In the book Creative Communication Management-Marketing Revolution in the Digital Age, the digital living space is described as follows: "Generally speaking, the new communication form based on the Internet is a virtual restoration and amplification of various information communication and communication activities in human daily life by relying on digital technology, and this communication form has created a new digital living space."
From the distribution of users' life time, users spend more and more time on the Internet, and rely more and more on the digital life space built by the Internet, while the dependence on the real life space is relatively declining, and brands and consumers are becoming netizens. The Internet has penetrated into every aspect of people's lives. In particular, the development of the mobile Internet has fundamentally changed the lifestyle and consumption habits of consumers.
Generally speaking, digital living space is an extension of real life on the one hand, and different from real life on the other. The lifestyle of digital living space is the mapping, reduction, enrichment and amplification of human daily life. Taking China as an example, according to the latest report of China Internet Network Information Center, "By the end of June 20 13, the number of netizens in China had reached 59 10/00000, an increase of 26.56 million over the end of 20 12. The Internet penetration rate was 44. 1%, 2.0 percentage points higher than the end of 20 12. "
In a sense, users gather in this huge living space covering the whole world, and they gather into different online communities according to their personal preferences, living habits and social attributes. Here, users can shop, entertain, study online, communicate, conduct e-commerce, and even own their own transaction currency, such as Bitcoin, which has the characteristics of "decentralization, no restriction from any institution or group, anonymity, high concealment, convenient transaction and low transaction cost". . These characteristics of bitcoin's affiliation at the beginning of its birth make it different from other currencies. In the time and space of the Internet, it is independent, scientific and reliable. Now, some merchants on Taobao can already receive bitcoin for transaction settlement. John donahoe, CEO of EBay, also said that EBay is exploring how to integrate Bitcoin into its PayPal payment network. Digital living space, like real living space, is increasingly becoming people's main way of life. Si Tong, a network theorist, once pointed out that cyberspace "is undoubtedly a social space, and people still meet face to face, but we need to redefine' meeting' and' face to face'". He deliberately emphasized that the connection between cyberspace and real space is getting closer and closer, and it can provide users with extremely real opportunities to communicate with each other.
In the digital life space, human beings get rid of the shackles of a single identity in reality and move towards "digital people". They can create various virtual identities according to their own preferences and fantasies. The complete separation of network identity from real identity is the first real "identity liberation movement" in human history, which greatly enriches the types of human social relations. Digital living space is a completely different ecosystem. People in the digital life space will use their virtual identities to release themselves more fully, or hide themselves more carefully and express their deep needs more unscrupulously.
In the digital living space, enterprises exist in the form of information entities, so they must adapt to the laws in the digital living space, strive for more resources and create more advantages in this environment. Traditional enterprises are used to influencing consumers in real life space, but now, such influence is too limited. In a sense, the main battlefield of enterprise competition in the future will be the digital living space where no smoke can be seen.
Nowadays, there is no doubt about whether to do digital marketing. The surging Internet advertising market is the best proof. In 20 13 years, several advertisers with a single brand of several hundred million chose to launch in Baidu. According to Millbrown's prediction, in 20 15 years, the proportion of brand advertisers will be 4:3:3, that is, TV 4, Internet 3 and other media 3.
For enterprises, what to do in the digital world in the era of big data and how to build a brand better have become more critical issues. Traditional marketing methods have been unable to reach consumers well, and today's consumers hope to get more real help and services. The traditional relationship between enterprises and consumers has evolved into a "service relationship" in the digital living space. Users become life providers, enterprises become life service providers, media become service platforms for life solutions, and enterprises provide services for life through various service platforms for life solutions.
From consumers to people in life.
Chaplin's comedy film Modern Times satirizes the "side effects" of large-scale standardized production in the industrial age. Although the production efficiency is improved through the professional work of assembly line, it brings alienation to people. Standardized production not only alienated producers, but also plunged consumers into consumerism.
Consumers are the starting point and end point of industrial production. The number of consumers determines the market scale, the quality of consumers determines the market value, and the structure of consumers determines the market structure. Under the standardization framework of industrial society, consumers are regarded as homogeneous "atoms" because of their fixed consumption relationship, and only pay attention to their * * * similarities, while ignoring their differences.
