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The digital consumers and their relationships with brands

Escrito por Suzana Ourique el 14 de Julio 2009

An article published in Millward Brown’s Newsletter tells about a study with the digital consumers, done by BrandZ (a great study of brands). The major finding of their latest report is that digital consumers have stronger relationships with brands. They basically compared digital consumers with non-digital consumers, across countries, categories and brands, and found out that digital consumers have an average of 15% stronger relationship with a brand.

They analysed that the digital consumers like more brands than the non-digital ones. A higher relationship is perceived through the different categories. For airlines, for instance, it’s where it varies more: brands are 93% stronger here. And it is very true, since nowadays most of the acquisitions in this area are made online – where all the low cost services and companies like Easy Jet are. If anyone is asked to list some webs they commonly check for vacation planning, there are far more options than if you have to list offline travel agencies. But even for hair care, a category not so used to be in the world wide web (people usually prefer to see and smell products before buying them), there’s an 8% of more strength among digital consumers.

The researches believe there’s a “digital branding circle” happening nowadays, in where people are more interested in brands, that’s why they do more digital research and, by buying what they’ve researched, they increase their knowledge and interest about the brand. With this, the relationship gap between both types of consumers widens.

The study also reveals that Japan and Taiwan are the countries with the highest average digital relationship differences. They say that this is expected in countries with a higher internet penetration, as well as more informed consumers. But sometimes there are countries, like India, that have a small number of digital consumers, but they are quite advanced.

For BrandZ, a digital consumer is defined as “someone who has either bought or researched that category online”. So they mean that every individual can be a digital consumer in some categories, but not in others. They also mention that, because digital consumers know a lot about what they consume, they are good transmitters of information on the categories they like. And this kind of people is more likely to be younger, male, affluent and creative.

They recommend that brand managers examine brands with the strongest relationships within the category. And then, check for example the online advertising spent amount and visibility, to analyse if there are opportunities for future new digital consumers.

Redes sociales y blogs (Ficod 2008)

Escrito por Suzana Ourique el 3 de Diciembre 2008

El miércoles 26 y el jueves 27, en el marco del Ficod, se celebraron las mesas redondas “Redes sociales: el nuevo paradigma de las comunidades web” y “Contenidos generados por los usuarios: una revolución ¿ciudadano o profesional?”. En ambas se debatió sobre el futuro de las redes sociales y los blogs.

¿Qué es una red social? Del debate quedó claro que estamos aún en un terreno a cartografiar…si bien las redes sociales más conocidas son las redes de “relaciones sociales” como Facebook, (muy usado en Europa y EEUU), Hi5 (Latinoamérica), o Orkut (de Google, cuya mayoría de usuarios se encuentra en Brasil), existen en la actualidad redes sociales con muy distintos perfiles y funcionalidades. Por ejemplo, en el campo de las “redes sociales” especializadas en un perfil adolescente encontramos sites tan distintos como MySpace (para gente que comparte su música), Habbo (mezcla de red virtual con juegos), Kedin (red de eventos y quedadas) o Tuenti, (red cerrada de gran éxito en España). Para Matías Llort, director de Marketing de MySpace España, una red social es un lugar de encuentro, de aportar contenidos: una ampliación de tu vida en la red. Según la directora de Habbo, Simonetta Lulli, las redes son lugares donde la gente comparte una afinidad y refleja su realidad: crean un perfil y suben fotos. Uno de los puntos que despertó más interés fue la privacidad en las redes sociales. Según Simonetta Lulli, hoy en día se usa la información que se puede sacar de un perfil en una red social para conocer mejor las aficiones y gustos de un posible candidato a un puesto de trabajo en una empresa. Ante esta situación, los sites están implantando funcionalidades para mantener la privacidad de los usuarios, y que puedan elegir si toda la red puede leer su perfil e informaciones, o sólo sus amigos directos.

En la mesa redonda se discutió también la validez periodística de los contenidos que crean los usuarios en sus blogs. Según Jesús del Rio, director de contenidos del grupo Prisacom, debe quedar claro quien firma un post. El ciudadano puede hacer intervenciones en lo que publica la prensa a través de las cartas al director o haciendo un comentario sobre alguna noticia, pero la respuesta es íntegramente su responsabilidad. Se mencionó en el debate algunos casos en los que un grupo editorial ha utilizado información de un blog como noticia, citando el nombre de la persona como fuente. En la opinión de los ponentes, este es un problema periodístico, ya que el nombre de una persona no tiene la credibilidad que tiene un periódico. Stephan Musikant, director general de Ciao, levantó la cuestión de cómo la gente podrá diferenciar sobre los contenidos que lee. La conclusión es que hay que considerar a los blogs como un medio más, una fuente más, hay que saber utilizarlos y tener la educación necesaria para discernir que interesa dentro de todo el contenido que se encuentra en la red. Los usuarios de Google ya no usan la primera respuesta que les sale en sus búsquedas, sino que miran quien firma, quienes son los responsables de los contenidos. Lo correcto sería utilizar la información de blogs simplemente para complementar, y no como fuente principal de la noticia que se desea informar.

Emotional connection with the consumers (Ficod 2008)

Escrito por Suzana Ourique el 28 de Noviembre 2008

Last Tuesday, the 26th of November, I went to Ficod, the International Foro of Digital Content in Madrid, and one of the conferences that most called my attention was Kevin Roberts‘. He is the CEO of Saatchi&Saatchi, and he talked about emotional connection with the consumers in the screen age. I know this is something that can be considered basic for professionals like publicists, but since people that went to the Foro had all kinds of backgrounds, it was really nice to listen to so many motivating ideas. He really knows how to motivate and inspire people, and I had a good time listening to what he said. I will try to put the highlights of what he mentioned there on that day, so we can all pick up something and use for our own lives and daily routines.

He says that, as human beings, we are 80% emotional and 20% rational. And we have to take advantage of this emotional side and use it in everything we do. Why are the virtual communities like MySpace, Tuenti, Facebook, and many others, a great success? Because they’re based on emotions. You have your friends there, your pictures, your interests, it’s your virtual piece, a way of people getting to know you and what you enjoy doing.

Since we are in the digital age, and we don’t know much about it (we are continuously learning in this field), it’s time for innovation, for experimentation. In times of crisis, and with the great use of internet, soon it’s going to be more expensive to use the traditional media. So he says that we should forget about planning too much, forget about strategies, and simply take the risk, use the creativity, the courage, the talent and innovate. People should be able to fail fast, learn fast and fix fast. And also do the following changes:

• From information society to attraction society
• Instead of inform - inspire
• Less reason - more emotion
• Don’t interrupt - engage
• Don’t be reactive - be interactive
• From one to many - to many to one
• Instead of return on investment - return on involvement
• From market at - to connect with
• And above all: loyalty beyond reason

Some ideas to have in mind:

1. Dream big. Have a dream. Not a dream of surviving, more than that.
2. Aspire to lovemarks. Would you like your brand to be liked, respected and loved? If it is loved and respected, it will be remembered, it will be a mark. That’s the difference between a brand and a lovemark. A lovemark is owned by people, it has its mystery, its sensuality and its intimacy. Love and respect are basics, all relationships start with this, otherwise you have a transaction.
3. Nothing is irreplaceable. So try to change from being irreplaceable to being irresistible.
4. Learn from TV, which is the biggest media in the world. It’s also part of the family of the screens, and it is always innovation in design, high definition and superior technology.
5. We live in the age of idea. Consumers will choose what they want to consume. At the same time they are co-partners in the process of building new ideas.