Digital Insights

How do people feel about: Finding out about brands

Key insights from the Digital Life research conducted by TNS:

• Fast growth markets are more open to brands on social networks than developed markets, which show resistance to both buying and engaging with brands in these spaces.
• Globally, people's openness or resistance to brands on social networks is not dependent on age.Older age groups are as open to brands as their younger counterparts.
• People are much more resistant to buying products than they are to learning about them on social networks.

How many times have you received an email which is really HUMAN when you have signed up for their service or even purchase something from Amazon? Many times what you will receive are automated or simply a robot saying "Hi thanks for your support....blah blah". Dave Hyndman shared a uncommon "your order has shipped" order confirmation email from CD Baby, which not only wow him but also getting me excited to actually share this with you all here reading this.

Here's the somewhat uncommon but awesome way to excite your customers:

Your CDs have been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CDs and polished them to make sure they were in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CDs into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved ‘Bon Voyage!’ to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Sunday, December 11th.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby.  We sure did.
Your picture is on our wall as "Customer of the Year".  We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you once again,

Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby

Points to ponder:

• Are your current email communicating to your customers somewhat automated or humanized?
• How can you take the approach above by CD Baby and derive a more humanized approach in communicating to your customers?

Are you considering adding on location based services i.e. Foursquare or Gowalla for your business? If so, are your customers actively utilizing the services from the providers? And what are their motivations behind it?

Summary of research findings:

• Privacy is still a huge issue for the adoption of any applications that ask the consumer to disclose their location.
• Facebook and Groupon are well placed to exploit the Social-Loco opportunity through Facebook Places and GrouponNow respectively.
• Discounts and coupons are by far the largest single motivator for disclosing location. Status rewards, such as badges and being named “mayor,” are of little interest to the mass consumer.
• Whereas a lot of the focus to date has been around small local businesses benefitting from location-based technology, there is a huge opportunity for big brands that can connect with people at a local level.
• In the future, consumers are more likely to check-in at a friend’s house than they are to cafes, restaurants or bars.

(download)

Click here to download:

the-reality-and-motivations-behind-the-check-ins-yokkbHftGbFiEyvDoAxb.zip (527 KB)

McKinsey research estimates China could have as many as 750 million people online by 2015, up from 420 million today.And between now and 2012, an additional 100 million individuals could easily logged onto the web via their mobile devices which translates to 333 million users.

But Who are these Internet users? And what drives them online, and what will make them stick - how will that change over time? These are the questions business operating in and or moving into China needs to consider in order to succeed in the fastest growing market.

In a recent research conducted by McKinsey with over 5000 digital consumers from across more than 20 different cities in China have revealed China's seven digital consumer segments as follows:

1. Digital Junkies (6% of digital population)
• Spend more than twice as much time online as all other segments
• Early adopters of high tech gadgets

2. Gamers (9% of digital population)
• Spends most time on PC games
• Heavy users of social networking

3. Info-centrics (17% of digital population)
• Looking for information to enhance productivity at work
• Prefer PCs when going online

4. Mobile Mavens (8% of digital population)
• Heavy mobile internet users, prefer listening to music and reading
• Early adopters of portable digital gadgets

5. Traditionalists (25% of digital population)
• Little interest in hi-tech devices
• Light users of internet; spend more time watching TV

6. Online Traders (18% of digital population)
• Most time online spent tracking and trading stocks

7. Basic Users (17% of digital population)
• Play games on mobile phones
• Least time spent on all media

(download)

Click here to download:

understanding-chinas-digital-consumers-segments-jCoFAGwcajyCCtsJdizd.zip (211 KB)

Device markers
• Have you segment your consumers based on their preferences and usage patterns? And further segmenting them by habits, unqiue preferences etc?

Telecom operators
• How do you go about striking potential partnerships with companies from across the verticals to provide co-services catering to the specific vertical segment needs and requirements?

B2B / B2C
• How do you craft the overall consumer strategy taking into considerations of the unqiue preferences, devices and habits across the segments that are essential to your entity?

Download the PDF report here > Understanding China’s Digital Consumers

What is actually going through in the mind of the consumer today ? How do they react and respond to brand communications online today ? And how will this actually impact the way you communicate to them today ?

TNS's recent digital lifestyle study on the consumer across 46 countries, which uncovers markets from where Digital is close to ubiquitous to those beginning their digital journey whether through PC at home, mobile or internet cafes.

The following consumer profiles offer a glimpse into the evolving world of digital and lifestyles that have emerged, and are emerging.

The internet is an integral part of my life. I’m young and a big mobile Internet user and generally access everywhere, all of the time. I’m a blogger, a passionate social networker with many social network friends. I’m also a big online shopper, even via my mobile. I want to make sure as many people as possible hear my online voice.

I just love talking and expressing myself, whether that’s face to face, on a fixed line, mobile or on social networking sites, instant messaging or just emailing people. I really want to express myself in the online world in the way that I can’t in the offline one. I tend to be a smart phone user and I’m connecting online from my mobile, at home, at work or at college.

I use the internet to gain knowledge, information and to educate myself about the world. I’m not very interested in social networking but I do want to hear from like-minded people especially to help me make purchase decisions. I’m very interested in the latest thing.

The internet is important for me to establish and maintain relationships. I have a busy life whether it’s my profession or managing the home. I use things like social networking to keep in touch with people I wouldn’t have time to otherwise. I’m a big home internet home user and I’m very open to talking to brands and looking for promotions. That said I’m not really the kind of person to voice my opinions online.

And how should you go about engaging them appropriately via their respective digital life style activities ?

Digital Landscape PDF
http://budurl.com/DigitalLandscape

Digital Lifestyles PDF
http://budurl.com/DigitalLifestyle

Drivers of Online Behaviour PDF
http://budurl.com/OnlineBehaviour

Activating Social Media PDF
http://budurl.com/TNSocialMedia