With the advent of the era of big data with the development of the Internet, the concept of "consumer" is increasingly challenged. Generally speaking, it is manifested in the following four aspects:
First, "consumer" is a personalized concept. As an individual behavior, consumption is the basis of consumers' survival and development. Although consumers' consumption behavior is individual consumption, there is profound social logic behind it. The concept of consumer, although seeing the individualization of consumer behavior, has stripped the sociality of consumer behavior. Personalized consumption is private, and the logic behind it is difficult to identify with small data tools. If we only pay attention to the people in "consumption", it is easy to make the standardized production of enterprises full of uncertainty.
Second, "consumer" is a typed concept. Typed demand is the basis of economies of scale, and it is difficult to meet minority demand and personalized demand. Therefore, industrial economy is a typical scale economy. Limited by the time and space of production and consumption, not all consumer goods enterprises are willing to provide it, and only when they reach a certain production scale can they produce it. The "28 Law" has become the code of conduct for most enterprises in the industrial age. However, the over-time nature of digital living space gathers scattered personal needs and provides possibilities for new opportunities.
"I am Jiang" and "Ultra-pure" —— Chongqing Jiangjin Winery (Group) Co., Ltd. launched two liquor products in March 20 12, aiming at two young people born in 1980s and 1990s respectively.
Young people in Chinese mainland don't take the initiative to drink liquor, and even regard liquor as "parents' choice", which brings a lot of confusion to many liquor manufacturers. "I'm Jiang" became a youth fashion brand through social media within one year, making passive drinkers after 1980s and 1990s become active drinkers and gaining a lot of market income. Compared with liquor giants such as Maotai, Wuliangye, LU ZHOU LAO JIAO CO.,LTD and Langjiu, "I am Jiang" can only be regarded as a micro-brand, but it has seized the market opportunity in the era of big data and met the demand for decentralized and personalized aggregation.
Third, "consumer" is an abstract concept. Enterprises often find typical consumers and consumption scenarios, and constantly strengthen the correlation between products and typical consumers, typical consumption behaviors and typical consumption scenarios through mandatory advertising communication. This kind of abstract search often strips off diverse life scenes, and it is easy to regard consumers as the same. Therefore, the "social popularity" of fresh consumers is very low, and enterprises can only pay attention to their abstract group characteristics, while ignoring the dynamic and variability of consumer behavior.
Fourth, the consumer is a broken concept, which is reflected in two aspects: first, the time and space are broken, and enterprises think that consumer behavior is random, so it is difficult to explore the consistency of consumer buying behavior. Therefore, the "last mile" retail market has become the key area of enterprise competition; Second, consumption is isolated, and it is difficult to explore the correlation between consumption behavior and consumption life. Small data can't understand the relevance of consumer behavior, which is the root of consumer cognitive fracture. We should explore the internal logic of consumer behavior and daily life on the basis of big data.
Generally speaking, the concept of consumer is the product of the era of small data, which meets the needs of standardized production and consumption in the industrial era, but it is difficult to gain insight into the continuity and individual differences of consumer behavior. In addition, consumption is only a part of users' lives, and consumption behavior is inseparable from other social behaviors in users' lives. In the era of big data, users' existing forms and social behaviors are digitized, and the relevance of users' behaviors and the particularity of users' existence can be clearly described, so enterprises' cognition of users should also be upgraded from "consumers" to "life".
The concept of "living" was created by Tang in Japan and came into being in the 1980s. We first came into contact with this concept in the lecture held by Dentsu 1998 in Peking University. According to the explanation provided by Bobaotang Institute of Comprehensive Life, "Sei-katsu-Sha" refers to consumers' concepts of consumption and shopping, life and life, people, and people who have lived their own lives. It covers not only the economic level of consumers, but also the social psychology and politics of individuals. This concept is broader than the concept of "consumer". "Consumers" are buyers of goods from the perspective of economics, while "life" expresses people with their own lifestyles, ambitions and dreams. There are not only brand consumers, but also groups that may become potential consumers.
The premise of effective marketing communication is to treat the communication target as a living, flesh-and-blood person, living in the world and full of characteristics. Only by observing and grasping their essence comprehensively can we better communicate with them, predict possible changes in the future, and constantly adjust marketing communication strategies so that they can establish long-term relations with enterprises and brands.
Although the concept of "living person" in Bao Botang is based on the traditional communication environment, in fact, this concept has more practical significance and value in the internet communication environment and digital living space.
In the digital life space, the target objects that enterprises hope to communicate and approach can show more and more specific information to enterprises, instead of the abstract and general group characteristic information obtained through sampling surveys in the past. Moreover, they really live in the digital living space, next to the enterprises in the digital living space. They are no longer typed, but vivid and concrete individuals.