We know you have heard the call to "join the conversation," but are you listening?
Adam Sarner, principal analyst at Gartner, discusses the opportunity to reach Generation V in this way:
“If companies follow a truly persona-centric approach, they can use the highly relevant information the persona leaves. Although the real person may never be known, far more intimate information of the persona's actions, personality, lifestyle habits and attitudes can be collected and exploited for business goals."
In the past, effective brand campaigns were able to tell people who they were through brand identity and advertising. Marlboro told us we could become the Marlboro Man when we smoke Marlboros. Apple tells us we can be different by using Apple.
In the new digital world, Generation V will provide companies with the added challenge of trying to find that personal identity behind the virtual "personas" that they display in these virtual worlds. Branding campaigns of the past will not succeed because companies will not have the ability they had in the past to force a personality on people through branding and advertising.
So how do we understand this consumer? In the virtual worlds, by creating digital personas for themselves through their expanded channels of self expression, people can help us to find who they truly are. Due to the increased control over their identities in virtual spaces, the opportunity exists to get closer to who they really are than ever before.
The question for marketers will be: Are you listening or assuming? Marketing success in virtual worlds is not simply about mastering a new set of tools. The timeless techniques of listening to the consumer and dropping assumptions and stereotypes still work. The difference now is that consumers have new platforms and worlds that they spend time in and thrive in that are very different from what marketers are used to.
Companies that respect the communities and join the conversation rather than control the conversation will ultimately succeed in reaching Generation V. Those companies that seek to pursue actions in the virtual world with a focus on controlling the conversation and view the digital landscape as a place that can simply be exploited for business goals (without taking the time to learn about the community) may suffer irreparable damage to their brand, not just in the virtual world but in the real world as well.
As a marketer, it is your responsibility to learn about the virtual community that you are looking to market in (just as you would enter a community in the real world). Unfortunately there is no single marketing solution that will be effective for all virtual communities (just as there is no one solution that will work for every website) but the diligent marketer will take our advice, learn the attributes of a given community (just as KZero did with Second Life) and add value to the community through integration, collaboration and co-creation.
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Adam Broitman is director, emerging and creative strategy, Morpheus Media. Jack Tatar is CEO, GEM Research Solutions.
