Global 24/7 connections are terrific, but only as long as they’re manageable and live up to expectations, says Diane Crispell.

My daughter texted me from her high school English class on the morning of February 11^th to let me know that Hosni Mubarak was stepping down. Yes, she was kind of breaking school rules, but I thought it was great (a) that her teacher turned on the TV in the classroom so the kids could be witness to the event, and (b) that she was excited enough about it to contact me (even if she didn’t know his name and couldn’t spell Egypt).

Exactly one month later, while waiting for my vehicle to be serviced at my local garage on the morning of March 11^th, I looked at some photos that an employee’s friend had just posted on Facebook – of his Tokyo office in shambles, mere hours after the catastrophic earthquake hit Japan.

These are the moments that explain why 65% of Americans say technology makes them feel connected. They also epitomize one of GfK Roper’s global Key Trends – Instant Everywhere.

Consumers appreciate the benefits of instant-and-everywhere access to people, information, entertainment, and products. They like being able to shop whenever they like, watch TV shows and movies whenever they want, talk to (or text) their friends wherever they are, and take their work wherever they go – OK, maybe they don’t love that last part so much.

This 24/7 culture does have its downside – the media are rife with reports about sleep deprivation brought on by people’s apparent addiction to staying connected around the clock. The message to business in this instance is to help people manage the technology rather than the other way around.

In general, however, the appetite for “instant everywhere” appears limitless. Witness the growth of Netflix and the competition it’s engendered. For example, Amazon recently introduced free and unlimited instant streaming of selected movies and TV shows for its Prime customers, of which I’m one. The only problem is that my online video experience is more like trickling than streaming.

This brings up another potential pitfall of the Instant Everywhere culture – i.e., how “instant” and “everywhere” it really is. Most people have experienced the frustrations and hiccups of dead zones and dropped connections. Businesses should not underestimate the discouragement factor. I know that I’ve abandoned online purchases when I could not easily find what I was looking for or when a transaction did not work quickly or smoothly enough. That’s the danger of raising people’s expectations; you have to deliver on them.

I live in hopes that I will one day be able to watch an entire online video without first pausing it and waiting for it to fully buffer on my system.

Elmo Roper, creator of The Influentials

The Blink author’s latest pronouncements should be viewed in the context of broader consumer trends, argues David Crosbie

We at GfK Roper Consulting are particularly proud that it was our illustrious predecessors who created the concept of the Influentials – the one in ten citizens who tell the other nine how to vote, where to eat and what to buy.

The concept of Influentials was first coined by Elmo Roper in the 1940s, in a segmentation created for Standard Oil. Starting in the US in 1973, and then later globally, we have identified and profiled those well-informed and trusted individuals who are sought out for and disperse advice on a whole host of topics, and who are so valuable to marketers. As traditional forms of advertising are trusted less and less, and as technology develops, we have also monitored the steady growth of ‘word of mouse’, as it supplements traditional word of mouth.

It’s in this context that I was particularly interested to read Malcolm Gladwell’s controversial article on social networks in the New Yorker magazine last month, and to monitor the fierce debate it ignited on the Twittersphere and elsewhere. Of course Gladwell is something of an Influential himself, with books such as The Tipping Point and Blink selling millions of copies and influencing countless marketing strategies.  In his article, Gladwell warns that the motivational power of social networks is being over-estimated, explaining that a Facebook friend (or other virtual relationship) should not be equated to a real friendship, as some have tried to, because the ties are much weaker in nature. His argument related particularly to social activism, but it certainly caused me to reconsider the relative worth of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ ties.

Our GfK Roper Reports Worldwide data show how virtual relationships are the fastest growing form of interaction globally, with 20% of consumers in our 2010 study saying they had been in touch with someone they only knew online in the past month. We also know that online sources are increasingly trusted as a source of information on which products or services to buy. As the growth in popularity of product review sites has shown, strong personal ties are not quite as necessary when it comes to deciding what to buy or where to eat, though the views of a friend will still count for more than those of a stranger.

As we see it, not only do the myriad social networking sites make it easier for traditional Influentials to carry out their business of spreading the word about products and services they like or dislike and responding to requests from acquaintances for advice, but they also encourage others who may have never previously considered doing so to review a hotel on TripAdvisor, say, or to consider the opinions of fellow consumers via a product review site.

As Gladwell argues, Twitter and Facebook may not be as suited to organising revolutions as more conventional forms of social activism, but in the world of retail they undoubtedly strengthen the hand of the global consumer, and as such their power should not be dismissed lightly by marketers in any sector.

Consumer power is here to stay in 2010

By David Crosbie

Perhaps it’s a telling indictment of my general apathy and lack of moral fibre, but I was not one of the half million Britons who helped to strike a blow for creative diversity by buying a copy of an expletive-ridden 1990s rock song in the run up to Christmas.

Allow me to explain. As you may be aware, the race for the coveted ‘Christmas Number One’ in the UK music singles chart was enlivened this year by an online campaign run through Facebook. For the past four years, the Christmas Number One slot has been taken by the winner of the popular TV talent contest X Factor, which is similar in format to American Idol and shares a judge in the form of Simon Cowell.

Jon and Tracy Morter, a regular couple from just outside London, decided that they had seen enough of this dominance and therefore started a campaign on Facebook encouraging people to buy the 1992 track ‘Killing in the Name’ by Rage Against the Machine instead of X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s cover of Miley Cirus’ ‘The Climb’. Their selection of this track may have had something to do with the recurring lyric, “I won’t do what you tell me” as well as the liberal sprinkling of offensive language. The campaign, begun on 13 December, was successful – particularly after Cowell branded it as “stupid” and “cynical” – and ‘Killing in the Name’ gained the top slot on 20 December.

Besides the schadenfreude to be gained from seeing a powerful media mogul being taken down a peg or two, this incident was just the latest and most striking example of consumers around the world using the power of online social networking to influence events. During 2009, this power was exercised in more serious circumstances by Iranian citizens, who kept the outside world informed via Twitter when traditional media were suppressed during a period of instability.

Another example from the UK was the reaction to a column by journalist Jan Moir in the right wing Daily Mail newspaper. In commenting on the death of singer Stephen Gately, who announced his homosexuality a few years previously, Moir made comments which were perceived to be homophobic. A campaign orchestrated via Twitter led to the UK’s Press Complaints Commission being inundated with over 25,000 complaints – a record number by some margin – in a very short space of time. One interesting aspect of this incident is that it gave rise to a new (if perhaps short-lived) verb, to be janmoired, which has been defined by media commentator Roy Greenslade as being, “condemned by a collective of tweeters demanding censorship.”

All of these examples underline the speed and ability of online campaigns to make a big difference very quickly. They relate to the Consumers in Control trend – the tendency of consumers to harness the power of the internet and word of mouth to inform their purchase decisions and brand choices – which GfK Roper Consulting has been tracking for a number of years. What these latest examples suggest is that the ability of individual consumers to influence many others is set only to grow during the new decade. While this force has been harnessed in many positive ways in the past few years through viral marketing campaigns, it is more important than ever to be careful not to incur the “rage” of an increasingly empowered and demanding global consumer. Particularly given that, according to annual global consumer study, Roper Reports® Worldwide, fully 64% of global consumers say they complain when products or services are not of expected quality. Happy New Year!

Contact us