The digital revolution has permanently changed consumer shopping behavior. Consumers all over the world have always compared prices, looked for vouchers and hunted for a bargain. They have always considered different possible consumption choices to satisfy their needs. Yet, it has never been as easy as it is today for the digitally sound customer. With a growing number of online stores with personalized offers and customer revisions,  continuously inspiring special interest communities or personalized feeds, new payment opportunities, as well as faster and simpler transactions, consumers expect brands to naturally interact with them at all touch points of a purchase experience, online and offline alike.

Successful agile brands are continuously adjusting and expanding their marketing to the digital sphere. They respond to the fact that customers do not follow a straight path to purchase anymore. New channels have not only disrupted the traditional path to purchase. They have also created new ways to connect. Today’s consumers are always connected via mobile devices. At home, on the go and in shopping environments – 24/7.

The rise of mobile

It is especially the rise of mobile communication that can be seen as a strong catalyst for the fundamental shift of consumer behavior. Both in Western as well as in emerging markets. Finally mobile web browsing will surpass desktop web browsing by 2014.

In emerging markets, e-commerce and mobile commerce are opening up a whole new shopping world for consumers. For the emerging middle classes in China or Brazil all of a sudden, foreign brands are only one click away. The percentage of people deciding to buy directly from foreign merchants has increased in China from 6 percent to 22 percent. Just within one year in 2012. Market researchers are forecasting further explosive growth of up to 30 percent annually for China´s e-commerce over the next five years. The country already counts more than 240 million people shopping on the Internet. This is six times the number in the UK.  And most of them are very active in liking, sharing, commenting, reviewing, discussing, and recommending. This is massively contributing to the ever-changing shape of the digital ecosystem.

Digital ecosystem and agile brands

From a brand’s perspective all this adds to the noise created through billions of web pages related to past offerings or events, hundreds of millions of news, and stories every day which all together constitute the basic drum beat of the digital ecosystem.

There are new developments, professional participants, and gadgets every day. These range from traditional publishers, content sharing platforms, blogs, Apps, social TV, streaming or gaming platforms, social commerce platforms, social advertising networks or social intelligence provider and analytics services.

In established markets like Germany we can even observe a “new Gruenderzeit”:
A continuously growing number of start-ups with digital services or a strong focus on digital channels for open innovation and marketing create and leverage a new openness towards innovative brands.

Both an incredible amount of new customers and suppliers entering the digital ecosystem on the backbone of continuous technology progress make the digital world noisier – every second.

In order to be successful therefore agile brands need to understand their consumers’ journeys from awareness to purchase, true love and advocacy.  As consumer groups are especially diverse in emerging markets, customer segmentation and profiling is of utmost importance – and of course the courage to “orchestrate a tune” that is not drowned by the drum beat in the digital ecosystem.