360DigitalInfluence

In her hit single ‘Single Ladies’, Beyonce says, “if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it”. If only it was that simple. For decades, brands have been trying to ‘put a ring on’ teens. However, few have succeeded in gaining teens’ commitment; they are arguably the most non-committal group of consumers out there. This digitally sophisticated generation is increasingly savvy, wary and fickle. However, with huge spending power, teenagers are the consumers of today and of the future. This has resulted in many brands ‘fishing where the fish are’, upping their online presence with YouTube videos, Facebook profiles and multiple digital campaigns. Still, few have been successful in capturing the hearts (and wallets) of this highly sought after group.

According to the Oxford dictionary, ‘Influence’ is defined as ‘The power or ability to affect someone’s beliefs or actions.’ In order to successfully influence someone, it is essential to gain their respect and trust by actively demonstrating you are interested in them and understand them. In the case of most brands, this merely equates to jumping on the latest digital bandwagon. For example, getting onto Twitter just because ‘every other teen is ‘Tweeting’ these days’. Hanging out in teenage hotspots is one thing, but if a brand doesn’t understand teens’ needs and motivations for being there in the first place, success will merely boil down to luck. It’s no wonder so few brands have succeeded with this challenging group of consumers.

In 2009, Ogilvy Malaysia set out to better understand and effectively influence this elusive group, by conducting research specifically to uncover the role of technology in the life of 15-18 year old Malaysian teens.

3 key discoveries were made:

Firstly, the basic needs of teens have largely remained the same throughout the years.

The 5 basic needs of teenagers have been identified as the need for Self-Expression, 24/7 Communication with Peers, Privacy , Self-Achievement and a Sense of Belonging. All these needs are manifestations of a deeper need for Identity Discovery and Development.

A child’s identity is shaped solely by his or her parents. Upon reaching early teenage years, the need to discover and define one’s self emerges . In helping teens discover who they really are, the opinion of peers take precedence over those of their parents. It becomes exceedingly important for teens to belong and be accepted by their peer groups, to ensure they are not perceived as inadequate. This explains certain cult-like tendencies, such as worshipping the same movie stars, wearing the same clothes and rebelling against traditional authority.

The second discovery is that these digital natives cannot imagine life without technology.

Having grown up in a digital world, this generation lives and breathes technology. Perpetually online and connected 24/7, a 16 year old said “The Internet is like oxygen, when my computer doesn’t work I feel like my world has ended.” (Source: Ogilvy Malaysia 2009 research: ‘The Transitory World of Gen C Teens’). Almost half of Malaysian teens interviewed feel more comfortable expressing themselves on MSN instead of in person , and more than half feel naked without their mobile phone (Source: Ogilvy Malaysia 2009 research: ‘The Transitory World of Gen C Teens’) Technology has become a key part of their lifestyle, integrated in just about everything they do.

Finally, most importantly, a new ‘Transitory World’ has emerged as a result of technology.
For the generations of teenagers who had to discover and develop their identity without the benefits of technology, the process of identity discovery and development was a difficult one, often resulting in high social anxiety for fear of ridicule and rejection.

Thanks to technology, a whole new world has emerged for the teens of today, making this process significantly less painful and intimidating. Located in between their private and public worlds, the ‘Transitory World’ is an experimental buffer zone where teens are able to freely explore, express and experiment with the formulation of their identity before taking the giant leap of showcasing this identity in the public world.

Ubiquitous technological platforms such as mobile phones, social networking sites (SNS), instant messengers (IM) and blogs reside in the ‘Transitory World’. The fast, fluid nature of these tech-platforms assist teens in exploring and defining their identity with immediate affirmation.

SNS and blogs provide teens the canvas to easily create material that can be interacted with, commented on and changed quickly. Teens are able to update their online profile and blogs and receive almost instantaneous comments and feedback from friends. Different groupings on IM and private SNS groups help to further reinforce and establish existing peer groups. Mobile phones allow them to constantly keep their friends in the loop, strengthening their sense of belonging. The ‘Transitory World’ helps mitigate the anxiety, embarrassment, and humiliation teens often experienced during the crucial transition from their private world to the public world.

The ‘Transitory World’ is a fertile, safe-haven, where teens are receptive and open-minded. As it is still relatively untapped and uninhabited by brands, there is a huge opportunity for first-movers to greatly influence and impact teenagers. To do this, brands firstly need to realize the existence of such a world. They also need to understand how to best use technology to assist teens in meeting their basic needs, using the right technology platforms to meet their different needs.

By navigating and optimizing the ‘Transitory World’, brands will be finally be able to engage, influence and ‘put a ring’ on this highly prized group of consumers.

Why Tweetup?

Some of you might have seen tweets about the Ogilvy’s APAC Digital Influence Summit lately. Ogilvy’s DI Summit is an internal event held by the Asia Pacific Regional team where all the digital experts from around the region will be attending a 3-day event in Hong Kong to exchange digital knowledge, connect and bond with other team

Although the event is not open for public, we would like to offer you a chance to meet our team, head of the global digital influence team John Bell will also be flying all the way from Washington DC! It is a very rare opportunity for you to meet all of us at once, in the offline world!

When?

Tweetup will be held this Sunday, June 27th at 7pm. Not the perfect timing for tweetup but due to the World Cup schedule, this is the only time when venues are available.

Where?

Tweetup will be held in RED Soho as usual.

Address: 2/f, Kinwick Centre, 32 Hollywood Road, Soho Central. (Right next to the escalator above hollywood road)

How to sign up?

Here

See you there!

