A business colleague sent me a link this week to an article in Baseline Magazine entitled “Multiple Online Personas: The Choice of a New Generation” by Chris Gonsalves. Good article – especially the introductory paragraph outlining the same individual with three separate personas.

Didn’t take the buzz machine over at Gartner long to coin a new term – Generation V. As reported by Gonsalves, “the new Generation V (the “V” is for “virtual” according to Gartner) is not defined by age, gender or geography. Instead, it is based on achievement, accomplishments and a growing preference for digital media when it comes to learning and sharing.”

Despite the nomenclature, we're not talking about a generation issue here. This new group is trans-generational. The discriminator here is how actively you participate, consume and publish digital media – as well as how you manage or mask your privacy and identity … More importantly, participants will do so on their terms using personas defined and managed by them - and not be solely bound by indiviual web properties.

Taken a little further, reputation, digital credibility and relevance matter in this new world – and it is not likely to be attached to my social security number, phone number or where I live. Marketers are going to need to adjust … pyschographic profiling and clickstream analysis alone isn’t going to get them there.

The new, empowered digital venue participant engages on their terms – not, the traditional demographic and segmentation terms of the past.

The new engagement model needs to engage with the persona, not the individual.

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