Razorfish’s Feed 2009: It’s not about the connected consumer

Last night I finished reading Razorfish’s Feed Report 2009 and overall I thought it was well written. However, I’ve a few issues that popped out at me well reading it. The report talked a lot about the connected consumer and the characteristic that made up that type of person:

• Broadband access
• Spent $150 online in the last 6 months (travel, Netflix, tickets, Amazon, gifts..ect)
• Visited a “community site” (MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Yelp)
• Consumed or created some form of digital media, such as photos, video, music or news.

Razorfish said this throughout the report but is the connected consumer really the majority of the US now? People like my mom or my ex-Will’s parents could fit into this category. We are talking about adults who are not that technology or Internet savvy as a whole. Razorfish said they surveyed 1,000 U.S. consumers (50.5%  female, 49.5% male) split across four major age* groups and spread out across 10 major US states**, which sounds like a very good sample to me. However, I don’t believe that majority of the US is now apart of what they call the connected consumer, because if they are then we’ve some issues to deal with. I thought marketing was about going hyper niche these days and targeting more relevant people and not just everyone, like this reports seems to imply that brands want to go after.

Connected consumer use to be the early adopters and people you wanted to connect with as they were passionate about your brand. They would sit and watch your ad/commercial and look for information about your company. But this report seems to say now that the connected consumer could be anyone in the US and that is something I don’t agree with. Based on this report pretty much anyone could be a connected consumer and if that’s the case, then the 330+ million who live in the US is a connected consumer as long as they have broadband access.

Razorfish, when you lower the barrier of entry to a study so anyone fits into the study, you have me start to question your data and your data was another area that I had an issue with. If these are the connect consumers that firms like Starbucks, Dell, Nike and Apple want to reach as you say. Then I think we may have some issues with reaching them. 49.55% of these connected consumer have a smart phone that is either a Blackberry or an Apple iPhone. However, only 23.60% have downloaded a branded app and another 24% have ever produced content to enter a contest. And there is more…

• 42.20% sometimes or 30.90% never read blogs produced by products or  brands (e.g., Nintendo)
• 50.70% sometimes or 23.20% never Watch commercials or video advertisements on YouTube
• 38.90% sometimes or 17.20% never Play games in your browser
• 39.30% sometimes or 35.40% never Play browser-based games produced by a brand (e.g., Got Milk?)
• 24.10% sometimes or 42.50% never Access an Internet service from your phone
• 27.90% sometimes or 49.60% never Download an app for your phone

If I’m a brand then I’ve to start questioning why I’d created an app when the stats above don’t look so good for that. 56.30% of the people polled have Internet access on their phones but almost 43% of people don’t use it and another 49.60% have never download an app to their phone. That’s a scary number when you think that the 1,000 people polled for this report represent the majority of the US with broadband access, but will never see your mobile website. If these connect consumers are saying that 42.20% of them sometimes or 30.90% of them never read blogs produced by products or  brands. Then as a brand I’ve to ask myself a few important questions:

1. Why are so many brands producing corporate blogs?
2. Do I really want to go after about  70%+ of these connect consumers who don’t read my blog , let along subscribe by RSS feed?
3. Should I listen to my agency when they say we need content that these connect consumers don’t care about?

I can’t really answer question 1 because I’m not in the boardroom with the C-suits when this idea is talked about. However, for questions 2 & 3 the answer is no. In fact you should fire your agency if they tell you to go about this 70%. You don’t want to go after these connected consumers that are the majority of this report because they are never going to see your content, media or anything  you produce. You may want to go after the other 30% and smaller minorities that make up these “connected consumers” because these are the people this report should have been based on. I want to know what the people who read blogs, download apps and interactive with me really know. I don’t care about the percent who only follow me for exclusive deals. These aren’t going to be future brand ambassadors to my company.

* 18 – 24 Years Old = 11.70%
25 – 36 Years Old = 33.70%
37 – 44 Years Old = 26.40%
45 – 55 Years Old = 28.20%

**CHOICE                              FREQUENCY           PERCENT
San Francisco Bay Area   50                                5.00%
Seattle                                 43                                4.30%
Dallas                                  50                                5.00%
Atlanta                                50                                5.00%
New York City                   48                                4.80%
Chicago                               51                                 5.10%
Miami                                  42                                4.20%
Boston                                 50                                5.00%
Washington, D.C.              50                                5.00%
Los Angeles                        50                                5.00%
Other                                   516                               51.60%
TOTALS                              1,000                           100.00%

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