Marketers of Technology Products and Services can Help Travelers Get More Out of Vacations
(A version of this editorial was first published in Ad Age China) http://adage.com/china/article?article_id=139980
China’s leisure industry is a spontaneous dance of sounds, anticipation, restlessness, sensations, human heat and intense togetherness, good and bad.

The whole country seems to feel an overwhelming desire to see, capture and carry as much as possible. They want to touch, see, touch again and see it again and most importantly, see it through the lens of a camera.

The experience is all about capturing everything in sight with as many mega pixels as possible. And sightseeing is like a race against time, and innumerable fellow travelers.

Desire to capture the evidence of being in a place can even surpass the desire to experience the place itself.
So while the Chinese travelers are busy capturing they can sometimes lose on the moments and experience part. Add to this the fact that if they are unable to organize what they capture – they can even miss on these memories.

The relative inexperience of the Chinese leisure traveler is a reflection of China’s stage of development, and it offers fertile ground for marketers.

There are various ways to helping these Chinese travelers. And marketers of technology products can especially play an important role in this.

Film and camera companies can help Chinese tourists, many of whom are first-time owners of high-end digital cameras, find better ways of organizing travel pictures. Photographs can be brought to life in more ways than just sprinkling them on a blog, e-mailing them as large files or dumping them in some obscure corner of the hard drive,
For example, PC and Television companies can inspire the users through easy to use though music-layered slide shows on that can be viewed on large flat-screen TV sets. Right now only Apple comes close to providing this kind of inspiration.

Mobile phone companies and wireless carriers could offer more ways to use location-based services by developing and marketing applications that help people learn more about the temple in front of them or the myth about a lake they are walking past.

Even non- technology brands have many opportunities. Brands related to travel, travel accessories and hospitality could play a more important role here. So could brands that help people better understand the places and artifacts that so far they have only been clicking and carrying home in the flash memory of a newly acquired digital camera.

Automakers can help those traveling by car discover unknown attractions on the way to the hotel.

For those less savvy with technology, marketers could bundle promotional materials such as city guides with tourism accessories like North Face backpacks or camera lenses.

Advertisers have experimented with these ideas in western countries but in China, most remain unknown — even though the mainland has become a massive market for domestic tourism.

A moment between shooting those shadows

There is a popular saying in politics that all politics are local; and in China the same can be said about the Internet. Local players, in tune to the specific needs of the country’s “Netizens”, rule the digital space, and the numbers are staggering. Currently, the Internet in China is home to over 340 million users who are online for an average of 16 hours per week, the same amount of time they spend watching television. There are 111 million people managing a social network profile, and these numbers are growing daily. The power of the Internet in China has never been stronger and has not even begun to be realised.

It is no secret that the Internet in China has been an agent for reform, and it is serving as a valuable tool for people to explore a world often beyond their reach. The Internet is not only serving China’s growing set of Netizens though. It is quickly replacing traditional media as brands and companies seek to connect with their consumers in new and different ways. With the exception of Google, international platforms that offer a cut and paste version of their American or European sites simply fail and often get banned. Popular sites such as Facebook and Twitter have fallen victim to the Great Firewall of China. While young innovative Chinese Netizens can find a way to get to these sites, why would they want to? Chinese social media is simply way cooler.

The Internet in China is dominated by long-running, multi-service portals like Sina, QQ and Sohu that have been offering social networking, discussion forums, blogs, instant messaging and other “socialised media” long before Twitter and Facebook. As the nationally preferred form of social media, bulletin board systems (BBS) are available in every imaginable topic, and in these forums, Netizens can be extremely vocal, resourceful, risk-takers, subversive and sometimes a little worrisome.

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From May to October 2010, Shanghai will play host to the largest world fair in history and the organising bureau are ensuring it is a digital expo too. Expo Online is a key measure of their digital communications and we are now able to get a preview into what’s in store.

You can browse the 5.25 square-kilometre site and interact with the various country and corporate pavilions on the Pudong and Puxi sides of the Huangpu River respectively.

In the screen capture at the top of this post you can see a section of the Asia Pacific area of Expo 2010. The big brown pavilion with a red marker on top is Australia. To its left you can see Thailand, and on the right Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand. Meanwhile in the image below you can see the big Korean and Japanese pavilions.

Next year Expo Online will enable users to have a fully interactive experience, going inside the virtual pavilions and enjoy beautifully created digital experiences in several languages. Until then have fun playing around with the current version and if you want to learn more about World Expo 2010 Shanghai, check out my blog.

Nate Cochrane pens his rules for social media etiquette on iTNews. And in a style true to the very fundamentals of social media which encourage active sharing and participation, he has made a point to list the rules he outlines as a work in progress and has opened it up for discussion on the site.

One of the rules that he points out is one that we tend to forget: ‘Quality NOT quantity’. Too often PRs get flack for doing a last minute dash to sign up as many people in their network to become friends/ fans on their clients’ Facebook groups and pages or on their Twitter handles.

As PRs, we need to continue to educate our clients that the real value does not lie in the sheer volume of people we sign up but rather in the quality of the people we engage (even if it’s only a handful!).

Consider who your target audience is, where do they frequent and how to reach them. Who is in your fans/ friends extended networks. Are they the right audience to target?

Using Twitter as an example, it’s important to do the analysis and drill down into who the person is that you want to connect with, get to know them, follow them for a while and find out what they write about. Also have a look into who follows that person, are they the appropriate person for your client to be reaching out to or is there someone in their Twitter network that is better?

This tool can help you determine the most appropriate people to follow:

If we want to get some real and long lasting results for our clients, the key is to make sure that we’re speaking to the right audiences!