There is not one, but many digital revolutions, depending on how you look at it: from the consumer's point of view, from that of brands, or from those involved in the internal transformation of companies (Marketing Director, Chief Digital Officer, CIO), not forgetting the customer frontline.
Contents
What digital has really transformed...
There are 4 key reasons why digital technology is so transformative:
- the explosion in network capacity (5G, Internet of Things, etc.)
- the considerable wealth and economic resources of the Web's leaders (Google, Facebook, etc.) enable them to sustain a very high rate of organic and external growth, generating the highest rate of obsolescence in the history of technology. Beyond the GAFAMs, players such as Spotify and Netflix are continuing the revolution begun by iTunes, while the latter is rethinking the VOD experience by creating a global player that places personalization algorithms and production capacity at the heart of its development.
- new business models (marketplace, e-commerce, etc.) are facilitated and amplified by digital technology; some are particularly well-suited to the current economic and social context: the shift from ownership to use (cars, etc.), subscription, sharing or exchange (carpooling, etc.), "crowd everything" (co-creation), conditional freebies and freemium models.
- the power of social networks defines the notion of the extended enterprise, multiplying recruitment and sourcing methods for employees (LinkedIn, etc.) and customers (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)
The digital revolution is creating new consumers
It's hard to say which has had the greatest impact on consumer behavior over the last few years: digital or the generalized and lasting economic crisis. One thing is certain: behavior has changed profoundly, and the segmentations of the past no longer have any reality today. Everything has shifted towards a more complex and probably more unstable state than in the past, making the elaboration of a sales and marketing strategy more difficult.
The tribal phenomenon
With the democratization of social networks, tribal behaviors have taken off in leaps and bounds. Contrary to the belief of generations who only discovered these phenomena at a late stage and have difficulty understanding and appropriating them, networked activities reveal and amplify fundamentally human attitudes, including self-fulfillment and pleasure-seeking.
Today, the frequency of use of major social networks like Facebook seems to be declining, particularly among young people, who are turning to new platforms that are more in tune with their uses (TikTok, Snapchat). The rise of metaverses among this population can be interpreted as part of this global trend towards tribes.
Permanent being
Unlike other communication tools, with the widespread use of smartphones, 3 phenomena are transforming our relationship with the world.
- Ubiquity: we are connected and reachable everywhere;
- Permanence: we are connected and reachable at all times;
- Individuality: our cell phone uniquely identifies us.
This state of affairs already presents the danger of addiction in children and adults, and even of phobia in the event of loss or unavailability ( nomophobia)
Customization
The subject of personalization has been present in corporate marketing strategies for a long time - in fact, since CRM tools came of age. But digital technology has once again changed everything. Customer relationship management appeared long before the massive development of the Internet, at least as a sales channel. Customer relationship programs, often associated with the implementation of a software solution, have not always delivered the expected results.
The advent of e-commerce, e-marketing and contact management across all channels and social networks, well in advance of a purchase(inbound marketing), has finally given customer relationship management the means to express its full potential and significantly increase sales and margin per customer.
The most sophisticated customization is contextualization, which involves integrating the application's interaction with the user, for any service or functionality.
Horizontal
If social networks and the new forms of sourcing and collaboration they enable prove more effective at reducing transaction costs than hierarchy and the enterprise, then we're on the cusp of a new organization of workmuch more horizontal than it is today. Horizontally, the distinction between suppliers, partners, companies and customers is much more blurred. Exchanges between these different economic agents should ideally result in fair remuneration of the value created by each.
The media consumer
Every individual with a smartphone can transmit written, visual or audio information, or re-emit it. Until recently, a merciless battle was waged between the proponents of statistical search (search engines, foremost among them Google and Bing) and those of affinity search (Facebook, TripAdvisor...), for whom the opinion of a few friends is more trustworthy and relevant than ranking algorithms. But the face-off is fading as Google's presentation logic increasingly takes into account the data collected on the surfer.
Consumers' ability to inform, support or denigrate brands has increased tenfold, creating a dialogue of truth in which the reality of the customer's experience must be aligned with the brand's marketing message.
Consumer takeover
Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the volume of data collected when they make transactions or travel via their smartphones, surf the web or use connected objects. We are moving into an economy of intention, where it is consumers who will express and develop their purchasing intentions, and the subjects of interest on which they are ready to be challenged by brands. Brands are no longer the first to initiate a relationship; the balance of power between the two has been rebalanced, materialized through knowledge and the power to support or detract.
The consumer will have :
- the extent to which personal data is shared;
- its level of exposure to brand information;
- its involvement inProcurement collective schemes;
- his involvement as a brand ambassador
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