Giedrius Ivanauskas

–

http://giedriusi.wordpress.com/

Consumer 2.0 -

“Web 2.0 citizens”

“As powerful as it is technology is just enabler and it’s the technology in the hands of almost always connected people that make it so powerful”

(Blume, 1996; citied in Li and Bernoff, 2008)A decade ago Raaij (1998) identified that social and technological developments will create newoptions and possibilities for consumers and will bring some real changes for marketingmanagers. For the past 18 years the active discussions have taken place in marketing literatureanalyzing the relationship of postmodern marketing, semantic web, interactivity, tribes andchanging consumer behavior (Raaij, 1998; Flart et al, 1995; Cova 1997; Constantinedes, 2004;Simmons, 2008), but only today the discussed thoughts embrace their real meaning. The massacceptance of the Web as social medium is the biggest recent change in internet behavior whichallows the postmodern marketing concepts to flourish (Razorfish, 2008). These changes inpostmodern marketing era are mostly driven by the new consumers. Digital natives, Millennials,Generation Y it just a few names often met in marketing literature, describing the new generationof tech-savvy, success driven, self-confident, independent but community-minded people(Deloitte, 2005). According to Tapscott (2008,) that it is the first global generation ever which issmarter, quicker and more tolerant of diversity than their predecessors. Millennials neverexperienced life without computers and are just a click away from the world any minute. Thereverse accumulation of knowledge is typical for them - the younger they are, the more theyknow (Deloitte, 2005). Tapscott (2008) identifies eight norms that define Net Geners:

They value freedom and choice in everything they do.They love to customise and personalise.They scrutinise everything.They demand integrity and openness, including when deciding what to buy and where to work.They want entertainment and play in their work and education, as well as their social life.They love to collaborate.They expect everything to happen fast.They expect constant innovation.

Giedrius Ivanauskas

–

http://giedriusi.wordpress.com/

Moreover, Deloitte (2005) suggest that Generation Y is impatient, needs the flexibility and spaceto explore, wants to produce something worthwhile and seeks to make a difference in order to berewarded with a respect. This generation fits well the description of postmodern consumer whichlacks the commitment to grand projects and seeks different experiences, and is willing to seeoneself as a (marketable) object in the different situations s/he encounters in order to make eacha supremely exciting and enjoyable experience (Flrat et al., 1995)

Even though, they are not the only ones affecting the marketing environment. So called “digitalimmigrants”

(Palfrey and Gasser, 2008) or fast adapters of the technology arguably might haveeven bigger influence on the on going changes in marketing as they are aware about the changingsituation and they have a power, knowledge and resources to influence this phenomenon. Asboth of these consumer groups are very important for marketers they could be grouped under oneterm of -

Web 2.0 Citizens

Web 2.0 Citizens worries marketers as their consumption patterns and the perception of the valueare evolving and the old marketing models are not working on them. Wipperman (Trendbureo,2008) argues that

the Maslow’s pyramid of needs is changed with the closed loop (a feedback

loop) where in the process that is never completed self-

actualization remains the individual’s

basic motivation and is increasingly coming to the means of self-optimization (Figure 2.9).

Giedrius Ivanauskas

–

http://giedriusi.wordpress.com/

Figure 2.9. The closed loop of needs.Source: Trendbureo (2008)

The changing needs affects buying behavior what makes it difficult for marketers to target theconsumer, especially when the new consumer takes the initiative for transactions, at the placeand time they want, what has considerable consequences for the distribution of goods andservices (Raaij, 1998). Easily satisfied psychological and safety needs moves the postmodernconsumer onto the search for social and self-actualizing experiences. The consumption becomesa way for individuals to creatively appropriate and construct self-images that allow them tobecome more desirable or likeable in various social contexts (Dawes and Brown, 2000;Goulding, 2003). Constantinides and Fountain (2008) argues that in social web era

consumer preferences and decisions are based on new inputs

provided by parties beyond the control of online marketers: peer reviews, referrals, blogs, tagging, social networks, online forums andother forms of

user-generated content

uncontrollable by the marketers.

These content creatingpeople are keen in building online communities, in order to satisfy their social, self-esteem andself-actualization needs. According to Kim (2000) (cited in Bowman and Willis, 2003) thehierarchy of needs differ between offline and online communities (Figure 2.10)