Forbes has an opinion piece from Gartner analyst Adam Sarner about a new kind of demographic breakdown: Generation V, for Virtual (thanks Greg Verdino for the link and thoughts on the piece). Rather than focusing on Gen Xers versus Millenials, Sarner’s argument is that “general behavior, attitudes and interests start to blend in an online environment” across age groups. He writes:
As more baby boomers (who are living longer) and young people go online and participate in a flat virtual environment, the generational distinctions break down. Customers will hop across segments at various times for various reasons and are likely to act like several generations at any given time…
While traditional wisdom has focused on customer identification for one-to-one targeted marketing campaigns, cross-selling and so on, the reality of Generation V members using multiple personae (e.g., Amazon reviewer, eBay seller, Second Life avatar “World of Warcraft” blood elf, digger, blogger, YouTuber)…
…business intelligence and analytics markets will shift from collecting demographic information to psychographic information to better understand these various personae and their behaviors…
Companies will create multiple interactive, virtual environments as a way to orchestrate customer exploration toward purchases.
Not surprisingly, I agree with the latter point. In particular, I believe that these virtual environments will increasingly show up directly on company’s websites, rather than outposts in existing virtual worlds. Since Generation V participants expect conversation and participation, rather than broadcast, websites will evolve to foster this, both asynchronously and in real-time.
I also agree with Sarner’s statement: “To digital natives and Generation V, this is not technology–merely the stuff they use on a day-to-day basis.” I think that is exactly right. The technology has to get out of the way, so that this stuff is easy, accessible, and focused on the experience.
The piece has a lot more than I’ve touched on here, so highly recommend that you read it.
译文:
Gartner：V代
福布斯有一篇关于人口统计学方面新突破的社论，是Gartner公司的分析师Adam Sarner写的：V代，为虚拟而生（感谢Greg Verdino 对这一社论所做的联系和设想）。Sarner没有将重点放在X代与V代的PK上，而是阐述了人们跨越年龄的限制，“所表现出的共同行为、态度和兴趣开始融合在网络的环境里”。他写道：
随着越来越多的婴儿潮年代出生的人（他们活得更久）和年轻人上网，在虚拟的环境中冲浪，时代的差异打破了。消费者们将会因为不同的原因在不同的时间积极地活跃在到多个不同的领域里，而且无论处于哪个年龄阶段都可以像任何年代出生的人那样表现自己的行为。
传统思维将顾客认知放在面对面的目标营销活动及交叉买卖等传统交易上，而V代人正在使用“复合人”（例如，亚马逊浏览者，易趣卖家，“第二人生”神明，“魔兽争霸”血灵，矿工，博客，视频制作者等）……为了更好的理解这一代人各种各样的个性和他们的行为，商业智囊团和市场分析师们将要从收集人口统计学资料转向收集有关心理描绘的信息了。
各个公司将会创造出多维的互动虚拟环境作为让顾客对各种商品趋之若鹜的方法。
毫无疑问，我同意后者的做法。尤其要提的是，我相信这些虚拟的氛围将会被越来越多地融入到公司的网站中而不是独立于现存的虚拟世界。自从V代的参与者们期望主动对话和分享而不去被动接受后，不管是在虚拟世界里还是在现实当中，网络都会有强力地推动这些事物的发展。
我也同意Sarner的这段陈述：“对于‘数字本土人’和V代来说，这不是技术仅仅是他们每天都使用的基础材料”，我觉得这样的形容非常得贴切。技术必须超越限制，这样这些材料才是容易的、可行的并且是基于经验的。
他对这一观点所作的陈述要远远地多于我在这里所提及的，所以，本人极力推荐你阅读他的全篇论述。