Companies are trying to understand the digital consumer but they often get the basics wrong. Digital consumers are not a segment. They aren't 'early adopters.' Almost every consumer today is a digital consumer. A digital consumer wants to do more with his or her digital tools and will share data to get the job done. Sensors, data, location, social media, and mobile are five forces that create digital context.
This deck was presented in February 2014 to 100 companies who are following the general insights gathered from the Digital Consumer Collaborative via web seminar.
Release 1 covers - What is the Digital Consumer Collaborative - How to define the digital consumer - Three key attributes of consumer behavior: queuing, topics, and tasks. - The five forces that create digital context - Sensors, data, location, social media, and mobile - Scoble & Israel’s, The Age of Context - Redefining what context means - Digital ethnography and other steps that companies can take to understand the consumer.
An audio presentation can be found on Stone Mantel’s website, YouTube, and SlideShare.
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QUEUING AND THE AGE OF CONTEXT Release 1 – The Digital Consumer Collaborative Web Seminar FEBRUARY 2014 goStoneMantel.com Slideshare.net/DaveNorton Seminar presentation available on Youtube
This deck was presented in February 2014 to 100 companies who are following the general insights gathered from the Digital Consumer CollaboraHve via web seminar. Release 1 covers • What is the Digital Consumer CollaboraHve • How to define the digital consumer • Three key aNributes of consumer behavior: queuing, topics,
and tasks. • The five forces that create digital context
• Sensors, data, locaHon, social media, and mobile • Scoble & Israel’s, The Age of Context
• Redefining what context means • Digital ethnography and other steps that companies can take
to understand the consumer. An audio presentaHon can be found on Stone Mantel’s website, YouTube, and SlideShare.
1. Push our understanding of what the digital consumer will want from mobile experiences in the next three years. 2. Find new ‘jobs-‐to-‐get-‐done’ in the digital environment that increase customers’ likelihood to spend more Hme with a business or brand. 3. IdenHfy strategies and tac5cs to make businesses more effecHve in creaHng value from the delivery of their experience to customers through digital technologies. 4. Discover new ways of profiling target audiences based on digital usage. 5. Develop techniques that aid in helping customers feel more comfortable in sharing data with companies in the right way and at the right Hme. 6. Develop language, tools, and principles for understanding how consumers behave in an increasingly mobile environment.
ABOUT THE DCC Primary research and co-‐creaHon for forward-‐thinking customer experience strategists, done collaboraHvely. Launched in Sept 2013 Finishes in Sept 2014 • 10 companies • 100s of hours of field work • Discovering new jobs to do • Defining new strategies and
RELEASE 1 This presentaHon includes some of the general findings from the first round of digital ethnography. General findings can be shared with the public. You must be a member of the Digital Consumer CollaboraHve to gain access to the specific findings.
The Five Forces described by Scoble & Israel are 1. Mobile—they focus primarily on wearables, especially Google Glass. 2. Social Media 3. Data—specifically what they call ‘liNle data.’ 4. Sensors and the internet of things. 5. LocaHon—which everyone is focusing on. They argue these forces emphasize context going forward—and that’s a good thing. “Queuing” suggests that the very nature of context will change.
The Digital Consumer is Normal Companies conHnue to debate whether the digital consumer is a segment, a mindset, or a group of early adopters. They regularly discuss digital consumer behavior as an innovaHon or an excepHon to how consumpHon really happens. None of this is now true. Almost all adult consumers are digital consumers. Digital is a normal, essenHal aspect of consumer decision-‐making and to treat it as excepHonal is to imply that the consumer’s behavior is not normal or that it might go away. We must start from the standpoint that it’s normal.
Me and a couple of my favorite sodas. And my daughter aNempHng a photo bomb
Me waiHng for train to go to work while listening to music via Google Music
SELFIES
I use my iPhone more than I probably use any other device.
If all consumers today are digital consumers, then shouldn’t all research of consumers apply digital data gathering techniques and include digital moments?
DEFINING THE DIGITAL CONSUMER People think differently when they embrace their digital devices. Topics, tasks, and queuing are building blocks for understanding behavior.
At his or her core, the Digital Consumer is a person who wants to do more. Digital technology eliminates or reduces the gap between thinking about something and gemng the job done. When that gap is closed, the consumer desires to do more things at once. Three aNributes of how the consumer interacts with digital to accomplish more are: Topics | Tasks | Queuing
When a device or app is introduced into a consumer’s life, the ability to act immediately changes his or her thinking (and acHng). The consumer becomes more enabled to close the gap between thinking and gemng the job done.
The impact on behavior includes: Less investment in one single act. The desire and ability to do mulHple things at once. A strong aNachment to the people and acHviHes you do through digital devices. The gap becomes something to overcome. They want to close the gap.
The more empowered people are to accomplish more in a short period of Hme, the more people meander. They move from thought to task to thought to another thought. Digital doesn’t meander. To facilitate the interacHon between digital tools and thought, people and their devices queue.
Because digital consumers can accomplish mulHple tasks at the same Hme (and therefore do more jobs) they rely heavily on their devices to keep track of where they are at in an acHvity and prompt them when they need to pay aNenHon. That connecHve behavior is queuing. Here is how the queue works:
The consumer has a job to get done 1.
