New Thinking

Sensory Perception - In Cyberspace Perception Is Reality

Consumers are becoming more aware of the fidelity of products. Brands have intangible values that are made up from complex emotive and sensory perceptions.

In the new economy the process has become binary. Either you're on or you're off. The consumer has many other options and will explore the path of least resistance.

Profile of our new economy consumer -
She moved to the new territory of the connected world in 1998. Although she traveled alone to this new world, she often returns to her old world to keep in touch with friends, buy items and to recruit more people.

She finds that life in the new territory has improved over time and that the level of convenience in her new domain is growing. On each return journey to her old domain she tells stories of the wonders of the new world. Like a pebble in a pond her message spreads across her network, across their network and so on. The pebble results in ripple that could be called mass migration.

Each of these immigrants uses a new network of fellow immigrants to assist in their establishing steps in the new domain. Word of mouth is supreme. Due to the lack of behavioural modeling in the new domain, marketers and planners find it hard to grasp at the trends and wild predictions being made based on speculation rather than fact.

Our new citizens are the group known as netizens. They will reward convenience; they punish inconvenience. The netizen doesn't live solely in this domain and regularly travels back to their own domain.

Over time the netizen establishes a local network of peers, suppliers and service providers.

Organisations that are yet to establish in the new domain will loose the netizen's custom. Those that have established in the new domain will be compared to new players. As soon as the netizen finds a local supplier offering equal or greater convenience they will change their supplier of choice.