Generation Virtual will have profound impact on business and marketing: Gartner 19 November, 2007 By Chris Talbot

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Gartner is predicting that in 10 years, marketing would focus on catering to anonymous personas rather than people, whereby businesses would sell products to specific online personas without basing their marketing and advertising on demographics information. According to Adam Sarner, principal analyst at Gartner, demographics information will become much less important

"I believe that this will be the most profitable segment for businesses to go after. They're also going to be driving that relationship with businesses. Fundamentally, it changes the relationship with pretty much all future business," Sarner said.

What exactly is Generation Virtual, or Generation V? It's not based on a year of birth, but rather on being virtual and communicating and interacting online. Generation V is made up of all ages with a variety of interests and expertise. In most cases, there's a certain amount of anonymity associated with each of the personas Generation V maintains across the Internet. There's less of a focus on age, gender or some other physical identifier, and more on the merits of that person's knowledge, Sarner said.

"Because more and more people are being part of this Generation V -- Generation Virtual -- I think that's what companies have to face now as we're entering this generation today," he said.

Labels like baby boomer, Generation X, Generation Y or Generation Z don't work any more, Sarner said. When those people go online, they create multiple personas across various Websites and online communities. The demographics information that would ordinarily be associated with, say Generation X, becomes unattainable because businesses are dealing with personas that have not identified their age.

"You can't gain that information. However, if you look at what's going on in the behavior of that Generation V, which is inclusive of baby boomers and Generations X, Y and Z, you can get some knowledge on what they're looking for," Sarner said.

A good example of how this information is put to use is Amazon.com, which tracks what users look at, purchase and add to their wish lists. Then it offers (hopefully) helpful suggestions for what else the person might be interested in.

Generation V won't only affect business and marketing, but also culture, society and even the economy. Baby boomers are living longer, and many of them are going online, right alongside every other generation. They all participate in a flat, virtual environment that Sarner described as a meritocracy. New economies are developing out of this flat, more inclusive world, he said.

Meanwhile, traditional demographics information will become much less important, he said.

"I think as we join Generation V and you're able to create multiple anonymous personas, that stuff goes away. You can't use that stuff. It's not going to be available," Sarner said.

Psychographics will be much more important as relationships between individuals and businesses become more "intimate but anonymous."

Sarner offered several recommendations to businesses for how to target Generation V:

-- Companies should organize their products and services around multiple online personas.

-- Sell to the persona, not the person. A persona will show you how it wants to be treated.

-- Create virtual environments as a way to orchestrate customer exploration toward purchases.

-- Shift investment from known customers to unknown ones. Focus on the influencers within the meritocracy.

-- Develop and retain or outsource new skills to attract, connect, contribute and gain insight from Generation V and its virtual environment.