Email, search, social networks, online and mobile, all of these platforms are about a need to know. As a generation we have become obsessed with information even the most obscure and trivial are now searched, discussed and communicated.
But as mere mortals, our brains would explode if we were to read and respond to all the communication we are hit with on a daily basis. Just think about it for a minute. The average person is presented with over 2000 communications per day, that’s over 125 per hour or just over 2 per minute on the basis of a 16 hour day!
And yet, we have never been more personally connected, creative or more communicative. The amount of information available to us is staggering and more is added every second of every day.
It would take 412.3 years to watch all the YouTube videos posted up until January 2009. There are on average 13 hours of video posted to YouTube every minute. There are over 13 million articles available on Wikipedia, 3.6 Billion photos archived on Flickr.com as of June 2009. The monthly growth rate of Twitter between January and February 2009 was 1382%. Globally we spend 5 Billion minutes a day on Facebook and share over 1 Billion pieces of news and content each week. But the most amazing thing is that if we were to look at our connections and contacts in the virtual world with whom we regularly communicate we would find that we have never personally met 85% of them.
So how do we cope with the vast amount of available information and communication and stay sane? Well, we filter, we’ve always done it, and the youth have become very good at it. If it’s not relevant or engaging or rewarding or about ‘me or us’, it’s ignored. Traditional demographics and segmentation and therefore mass media are fading fast, people now belong to tribes, sometimes many tribes and commute between communities and interest groups. Marketers are becoming aware of this enhanced niche phenomenon especially in the youth market (16 to 29). The introduction of PVRs to skip more than 70% of TV Ads has produced a dramatic drop in the effectiveness of mass media interruption Ads. We have perfected the art of averting our line of site to ignore online Ads and block pop-ups; even mobile is not immune to Ad blur. But the one thing we do more of now than ever before is communicate with ‘friends and contacts’. We see these personal communications as adding value no matter how trivial and this is because we associate the contact with ‘real’ people not faceless brands and manufactured messages.
Pull is the new push, niche is the new norm, me is the new mass, listening is as important as talking and permission is non negotiable.
Marketers need to find ways to integrate rather than interrupt, become more relevant, provide information that adds value to the recipients life based on the knowledge gleaned from observation, listening and asking the right questions about their interests, values, needs and concerns. Knowledge is one of today’s major currencies and as consumers seek out niches, tribes and communities with which they have an affinity they become more liberated and free-thinking and will naturally demand that brands provide products and services that are more closely matched to their needs and expectations.
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