Oct 8, 2007

Passionistas, E-fluentials, or "The" Consumer's Voice

According to a recent article in Adotas, "highly-engaged consumers are more likely than most to create and share content online about issues they are passionate about and even the brands associated with them". The study, called “Passionistas: The New Empowered Consumers” was made by Yahoo and MediaVest and suggests that "should marketers tap into this community, they would find a 'unique opportunity to engage these credible, influential advocates to spread brand messages through digital media'".

This is not really new. Some years ago Burson and Masteller "identified a group of online movers and shakers who shape the opinions and attitudes of the Internet community. We call them the e-fluentials. This group, representing 10% of the online population (approximately 11 million users), reaches more people on more topics than the average online user...". (I took the test and of course I ended up as an e-fluential, I guess in my case is more a personality thing than anything else...) :))

But this isn't new either, is just another twist on the good old "word of mouth" value. A main reason why advertising, marketing and PR work better when they do a good job at identifying the correct target and that it works even better when they make a special effort to reach inside that target to get to the 'influentials, e-fluentials or Passionistas'.... At the end of the day, if you get the right people to talk or recommend your product because they truly believe in it, that is a GREAT achievement and your money was well invested.

When it comes to communications, marketing and advertising, the really 'new' stuff is the media and the production of that media. The complexity on how to deliver a message has grown with the market of course, but the basic, key, strategic values haven't changed so much: they are just a bunch of old, good, basic concepts wrapped in new words..., words like "passionistas".

If you are interested in the subject, read more about:
Passionists at Adotas
E-fluentials at their website
Word of Mouth at WOMMA or at BzzAgent

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