Lucy, Internet of Things and The Big Digital Brain

What we learn from Lucy -

Our brain only uses 10% of its celebral capacity.

Should we have the power to fire up unused cells, we will become more capable.
That may not be possible today.

What is, however, possible is - connecting to other people's brains.

How?

The internet is a platform to connect people and things.
Everyday more things and people are getting connected (14.8 billion+ and counting).

Consider each person or thing like a brain cell.
When billions of things starting connecting, talking and learning with each other,
The more knowledgeable we become.

Access to this collective capacity of knowledge results in innovation.
Application of this collective knowledge can take us to the next evolution of mankind.

The earth is like one big brain
that is getting more and more connected every day
providing growing knowledge and opportunities for evolution.

Implications for brands, media and marketing

In the age of digital consumerism, brands need to understand consumers better and more than ever before. Brands today that have the most data on their target consumers have a competitive advantage. 

Besides publicly available consumer data on social media channels and company-owned transactional data, there are also some new technologies, being developed by Neuro-insight and Thync, that are making it possible for us to gain access to the consumer's brain. If brands having access to this data, the possibilities of exceeding consumer's expectations will become limitless.

Is the future of marketing in the Internet of Things? What do you think?

Give Brands nothing, but take from them EVERY THING!

Battle: The Great War of Digital Consumerism
Strategy: Use Digital to connect, engage, and destroy brands, one interaction at a time!
Weaponry: Digital media or media enabled by the converging forces of social, mobile, cloud and internet of things
Incumbent: Brand
Challenger: Consumer

Who will win this war - consumers or brands?

Consumers push Brands forward...
If today brands are feeling that customers change loyalties at the flip of a coin, they have absolutely no idea about the Great War that is only beginning to take shape. This War will be started by the Digital Consumer and will inspire the entire consumer base to rise and win the war of consumerism if brands don't act now!

4 Tactics to influence the new, SOCIAL consumer!

Traditionally the value of a customer was measured by his ability to purchase a company's products and services or CLV (customer lifetime value). But now with consumers recommending products and sharing experiences on social networks, the purchase cycle has changed. It is becoming increasingly necessary for companies to measure their social influence. Therefore, as shown below, value of a customer increases with customer revenue as well as social influence, also known as social CLV or CLV 2.0.

So what tactics can Marketing deploy to influence the social consumer?
There are 4 tactics that can be deployed depending on level of customer's revenue and social influence.

4 tactics to influence the social consumer

CLV 3.0: Measuring Co-Creation Value of a Customer

credits: redheadedfrog

While social media finds a way into the enterprise, it is imperative for companies to take a look at an essential metric that measures how much each customer is worth in monetary terms - CLV or customer lifetime value (you may also refer to HBS' CLV Calculator).

However with social CRM's capability to centrally store data that measures and reports on social media activities, there comes a need to revisit how we measure the value of our customers on the basis of two primary actions that they are actively performing -

• Referring actions - Like, share, recommend existing products and services resulting in Customer Referral Value
• Innovation actions - Co-create new products and services  resulting in Customer Innovation Value

Customer Referral Value:

With customers liking, sharing, recommending, influencing our products and services, we need to add the customer's referral value (CRV) to the current CLV metric. (sources: definition by Daniel, Oracle's Tara Robert) 

So CLV 2.0 or social CLV looks something like this: 

CLV 2.0 = CLV + CRV, 

where CRV is Customer Referral Value.

Customer Innovation Value (new metric):

While a very large percentage of users recommending our products and services, there is also a small yet relevant base of customers willing to co-create our next product or service (ref: Starbucks, Dell). These are truly high value, high potential customers. Companies that are able to strengthen relationships with such customers will gain sustainable competitive advantage. And this is the future of competition!

So CLV 3.0 would look something like this:

CLV 3.0 = CLV + CRV + CIV, 

where CIV is Customer Innovation Value.

So how do you think companies can measure CIV? Is there a science to it yet?

And should companies tweak their loyalty programs to reward customers who have made contributions of outstanding significance to a company's profitability, measured in terms of monetary, social, and innovation value? Maybe call it "Customer Lifetime Value Rewards" :) ?... what do you think? (Pardon the analogy to Grammy's Lifetime Achievement Awards!)

(Check out my next posting on how companies can leverage the purchasing power and social influence of their consumers.)