personal identifiers of clothing and FMCG to
promote wide ranging products and services for travel and entertainment,
technology, media and even utilitarian products including mobile phone
providers and educational institutions.
Whilst this increased sharing capacity and acceptance of
products in to their personal world obviously has great value for brands, the millennial generation brings two personality traits
which need to be well understood in order to maximise the possible benefits
which may be reaped from the increased capacity for crowd based promotion.
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| Stratos, a defining attention grabbing campaign. |
Brands need to understand that now more than ever their
content needs to be assessed for its relevance, value and ease of
understanding, however achieving high initial impact is now a key contributor
to a successful campaign.
Secondly is insight, with far greater brand acceptance among the millennial generation there is also conversely a downside of far more visible brand rejection. Those companies whose message is viewed as insincere, whose promotion is seen as cheap are at far greater risk of exposure, with ridicule for poorly contrived campaigns now being commonplace. For example Waitrose’s recent twitter campaign which invited users to incorporate the hashtag #Ionlyshopatwaitrosebeacause showed a clear lack of insight given Waitrose public brand perception combined with the main demographic engaging on twitter.
Sam Wolf , Digital Account Manager, Liveinsights
