Ten years from now the largest influence on all purchases will be the virtual experience associated with them, according to Gartner.
The research company says by 2015, more money will be spent marketing and selling to multiple anonymous online personas than marketing and selling offline. Gartner describes this transition in customer interaction as being driven by Generation Virtual, also known as Generation V.
Generation V is the recognition that general behaviour, attitudes and interests start to blend together in an online environment, according to Gartner.
As more people from older generations - who are living longer - and the younger generations go online and participate/communicate in a flat virtual environment, the generational distinctions break down. Customers will hop across segments at various times of life for various reasons, and are likely to act like several generations at any given time, says Gartner.
"For Generation V, the virtual environment provides many aspects of a level playing field, where age, gender, class and income of individuals are less important and less rewarded than competence, motivation and effort," says Adam Sarner, principal analyst at Gartner.
"The opportunity for reputation, prestige, influence and personal growth provides a powerful social draw for the masses to spend more time in a virtual world."
For companies it means access to new economies, Sarner says. "For example, by 2030 there will be twice as many people over age 65 in the US, with 70 times the real median income of their corresponding age group in 1990. They will be spending more time online engaging as Generation V members."
Companies will have new reach and access to their growing discretionary income that they could not get before, he adds.
"While traditional wisdom has focused on customer identification for one-to-one targeted marketing campaigns, cross-selling and so on, the reality of people creating multiple anonymous personas, blogs, online communities, and the sheer power of their influence means every customer will have multiple online personas driving business relationships with companies," Sarner says.
"Companies will need to shift from collecting personal data about individual customers toward collecting more complete and more relevant data around online customer behaviour and influence on others," he adds.
"Companies will need new processes, new skills and a restructuring of how data is collected and used as they shift from demographic to psychographic insight. 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."
Share