To Sum It All Up

So, we have come to the end of our technological journey; we have seen how so many aspects of technology influences our daily decision making process and what might happen if we didn't have them. Technology is so influential in our consumer behavior, as well as our everyday lives. Technology has aided in the way and the number of times that we are able to view advertisements as well has how businesses get their message out there. Technology has not only aided in advertising, but it has also added a tremendous amount of clutter. This clutter can then lead to consumer frustration, which then leads to a decline in consumption.

So technology can help and hurt consumers behavior. While technological advances have ultimately helped our day to day routines, it has also led to an overload of information, which can ultimately slow us down.

So, my question is: is technology helping or hurting consumer behavior in the big picture? And how do we, as marketers, break through the clutter that is surrounding consumers?

The Daddy of 'em All!

And then there was the creation of the computer... Do you ever wonder what life would be like if we didn't get to log on to our Facebook everyday, or check our email, or see the new celeb gossip online? Without computers, where would we be today?

Computers control and aide in our everyday lives; we schedule our days around computers, use them in our spare time, and treat them like our adopted children. If there were no computers, would we still have a connection to the outside world. Or what if today all the computers in the world stop working; could you imagine the chaos that would result? It is truly hard to imagine that kind of world after all of the advances that have occurred throughout our lifetime.

Would we, as consumers, still endured the massive amounts of clutter in advertising as we do today; would companies still be able to thrive with the lack of free or cheap advertising? Would we just resort back to the way things were before modern day technology?

Dating Made Easy!

It used to be you would meet the man or woman of your dreams at school, a bar, through friends, etc. These days, people have begun resorting to the thing that we resort to for pretty much everything else for dating advise; the internet. Dating websites have become increasingly popular to meet people your own age in your area. The website matches you up by similarities in your interest, and *Poof* you have a date in no time at all!

This has given marketers another mode of transporting their message, not only through the advertising on the website, but also through the datin spectrum. When you go on dates, you usually go out to eat, get flowers, have wine, etc.; this makes it easy for company's that offer those products or services to supply a solution to your need.

Are You in or Are You Out: LinkedIn

Although we have an overabundance of ways that people can interact via social networking sites, one more can't hurt right? Especially one that keeps you linked in to the professional world, rather than a social world. LinkedIn is a fairly new social networking site for professionals to network themselves as a professional, rather than an everyday person (like Facebook), to the professional world.

This website has geared itself more towards gaining employee's or employer's rather than gaining customers or a fan base. Thus, this website can help people become more productive by reducing the amount of face-to-face networking that is required to be successful in the business world.

How it all started...Instant Messaging and Chat Rooms

Do you ever think about how this whole social media craze started; I'm not talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. No, I'm talking about before even Facebook; I mean instant messaging and chat rooms. Chat rooms gave people a channel to meet new people, people from all over the world that they might not have the opportunity to meet otherwise; and instant messaging was one of the first ways that you could communicate with people instantly (other than using a phone).

While these two modes of communication gave a lot of parents headaches because of the worry of who their children were talking to online, it also became a useful tool and is basically (in another form) still used today. These modes are now used for communication from person to person, but also from business to business, from person to business, and from business to person. Business have seized this opportunity to increase their advertising and get their name out on the market in yet another way.

From Snail mail to Email

Remember the good old days when you would send a letter to a loved one, they would recieve the letter three days later and you would recieve a response three days after that? It felt so personal and difficult to contact the person that you wanted to talk to; these days if you don't send or recieve a response back within one day it feels like forever!

Email and instant messaging has not only increased the speed in which we communicate with other people, it has also increased the number of ways that advertising is able to reach us. It seems that everywhere you go these days they are asking you to get on an 'emailing list' so that you can get 10,000 junk emails per day. Emailing could be a productive (and inexpensive) way to reach your target audience; however, people are becoming so loaded down with clutter that we hardly read or notice half of the emails we recieve today.

To Tweet or not to Tweet....

Do you ever wonder what your favorite celeb is doing every second of every day? Well you are in luck! Thanks to the new Twitter engine you can know close to everything someone is thinking if you only just follow them on Twitter!

While it is one of the newest social networks on the market, Twitter is on the move! It is nearly everywhere now, especially when it comes to the rich and famous. Twitter is now becoming a site that is used to influence consumer behavior; celebs (or everyday average people) can talk about a product, service, company, or idea and get people to latch on to that thing. Company's are becoming increasingly aware of this phenomenon and jumping on the band wagon to sway consumers in their direction.



Blog (noun): to spew uncontrollably from one's brain...

Technology has blessed us today with many useful tools but one of the most significant uses that I have found for technology (and not just because it is required for this class) is blogging. Blogging has become so popular that people can actually create an entire career around simply writing a diary of different topics!

But blogging is no longer only used to convey feelings or to communicate with others about a certain topic; it has become a way for people to learn more about a topic, to research a product, service, or idea, etc. Blogging has begun to influence consumers by continuously informing them about topics from people that have experienced things first hand!

Youtube...You never know what you will find

Back in the old days (about ten years ago...) when you wanted to learn how to braid your hair, learn how to fly fish, or even watch a music video you would have to either figure it out yourself or wait for cable T.V. to play a program on that particular topic. Now, all you have to do is go to a little website we like to call Youtube; its a magical site that will show you pretty much anything you want to see. You can watch, post, and share videos all from this one website; pretty incredible, right?



Youtube has had a tremendous effect on every one's daily lives; if you ever forget how to do something or want to learn something new, you will most likely be able to find a video on Youtube that will teach you how to do it. This website has not only had an incredible effect on learning new things but also on how companies advertise. The newest wave of social advertising is making short movies (like commercials) and posting them to Youtube; this usually reduces clutter and make customers feel more involved with a product since its not just a 30 second commercial that runs twice a day, its a short story that customers can relate to. This change has begun to impact the way that consumers behave when deciding to purchase something. Consumers want to feel a connection to a product and Youtube has begun to create that connection for companies to their consumers.

The one and only, World Wide Web!

Do you ever wonder how in the world we ever survived without this beautiful thing we call the internet? It was so much more difficult to communicate, find what you were looking for, purchase  products, etc.; heck, without the internet, the only person that would be able to read what I'm writing at this very moment would be me...
Can you believe just a few short years ago (even in my lifetime!) this amazing invention was just a twinkling in many young inventor's eye's (and remember dial-up; what a nightmare!). It's hard to imagine what life would be like if the internet had never been invented. Luckily we don't have to!

Like I said before, the internet has completely changed the way that we go about our every day lives; especially when it comes to how we behave as consumers. We would not be able to see (or in many people's case, buy) half of the things we see today; the internet is a hot bed for marketing clutter and consumer mahem! Without the internet, we (as consumers) would be stuck in a slump of having to look through magazine after magazine to find our clothes, rather than just 'googling' it. I think that the internet has had the greatest impact on consumer behavior to date; it has not only changed how and when we see things, it has changed how we trade and desire products.