“The Digital Marketer” vs “The Digital User” - User Centricity

1.2. INTRODUCTION User Centricity is a term given to the growing power of Users. In the digital front, it defines the growing-  Acceptance  Customizations  Familiarity It also stakes to the endorsement of digital society and its  Tools  Mechanisms  Working  Modus-operandi by the Common Man Any user of today’s Digital services, is far more evolved than the average user a decade back. Concordantly, this whitepaper attempts to discover -  Points of Conflict  Approval  Degree of Acceptance  Causality  Conclusion Of the fight between the ever-evolving powers of both, “The Digital Marketer” and “The Digital User”. 5 1.3. CURRENT SCENARIO Who is the digital user? One of the foremost areas of research is identifying the focal point of study to be undertaken and the reason for which it has proved itself necessary. A digital user is now that evolved entity which has shown and proven its worth in changing the market perception and product acceptance He / she is now more evolved and more connected with more say in the things at hand be it social, cultural or economical. A digital user is now more aware has better perception and ingenuity, and is heavily dependent on the social sphere and digital biome. 1.3.1. DIG SHOWS THE SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE DIGITAL USER AND THE DIGITAL BIOME It can be defined as an involvement on the part of a user or its community, to withdraw and supplement information to and fro from the digital biome, thereby maintaining a constant connect with it, in all parts of daily activity. DIGITAL USER FEEDS THE DIGITAL BIOME DIGITAL BOME FEEDS THE DIGITAL USER 6 Digital is now much bigger than IT or Telecom, digital has now encompassed all the other subsets of connectivity. Thus us a digital user is not merely limited to social presence or online persona, it’s a manifestation of all evolving spheres of life which have been altered by the advent of digital unisense in the singularity. Who is the digital marketer? A common outlook for a digital marketer is the usage of following for marketing of any product or service-  Blogs  Microblogs  Facebook  Twitter  Virtual applications  Digital sundry  Digital techniques The envisage of greater reach and lower cost has opened up the flood gates of many a businesses to come forth on the digital filed to brandish their trade. A common split of 70-30 is followed which depends upon market, sec, product, quarter etc. The digital marketer has come into existence for the sole reason that business exists in the realm of the digital and the potential hiding the digital user. Where this perfect seeming plan is bound to go wrong, rather has started to do so, is what the analysis is about, further on. 7 1.4. PROBLEMS BUILDUP What is at stakes? On a digital platform, the attributes are evened out, the big is not bigger and the small is not smaller. On an even playing field, there only can be so much scope of exposure or creativity to take effect. Failingly, the effect that has happened is saturation. The digital user has now seen and accepted most of the tricks of the trade and is now highly suspicious although still naïve, but the collective conscience is growing alarmingly. With more and more power available to the digital user, the digital marketer finds itself at a point where it can no longer hold an elevated position to those the marketing is intended. Hence the process of convincing or otherwise is severely hampered even transparent. Thus cutting profit margins and naturally scope to visualize creatively. How has oversaturation made people more exposed to digital tools? It’s but human nature, to evolve, curiously at first exploring the limits of reach and boldness on the other hand pushing the limits further and apart. The age of specialization is passed, the age of convergence is here. The underlying current of “to be better at everything”, has forced the digital user to experiment, evolve and accept almost all of the digital biome into its own personal laboratory. 8 1.5. USER ENGAGEMENT I am just a user? Do I need to worry? No, and yes. An average user is not a worry to the biome. Hardly, not all digital users are equal. The contention comes in when a singular user rises above the collective powers of digital user and digital marketer subset. When this happens, the issue of security, livelihood, economy and trust between the user and marketer is shaken. Which results in even more saturation of interest on the part of digital user. I am just a media house, do I need to worry? Following points are to be considered when making a statement on the aforementioned - Is your client base switching to digital? - Are you effectively recycling content on both digital and outdoor? - Do you have a high digital penetration? - Is your outdoor pipeline module a separate entity from the digital entity? - How do you differentiate between digital promotion returns and outdoor returns? - What ways are you dealing with user centricity? It’s almost logical to answer yes to above questions, seemingly that’s what most of the houses are doing. The showdown as a result is the user now has very low memory perception and shadow promotions continue to linger. As an example, if a digital uses begins to identify that each and every popup he encounters is worthless, after a few encounters the popups stop registering. 9 1.6. RESEARCH FOCUS What does preliminary research show? It shows that the digital user - Is still evolving - Is easily saturated - Is difficult to convert but easier to connect What it doesn’t show? - The growing power of digital user - The diminishing sophistication of the virtual markets - The unknown third party who is to benefit out of this clash of the digital market and digital user. 1.7. CONCLUSION If this is such a big issue, why is it not highlighted often? User centricity is now being understood as good thing, almost a promotion of sorts for applications, tools, software’s etc. The mere concept of having an enlightened user is appealing to the business as a connected digital user is easier to connect. However the growing disparity begins with the increase in the canonical sense of apathy on the part of digital user that hails every good thing as extraordinary and every mediocre product or service as failure. This high strung arena where the performance index is measured in the polarity of utter success or utter failure, user centricity is only raising the bar higher and higher into the unknown.