The Internet is Creating Niche Consumers

A Cultural Analysis by David Boyle

Technology influences Culture

• All forms of communication except face-to-face requires a form of media technology.

• The Medium is the Message– “popular medium molds what we see and how we

see it—and eventually, if we use it enough, it changes who we are, as individuals and as a society”- Nicholas Carr

• The book brain Internet brain

3 Steps to Consumer Specialization

• The Internet is changing…– Our brain waves• Nicholas Carr; The Shallows

– Our social circles • Eli Parisier; Cyber Bubbles

– Our consumer habits • Adam Curtis; Century of the Self

Digital Millennial Culture

• Internet is the popular medium of our time with it’s own ideological undertones (Carr)– It changes our habits, interactions and ways of

thinking… …thus changing the way we purchase and interact

with brands. • The book brain Internet brain– How will this influence consumer habits?

No Technology is Neutral. • The paradox of technology in culture: People create

technology, but technology affects the way people think.

Free Love College Hippies + Cold War Military Paranoia worked together to create the Internet in a culture of decentralization.

Cyber Bubbles

• The Internet customizes and curates the way we search the net and draws us into “cyber bubbles.”

• As consumers, we are identifying ourselves culturally instead of spatially.

Be Careful…It’s Getting Smarter

• Edward Bernays started the shift from products that function to products that express our inner desires. This is still true…

• But Digital Millennial consumers have a more level playing field– Entrée of brand choice– Democratization of Luxury– Kickstarter Consumers (backers)

So What Am I Saying Here?

• The Internet’s culture of decentralization and new lines of social interaction has married with the psychological shift of products as extensions of ourselves to create a new consumer that yearns for brands that share its ethos and fits into a specific lifestyle niche.

The New Consumer

• Self confident • Discerning• Socially conscious• Identifies with a cultural

group• Looking for products that

share not just a perceived notion of self, but a shared ethos– Shared Value

The New Company

• Warby Parker– No boutique price-hike/ “cut-out-the-middleman” – Social good mission– Lifestyle>Function

The Future: Market BE a Lifestyle

• Brands and consumers have been exponentially growing closer to each other as the mediums that market companies bring them closer into the lives of it’s consumers.

• In order to survive, new companies will not be about function or psychology, but about aligning itself with the social and cultural capital of the groups it wishes to serve.