Our Online Identities' Impact on Brand Value

The other morning I went for a run using the Nike+ GPS iPhone application for the first time, and mid-run my back pocket started talking to me: "One mile completed. Current pace 8 minutes 23 seconds per mile". Let's just say, I was startled at first, but I've grown to like it as it makes me push myself harder to beat my last pace.

During my run, I couldn't help but think, are our lives becoming real-world video games?  The online and offline worlds have merged so seamlessly that they're now building off each other. We can check-in to virtually any location, earn points, badges and even titles, like mayor, based on the activities we perform. Take the mid-term elections that happened in the US a few weeks back - people could check-in to polling stations across the country and earn an "I Voted" badge once they placed their vote, indicating they took part in the elections.

And with the emergence of augmented reality we can place a digital layer over our current environment to learn about our surroundings.  Not to mention the real-time texts, BBM messages, Facebook updates and Tweets we seem to be constantly sending out to note our current emotions, thoughts and activities.

But what does this all mean to brands?

It means new behaviors are emerging and with that, I believe brand value is beginning to evolve.

Like the Harvard Business School suggests, "You need to know more than ever how consumers are redefining value", so lets take a look at the Millennials, who are, currently, spending more than any other generation, according to the 8095 Whitepaper that was recently released by Edelman, and they represent today and tomorrow's most dominant consumers with a predisposition to keep going back to the brands they like.

Within this segment, I see three key behaviors emerging, which demand new forms of value-add from brands. These behaviors are fueled by mobile technology and social platforms working together:

1. Reverberation - taken from the 8095 Whitepaper, is the idea of being in constant connection with your peer group to seek advice and opinions in-the-moment. This is commonly done through BBM (Blackberry Messenger) and Text Messaging.
2. Hyper Sharing - this is our newfound desire to share practically everything that is happening in our lives, from what we're feeling to eating to seeing. This is done through Facebook updates, comments, posting photos, Tweeting, etc.
3. Expressive Association - this is where we express our personal identity and values through virtual associations. It was found that 86% of Millennials, globally, share their brand preferences online as brands rank top with religion and ethnicity as online personal identifiers. Liking, checking-in and badge collecting are common means to associate.

These emerging behaviors are making the speed at which brands can gain or lose trust increasingly more rapid, as they eliminate any delay between the actual brand experience to sharing that experience with others. And it's important to note that, good or bad, and they usually lean positive, Millennials will write about their brand experience online, and this has a direct impact on whether or not their peers will adopt your brand.  So it's essential brands get their experience right every time a consumer engages with it - from any touchpoint. This only enhances the need for strong consistency and brand understanding from within the organization. 

Secondly, as these behaviors stimulate the need to continually communicate something about one's self, to enhance his/her online identity, a product/service must provide extended brand experiences that give customers something to share. Take, for example, my Nike+ app, it allows me to automatically update my Facebook and Twitter with my running stats so I can share my progress with my friends. Or, for instance, Starbucks rewards its visitors who, most frequently, check-in to its store locations through Foursquare with discounts and other perks.  Millennials look for brands that have a long history of caring for their customers - gone are the days when you can classify a brand as a product or a service, as all brands, today, are in the service business - the product is only the loss leader.

So, if the role of the brand to is to drive demand for a product/service and provide the reason to select it over one of its competitors, we can look to these behaviors, and ask ourselves, "how are we providing status, bragging rights and rewards for our customers' online identities?"