From Screens to Stores and Everything In Between: How Indonesian Gen Zs Interact with Brands Online and Offline
To state the obvious, today's marketing landscape is going through massive disruption – new digital platforms, more interoperable social media channels, fragmented media and content consumption, shrinking customer data pools and highly active yet information fatigued and attention starved customers who want more, bigger and better from brands every passing second. According to an article in Forbes, 83% of consumers admit paying more attention to how brands treat them as on the product they sell and the same study states that 73% say they are willing to pay more for a product if they love the brand.
Based on the above fact we can easily conclude that the Devil is in the Experience – and that experience is not static; it is live – a living organism of sorts, which is fed by the actions of brands and gives life to positive or negative emotions, depending on how a brand treats the customer from screen to stores and most importantly, everything it does in between to aid that journey. However, still the majority of brands have a very siloed approach to creating brand experiences, which results in a very confusing consumer experience. You get a cool on-screen experience but a tired in-store experience or you get an innovative product but a poor customer experience – that is the reality of brands today. According to a most recent Invoca Buyer Experience Benchmark Report, 76% of consumers said they would stop doing business with a company after just one bad experience.
Turning the focus to our region, a positive customer experience is becoming more important for brands and a must-have for their success if they are operating in Southeast Asian markets that are predominantly mobile-first, have a young and very demanding customer who is phygital native, is over pampered by brands in terms of experiences and has a very low tolerance for a bad brand experience and not only easily quits brand but also calls out it.
According to a research Insite-Consulting, when considering a purchase, 63% of customers – especially Gen Z – pay more attention to personalization and co-creation (63%) and 57% by a product based on recommendations from family/friends and according to an article by Martech, 37% will drop a brand for a bad experience. Further Criteo’s research has revealed that Shoppers across all generations in SEA are increasingly taking a hybrid path to purchase. In fact, Gen Z and Millennials exhibit the highest level of omnichannel shopping behaviour and 81% of them are most likely to browse products online but purchase products in a retail store. In-store experiences are still important to Gen Z and Millennials, as these experiences play a big role in completing their purchase journey.
If we look at Indonesia, the largest market in Southeast Asia, the need for a brand to have a consistent and seamless omnichannel experience is vital to its success. 88% of internet connected Indonesian consumers are actively participating across OTT (over-the-top) streaming, gaming, music streaming and digital news/magazines; translating to 197 million users where many spend at least 10 hours a week across channels; digital news during breakfast, music streaming while commuting, and OTT streaming at night. Furthermore, Indonesia has among the highest internet users that are social shoppers (73%). Gen Z audiences actively seek brand experiences that allow for convergence of both online and offline; currently up to 61% of Indonesian Millennials and Gen Zs still make physical purchases after they’ve experienced a physical trial of the product/service, with a further 63% still prefer engaging in a customer service experience offline before buying products. Both offline and online initiatives have very relevant roles to play among Indonesian consumers.
With the impending cookie depreciation, brands will need to consider attaining more first party-owned data through various touchpoints and channels; empowering towards a more complete omnichannel reach with consumers and will need to tailor their strategies to the multi-channel era enabling their audience especially the Gen Z to seamlessly move through physical and digital brand assets
Top brands in Indonesia that have leveraged omnichannel marketing include the ecommerce pioneer in the nation Bukalapak, through online and offline diversification in products and programs and Bank BNI that has been with Indonesians since independence that look to omnichannel strategies in ensuring their customers attain a convenient banking experience wherever they are. Telkomsel, the Indonesian telecoms company with over 20 years of experience, focused on Gen Z through omnichannel strategies by creating a platform called by.U, to deliver relevant telco experiences to audiences; Allowing the brand to develop relevant products, services and messaging that’s in-tune to Gen Z audiences at pace through an agile organization setup.
As lines continue to blur between the physical and digital and Indonesians demanding more frictionless experiences, it is no longer a choice for brands to choose one or the other but a mandatory to offer both to succeed in marketplaces that are changing at a blistering pace. Through our knowledge, expertise and experience with countless brands, we here at Lion & Lion are capably adept at ensuring not only our client’s customers attain memorably rewarding physical-digital experiences, but we mandate that ventures create positive and measurable impact to our client’s businesses.
Reach out to us to further unearth possibilities in communications that create impact @info@lionandlion.com