I recently uncovered an old OMMA Magazine that featured a section entitled the “10 things you need to know about 10 things” which included a great section on consumers. It’s nice and sound-bitey but significant as well. It’s interesting to note how things have changed since the article was written over a year ago. I’ve posted the article here with some additional thinking in italics…

1. They’re mouthy. The polite way to say it is “unmediated discourse.” It means that online, anyone can and will call you a dog. They also may write you love letters. Those who are passionate about your company will make it their mission to spread the word. So, thrill them.

Contrary to popular belief, most CGC/online WOM is in fact positive, but it’s the negative stuff that gets noticed and stirs fear in the minds of brand managers. And it’s actually the negative stuff that presents the most interesting brand management opportunities – transparency and genuine effort can go a long way. In today’s economy, it can go even further; righting a wronged customer can turn a detractor into a promoter and create loyalty beyond what previously existed.

2. They’d rather listen to each other than to you. When it comes to buying, the opinions of their peers carry enormous weight. According to Deloitte’s Consumer Products group, 62 percent read online reviews written by their peers, and of those who do, more than eight in 10 said they were directly influenced by these reviews.

Sense check, of course! Fortunately in addition to fueling the influence of WOM, digital media makes it more accountable. Research is showing that peer reviews on ecommerce sites increases conversion rate, and several of our clients have experienced higher customer quality when their conversion is preceeded by a relevant form of social media.

3. They’re moving targets – literally. There are now 243 million mobile phone users in the United States, sending nearly 1 billion text messages a day. They’re increasingly watching video and listening to music via their phones. These little machines are their best friends – and they could be yours, too.

This is in the US where the mobile phones per capita is slightly worse than Slovakia, now imagine the global opportunity.

4. They’re snackers, constantly scarfing down tiny chunks of media. They scan the headlines in their RSS reader, tap into video shorts at work, speed-read online news, watch TV shows in fragments on the phone as they navigate the day. Content wolfed down this fast needs to be easily digestible.

That’s what I mean by ‘nice and sound-bitey’ and condiering the recent growth of Twitter, it would seem quite logical. But it’s also important to note that at the same time people now seek and have access to more information and detail on the topics of their choosing than ever before. Doctors complain that patients are self-diagnosing too frequently because of the web, which may be a downside, but the upside is that we’re all much more educated on the subjects that matter to us most.

5. They need to be free. There’s so much free media online, it’s tough to get someone to register for your walled garden. Nor do they want to pay for content, with the exception of highly desirable movies and music. As The New York Times discovered, ads can support content better than subscription fees.

Content is just the beginning, services are the future – look what the iphone and the App Store are doing, that’s interesting. Ad supported content and services may sound like a bit too much advertising but as marketers lean more towards service and away from solicitation it may not be as bad as it sounds

6. They love gadgets, even the digital kind. Widgets – those mini-apps that display content on a Web site, blog or desktop screen – are the fastest-growing online application, reaching 40.3 percent of U.S. Internet users, according to comScore. Google’s Open Social initiative could quickly double that. Marketers will pile on.

Marketers are piling on and the battle ground is now in your hand not on your desktop. But that doesn’t mean widgets are a marketing panacea. Clutter can occur anywhere, including amongst widgets, so again the imperative is service over solicitation.

7. They’ve gotten over the whole privacy thing. After you’ve posted photos of your water birth right alongside your water bong and videos of drunken shenanigans next to the story of your appendectomy on your blog, do you really care that Google is keeping track of your search queries?

Maybe not, the Facebook TOS debacle demostrates that privacy, or at least ownership, is still a sensitive arena.

8. They’ve got game. Over 40 percent of U.S. households have a video game console system, while over 120 million people play video or computer games, according to DFC Intelligence. Increasingly, those games contain product placements and ads.

That number keeps going up and more interestingly, the image many people have of a ‘gamer’ is less representative of the gaming population. Get this, my parents have a Wii and I don’t!

9. They’re video maniacs. Every age group is tuning in online, according toadvertising.com, with an equal breakdown between men and women. The most-watched content is not music or movie trailers, surprisingly, but news (though this is tricky because Perez Hilton counts as news). While online viewers would rather not have ads at all, they’d rather watch them than pay for content.

The economy is really driving this one as people looking to cut their household costs often look at cable as a little luxury that’s easy to forgo now that most TV shows and movies are available online for free or a couple bucks – see sling.com, hulu.com and netflix.com.

10. They still haven’t found what they’re looking for. An iProspect survey found that 57 percent of consumers agree with “search is becoming more important to me.” At the same time, offline media is increasingly driving their searches, so cross-media integration is more key than ever.

Search has had explosive growth over the past couple years but the market is coming around to the idea that it’s a media made to meet demand, not create it. As such, without the support of other marketing activities that drive demand and interest, search has a ceiling. And exposure to conversion analysis indicats that it has probably been getting more credit than it deserves.

About Matthew Cronin

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