“This morning I was extremely frustrated by my two-‐year-‐old. Since I don't really have someone to call and vent to, I vented on my blog. I let it all out. It felt so good to let go of the emoHon.”
She idenHfies a digital tool (app, web content, device) to help her accomplish the job.
2.
“I vented on my blog; I let it all out.”
Heidi needs to vent
I love Blogger, Facebook, and GO SMS Pro (texHng) for the same reason: I love communicaHng with people. I love to share bits of my life and get feedback from others, whether their experiences are the same as mine or completely different. I love people, and digital tools allow me to connect.
That tool becomes a part of her life. 3. (SomeHmes, not always, for a long period of Hme.)
My phone apps (favorites are orange): aCar Amazon Amazon Kindle Amazon MP3 Any.do B210K Pro Barcode Scanner Blogger Calculator Calendar Camera Campus Portal Cardio Trainer Chord Wheel Chrome CitaHon Index Clock CNN Contacts
ConvertPad DicHonary Dropbox Drugs.com Evernote Facebook Fandango Flashlight FM Radio Gmail GO SMS Pro Goggles Goodreads Google+ Gospel Art Book Gospel Library Grocery IQ Groupon Hangouts
IMDb Indexing Instagram LDS Hymn Book LDS Temples LDS Tools LDS Youth Lookout Maps Media Remote Mirror Mobile Metronome Mormon Channel Music MyTracks MyFitnessPal Next News & Weather Noom Coach
Phone Pinterest Play Store PPLD Mobile Reader Ringtone Maker Run Double ShopKick SoundsHound SpoHfy T-‐Mobile tapTrak Translate TripIt Tumblr TwiNer Voice Recorder WebMD YouTube
She decides to remember the tool. She organizes the tool spaHally into her digital devices.
Queuing empowers the consumer to accomplish more tasks at the same Hme and turns the topic into an ongoing, recurring event that progresses over Hme. 5.
Because they can quickly align what they think with what they want to do, consumers are empowered to do more at the same Hme. Digital consumers can do mulHple things at more or less the same Hme, but they have even more things that they could be doing. Queues are how people organize their digital lives.
Topic Tools, apps, devices, acHviHes, content, interests, hobbies, requests—whatever can be thought of and interacted with digitally—organized topically and designed to recur. Task When the consumer acts on the topic to accomplish a job the topic becomes a task. Queuing The thought-‐to-‐task interface that connects the person to mulHple topics and tasks and creates the feeling of producHvity.
Because the goal is to shorten the gap between thinking and doing, consumers almost always will give up informaHon about their behavior if they think the informaHon will reduce steps required and help them accomplish a goal. Consumers are increasingly coming to the opinion that if it’s digital it will be shared.
WHAT QUEUING TEACHES US Because people can do more things at once, they are thinking about more than just what is in front of them. The moment and the place are not as important as thinking about the tasks to get done.
At this moment there are 10 things that the digital consumer could be doing. Only one of them is right in front of him.
The biggest quesHon that adverHsing must address today is . . .
In a digital world, people can do almost anything almost anywhere. There’s an app for starHng your car—from another country.
how big of a factor is locaHon in determining what the individual is thinking about at the moment they are located somewhere? It likely depends on what else is in his or her queue. “Contextual” adverHsing could easily become more oten just messaging that signals to consumers “I know you’re here.” DCCi
“It’s not the big data mountain that maNers so much to people, it’s those Hny spoonfuls we extract whenever we search, chat, view, listen, buy or do anything online. . . . LiNle pieces make us smarter.”
Companies do NOT need to anHcipate every next thing that the consumer will need in each moment. AnHcipate how to get the job done, not what the consumer is going to think next. BeNer to let them tell you ahead of Hme what they want to accomplish. DCCi
3. CondiHons The condiHons that are unique to the acHon taken are influenced heavily by what’s already in the queue.
Digital context shits things . . . 1. Environment As the individual increases in ability to do more, the situaHon and environment become less about what is happening here/now.
2. Meaning The volume of acHvity going on in a moment affects the meaning of and completeness of every decision (e.g., what exactly is a considered purchase?)
Assess your digital porfolio, especially mobile. Do you facilitate queuing? Do you get the job done for customers through digital faster than your compeHHon?
Develop an insights agenda that explains the digital context of your target audience.
Revisit your moments of truth and customer journey. Determine how digital is changing the way consumers think and interact with your product.
“Traject” your consumer. Even if they are not your innovaHons, determine how sensors, social media, mobile/wearables, data, and locaHon will affect your consumer.
Ethnography is a powerful innovaHon in research because it captures context. Digital Ethnography changes the way you interview, observe, and analyze. It addresses digital context. July 17-‐18 in Boulder, Colorado
Make beNer strategic decisions • Consumer behavior • Strategic framework use • Case study format Charter the next DCC agenda Stretch your team (And bring your family)
Digital Context Experience Audit
Assess your company’s digital tools for their ability to get into the consumer’s queue and facilitate queuing.
We are a bouHque insights consultancy with over thirty years of experience producing meaningful brand experiences for consumers and value for companies. We build custom insights agendas, develop strategic frameworks, and guide execuHon of holisHc experienHal offerings. We are the very best at creaHng value from exisHng experiences.