Branding in the Digital Age

If you have a product you love, why would you switch to something else? This state of mind has been prevalent in human nature ever since the beginning of mass production, and in this day and age has been taken to to an entirely new level.

This article discussed how consumer/producer relationship has changed to a completely new system in the Digital Age. This "Consumer Decision Journey" (CDJ) has changed from being a journey filled with narrowing down many options, to being attracted to a specific set of advertisements for a product. Now, one would think that we have more choices today and have more narrowing down to do - which is true - but, being constantly "assaulted by media and awash in choices" (Edelman, "Branding in the Digital Age..."), we tend to stick to the things we see more often advertised; therefore already narrowing down the available options that we know about.

One of the most interesting parts, however, is after we have bought a product. If we really enjoy it, we'll advocate it, blog; Tweet; post a picture; Facebook about it because, quite honestly, that's all some people have to do these days (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - although I do tend to see some of the most pointless posts nowadays). This sharing is in itself advertising for the brand we just bought, which then again is exposed to others around you that you share with, who will see the brand and consider it when buying a product...it's all just a big circle.

I really enjoyed this article, it did a really good job of analyzing the new relationship that we have with buying products - which may seem trivial, but in fact completely influences our decisions and outlooks on the things around us. 

Tell me what you think!

You can find a link to the article here.

CC: Flickr user ImageNationPhotography