Consumer shifts shaping the digital communication industry: Grey

"Eye on Asia—Digital" is Grey Group’s annual proprietary study providing insights into human digital behaviour, as well as how brands can develop stronger engagement with consumers to create innovative products and services.

It was conducted last August across eight markets in the region: Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea.

“Brands need to focus on how to be social and not how to do social,” said Nirvik Singh, chairman and CEO of Grey Group Asia-Pacific. "Consumers are transforming digitally faster than we think.”

The internet has given generally introverted Asians a more comfortable communication platform to share their feelings and problems than talking about them in real life, according to the study authors. 

While brands can set up virtual trial rooms to allow the solicitation of unbiased opinions on product and service offerings, they can also create a new rating scale capturing likes and opinions as an additional selling point, the study recommends.

“Companies in the durable consumer goods category can create social apps to aggregate consumer opinions on what they want products to do for them, and product development can be based on that,” the study said.

This includes developing platforms across industries that allow online users to pitch business ideas where they can be brought to life by interested companies.

Online users are also in a state of ‘hyper kiasu’ (a Hokkien word meaning 'fear of losing'), whereby they constantly seek to be the first to know everything, according to the study. Leveraging this competitive spirit, brands can create avenues for online users to become the first to know, to buy, win and preview.

Nevertheless, as much as online users like to express themselves, they fear invasion of their personal privacy and would rather put the internet ‘behind bars’ to protect themselves against cyber crime.

For this, brands should reassure them that personal details divulged online will be kept strictly confidential.

Marketers should focus time and effort on growing online channels to make them more visually and emotionally connected with their audiences, he added.

The study also discussed the rise of new philanthropic behaviours online. Referred to as “citizen philanthropy”, “micro-philanthropy” and the “democratisation of giving”, these behaviours allow users to give money or time for a greater good.

People engaging in such movements, called ‘karma maximisers’, engage with brands that are perceived to be virtuous, the study said.