The most empowered APAC customers have mounting expectations and their demands are accelerating as they seek novelty, control and shared values from brands and companies they interact with.

At Forrester’s Summit Asia Pacific 2020, senior analyst Anjali Lai shared insights about highly empowered customers, including the most empowered group, ‘progressive pioneers’, who account for around a fifth of the total.

Nine out of 10 APAC ‘progressive pioneers’ are perpetually willing to do or try new things, she reported.

“Consumers are becoming more eager to experiment. The data proves that empowered consumers in essentially every country are extremely excited about experimentation,” said Lai.

However, this craving for innovation seems to be largely unmet.

“The most empowered consumers’ appetite for novelty is still not fulfilled,” said Lai, citing a finding from the 2019 Forrester Consumer Energy Online Survey, which shows that 63% of progressive pioneers in Singapore feel it is rare to find a company that truly innovates.

What is more, this perception cuts across several industries. “In Singapore, most consumers still say all insurance companies, banks [and] airlines look and feel the same,” she said, noting that 58% of progressive pioneers in Singapore felt this way about insurance companies, while 56% and 49% respectively said the same about banks and airlines.

“The more novelty they see, the more novelty they want,” she said. “This is going to have a direct impact on more businesses” – in terms of structure and revenue models.

Nestlé China, for example, unveiled plans last year to increase speed to market from 18–24 months to 6–8 months through refining its organisational structure. “These changes will also help them grow from launching [under] 50 new products a year to around 170 products a year,” said Lai.

Subscription services also offer potential to deliver the sense of newness that such consumers want.

For more details, read WARC’s report: What do empowered consumers want from brands? Novelty, control and shared values.

Sourced from WARC