Who's Really Behind Marketing?: Tapscott III

Who's really behind what gets marketed? Is it the companies who create the product? Is it anthropological masterminds who can determine what society will inevitably want? Or is it the consumers themselves?

Just as American culture has shifted to a more technologically-based way of living, marketing of product has changed as well. Tapscott points out that "Net Geners, as we will see, are a new kind of shopper" (Tapscott 187). How so?

People of the Net Generation know what they want out of a product. They don't need to be told what to want as much as they need to be asked. Marketing seems to be taking a shift from the companies producing something which they then tell the population they need, to now the population displaying what their demands are.

It's becoming more and more important for companies to actually understand what consumers wish they had and figure out a way to make that happen as opposed to figuring out a way to make consumers want what they have made.

Net Geners have been ". . .immersed in two-way communication from childhood" (Tapscott 186). Because of this "two-way communication" Net Geners are used to having a "say" in what they get and are affected by. The Information Age has given the capability for people of all ages to gain information and a knowledge-base in virtually any topic. Therefore, more people are more knowledgeable about more things. These same people want to have input feedback and offer up opinions to contribute their own thoughts derived from the knowledge base they have obtained.

The days of salesmen telling us what we want are fading as the population begins to have more of a voice when it comes to consumerism. Net Geners are ". . .no longer passive consumers of the broadcast model" (Tapscott 186). Take a look at Apple, for example. This is just one company on the cutting edge of listening to the Net Geners and other generations who would like to have a say in what they are buying. This form of communication then production, tends to create products that match what the consumers want or wish their gizmos and gadgets to do.

This two-way communication style between consumer and producer is a great deal more effective as it gives the consumers voice a place and at the same time ultimately gives them what they were asking for.