The Rising Generation C: Ubiquitous Multiscreen Experiences Needed To Satisfy - Companion Experiences Next To PDDs To Complete

written by: Gianluigi Cuccureddu

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Published on Wednesday, 02 March 2011 09:10

Generation C — connected, communicating, content-centric, computerized, community-oriented, always clicking. As a rule, they were born after 1990 and lived their adolescent years after 2000. It’s the first generation that has never known any reality other than that defined and enabled by the Internet, mobile devices, and social networking.

Comparing external developments with the time it takes to internally innovate shows that being able to thrive on the ubiquitous and hyperconnected generation, transformation needs to start now.

(taken from Strategy+Business)

(taken from Social Media Explorer)

Add the Internet of Things to the mix and we’re facing changes that are impactful –to say the least- but at the same time offer a vast amount of opportunities. Everything can be measured, the interaction between people, interaction between machines and people and machines. Social networks and devices will accompany people throughout their daily activities, giving a real-time and complete overview of what is occuring to ones target group.

Social Businesses on Steroids

Open business cultures are the fundament of succesful businesses, enabling constant cycles of intelligence gathering and optimization. Current news on inflation, rising costs and digital price-competitiveness are all external causes to embrace innovation from this point of perspective. The second part of the solution -which is the enabler of the abovementioned- is technology. Right now, much of the intelligence is pure exhaust — unanalyzed and unanalyzable — but it will and has to be put to material economic use.

Gartner found that Social Analytics and Next-Gen Analytics are two of the technologies that can’t be ignored, sustaining the abovementioned. Investments in analytics are the first step and fundament of the data-driven playgrounds where companies will be on.

Take for instance the retail industry, a brick and clicks integration is the ideal and unique situation, augmented reality offering a more attractive presentation of the goods. Customer reviews will be a real-time decision mechanism, both offline and online and social networks will become the primary place to be for brands, not the corporate one. Travelling will have a similar impact, where the real- and digital world will blend through augmented reality, and intensify the experience through social networks.

The output, the creative part is an outcome of succesful interpretation of all this (social) intelligence and moulding that into new immersive experiences. One of my favorite frameworks for experiences is the Multiverse, by Joe Pine. It takes into account Time, Matter and Space enabling transversal experiences which are adapted to the surroundings. Read here an interview and explenation of the Multiverse.

Impact on entertainment

It can be approached from two point of perspectives, basically the demand and supply: Branded content (demand) and the platform/ecosystem being able to sustain transmedial / transversal concepts (supply).

Branded content

Brands will have to understand how their 24/7 audiences behave, in order to relevantly be on those channels that will add value to them. Being on every channel, screen in a generic way is a quick way, but will result only in short term results. Non-customers but potential ones could get annoyed by the over exposure of content/brand which is -not yet- to their interest. 

Transmedial or transversal experiences also add relevancy to the experience, by understanding and working on the relationship of device, content, purpose and context.

Platforms & ecosystems

In order to be effective but efficient as well, platforms are in the making of sustaining a wide variety of devices, lowering cost per device. This means opportunities for the supply side, knowing that brands will have to be getting on with Generation C. The task for the supply side is to understand what devices, what multiscreen experiences are viable, adjust proposition and scope to this.

Playground

Already there is an increasing stake in the multiscreen and social entertainment industry, but when Gen C kicks really in, a large share of the industry should have gone through the learning curve, trial and error, understanding of how omnipresent people behave and interact.

The New Consumers aren't easy to satisfy, with a hyperconnective context and thousands of information touch points a day, not only a device should be a companion, but the experiences should be also!

Article is adjusted to the scope of Appmarket.tv, derived from my original article on the 90:10 Group blog.