Luring the Virgin Consumer

As technology pushes the boundaries of opportunity, the newest economic force is appearing in the marketplace – the Virgin Consumer. The Virgin Consumer is unfamiliar with many of the products, services, apps, experiences or brands they encounter every day. However, far from being coy, they lust after, try out, and experiment with all these new brands, products, services and experiences more than ever. As long as brands make them effortlessly simple, intuitive, and fun.

These consumers can be broken down into two specific subsets – the Eager Virgin and the Experienced Virgin.

Eager Virgin

The Eager Virgin is focused on newism – the higher than ever appetite for what’s new. The hyper-competition in the marketplace has led to “new” ideas now no longer being seen as purely a marketing ploy (reminding us of the classic marketing conundrum “How can it be new AND improved? If it’s new there has been nothing like it before, and if it’s improved then it isn't new”), but delivering to the consumer more convenient, intuitive, and surprising innovations in their chosen fields. Virgin Consumers have the drive to experience and experiment with new forms of technology and opportunities offered by both new and established brands.

Experienced Virgin

The Experienced Virgin has the same drives and appetites of the Eager Virgin but with one added caveat – they have now been living in a world where access to the “new” is as easy as clicking a button or accessing a web page. These Experienced Virgins are tech-savvy, but not necessarily knowledgeable in the field itself.

Accessing these consumers and turning them from the fleeting acquaintance that they like to stay into the opposite partner in a full-time relationship is the key to building and improving upon a solid customer foundation for the future. The Virgin Consumer is the emerging commercial superpower, being made up of aspects of the “grey dollar”, the “family dollar”, and the “young dollar” without compunction.

What does this mean for us?

From an overall business standpoint, the Virgin Consumer gives us another reason to innovate our offerings. Newism is a movement that shows no sign of stopping, as technology can only innovate, not reverse how we interact with our environments. We as a business have had great success thus far in innovating for our audiences across all manner of advertising media (scented newspaper ads, “steaming” coffee billboards, digital supermarket walls) and as we continue to be an Australian-market leader in this area, the Virgin Consumer may be further attracted to our portfolio of businesses.