 | Issue: | Latin America 2012 |
| Article no.: | 15 | |
| Topic: | The digital consumer: Revealing content desires and uncovering Trends – The amazing opportunity to do good | |
| Author: | Winston Rivero | |
| Title: | Senior Director of Latin America | |
| Organisation: | comScore | |
| PDF size: | 257KB |
About author
Winston Rivero is Senior Director of Latin America for comScore. He was appointed to lead comScore’s Subscriber Analytix solution for the Latin America and Caribbean regions in March 2012. Mr Rivero brings more than 15 years of experience in international sales, consultation & collaboration with telco operators in the Latin America & Caribbean region in many different areas of OSS/BSS, including analytics, data collection and mediation solutions, interconnect billing, least cost routing, service activation, retail billing, online charging and policy management. During the last 15 years he has worked for companies such as INTEC (now CSG International), Telarix, Volubill and Newtoms. He is also a public speaker and a podcaster with focus on technology.
Mr Rivero has a degree in Administration with focus on IT. He was born in Venezuela and is now based in Atlanta, USA.
Article abstract
The ‘Power to do Good’ is exercised when “the masses receive, listen and act upon a message that compels them to do Good”. That message is brought to the masses via the Internet, and the Internet is the tool that “we first make, then it makes us”. Latin America is the fastest-growing region for Internet ‘visitors’, with 3 in 5 under the age of 35. The region leads the world in growth of the young Digital Native population, who now have the means of building up brands, tarnishing brands, challenging authority or driving new business. This new world brings new behaviour that must be discovered and tracked in order to attract, satisfy and retain audiences’ attention, and this can be achieved by analysing subscribers’ digital behaviour.
Full Article
Singularity means: “The period during which the pace of technological change is so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life is irreversible transformed” Ray Kurzweil.
A few weeks ago I was invited to speak at an important conference in Latin America on a session entitled, “What the digital consumer wants and trends related to multiplatform content”. The idea itself is fascinating because it comprises, in one sentence, the reality of today’s ever-changing digital world and the rise of the digital consumer. Changes in the digital universe have been exponential rather than linear; providing a plethora of new opportunities and challenges for today’s businesses.
In order to understand what digital consumers want, let’s first discuss who they are. Digital consumers are in constant communication. They use digital technologies in every aspect of their lives, gradually turning the globe into an enormous and powerful network of human interaction. Very rapidly, we have seen digital consumers take the innovative tools at their disposal, modify them to meet their personal needs and in turn rapidly change today’s world.
It is clear that this is a new era. Such young digital consumers have been given the generation name of Digital Native – those whose habits, standards, expectations and even social norms come from the fact that they have grown up in a culture deeply immersed in technology. However, what about the rest of us? Well, non-digital natives have the opportunity to adopt a digital native lifestyle rather easily, and as a result we are witnessing the rise of a truly digital population; spanning across demographic groups, socio-economic segments and country borders.
What’s the impact of this new digital consumer? They can, among other things:
– Challenge Authority – with political upheaval fuelled by social networking.
– Tarnish a Brand – with the ability to express opinions in the digital discourse.
– Support a Brand – with the newly empowered force of a Like.
– Drive Business – with viral immediate communication.
Companies, non-profit organisations and even governments are learning to tap into the power of the digital consumer, however many organizations have learned the lesson the hard way. Two typical mistakes are:
– An impulsive but short-lived passion for technology without the necessary strategy put in place,
– Lack of customer insights: Companies launch plans and make investments without taking the time to understand digital behaviour of their customer and what is driving that behaviour.
To help avoid these mistakes, organizations need to understand their digital consumers. In doing so, they will be better equipped to develop and implement a digital strategy that will drive them to new heights.
Uncovering trends – Latin American vs rest of the world:
Key to understanding the digital consumer is data that helps to classify the many activities of today’s digital consumers. Businesses can use these insights to make key strategic decisions. To demonstrate this point, let’s take a look at how Latin American digital consumers behave vs. the rest of the world. There are some interesting findings in several key areas: Growth, Demographics, Engagement and Search
Growth: Latin America is the Fastest-Growing Region
Demographics: Latin America’s Online Population Skews towards the Young
Three in five Internet Visitors are Under the Age of 35
Engagement: Engagement with News/Information Content is below the Global Average Except in Argentina
Search: Latin Americans Search More than Any Other Users Across the Globe
Behaviour and content desires
Measuring the digital world usage helps marketers discover what is most important in driving digital content consumption. Among other areas, it is clear that consumers desire to:
1. Access: Consumers seek quick and easy access to digital content. So always be there!
2. Engage: Consumers absorb content that is sensory rich, shareable, portable and relevant to their needs. So become a source of valuable content!
3. Connect: Consumers share ideas in many forms: text, images, videos, social links. So become part of the conversation!
4. Collaborate: Consumers thrive in collaboration, whether it is writing software with open code, online fund-raising, adding topics to wikis, etc. So invite your customer to help build your enterprise!
5. Customize: Consumers desire to have a personal experience online. So make your offering adaptable!
When we think of access, it is inevitable to consider the fact that the connected world uses the Telco infrastructure and the web as the highways of the present and the route to the future. Telco providers have been vital enablers of modernity. No other core infrastructure has ever been so rapidly deployed catapulting rural areas, like a time machine, from the past (unconnected world) to the present and the future (connected world). They have empowered the digital natives and the digital adopters, energizing a population that is increasingly hungry for connection and content. This is just the beginning, more speed, better devices will come, pushing Telcos to carefully manage the all you can eat party.
Telcos and vendors propose technology (access and content), but the general population decides how it is to be used (customization, personalisation). Customization deserves special attention, as Marshal McLuhan said: “First we build tools, then they build us”. Subscribers constantly take content, tools and apps at their disposal and modify them to meet personal and evolving needs. The Power to do Good finds its maximum expression when the masses receive, listen and act based upon a message that compels them to do good. The best way to reach such optimum results is by engaging the audience. Such a monumental task is only possible through analysis of the digital behaviour and taking into consideration affinity profiles, content, geographies, economics, social realities and even politics along with many other relevant factors. It is about going beyond intuition and embracing analytical facts in order to engage with an always-on audience that is constantly telling us when and where they are ready to interact with us. Therefore, uncovering trends and determining digital behaviours are crucial.
In Latin America, nearly all operators agree that subscriber analytics are essential to their strategies, enabling them to:
– Conduct data service analysis including data consumption trends and even overlay data service maps with actual usage.
– Analyze tariff plans to determine the level of success and performance.
– Monitor device consumption trends.
– Observe customer interest and even loyalty trends.
The level of attention and investment in this strategy is growing and companies are witnessing the positive effect these analytics have on their businesses.
The amazing opportunity to do good
The rise of the digital consumer has created challenges and opportunities to organizations across the globe and has forced industries to evolve to address this new consumer and their desires. Businesses that seek to learn as much as possible about their consumers and use technology to advance their customer relationships will make the most of this digital revolution. For consumers, today’s global reality is based on digital inter-connectedness, giving each individual the potential to use technology to do good with nearly limitless opportunities.
