Digital Delta. Herlander Elias

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      Technology, or mostly digital media, are enabling brand worlds to reach easily more user-consumers. Also, happy user-consumers tend to stay more comfortable within the corporation’s walled gardens. Why leave? There is everything we need in the brand worlds’ ecosystems. So the technology aspect is key here for it allows us to connect between each other and thus with the brand world‘s vision of the future, even if we do not know there is a better way to do things differently. For Deborah Chae & Andy Bateman “It is so profoundly different from the physical world as to warrant a new role for brands, new ways to brand, and therefore a piece of code to represent the new era for brands ― e-branding” (apud Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 70). This instance of e-branding is following us as we consume mostly brand worlds that have a strong digital presence on their own. We are talking here about the fusion of cyberspace with the corporation, the user with the consumer, the media and the brands. The result is a process of change in which we stand in the center of the universe for brand worlds that care about us. They have developed us as their favorite public audience.

      Deborah Chae & Andy Bateman believe that “every good brand starts with a big idea: a core idea that differentiates it from the competition, that is based on its strengths, that is meaningful to its customers, and is elastic enough to allow for future growth. It is on this core idea that the company’s foundation is based” (apud Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 69). Back to the corporations and the brand worlds again. This elasticity, this versatility is what makes brand worlds coming closer to us. In addition, the future growth will rely on one fact: differentiation disguised as an innovation. And with user-consumers using several different media at the same time, brand worlds must resist cross-media consumption or apply cross-media campaigns. Pretty much like Fred Horowitz notices: “consumers are multichannel, with and without the Internet” (apud Meyers & Gerstman, 2001, 40). But of course, they are mostly online these days.

      What is happening is that the “the younger generations use the platforms the same way you do: strategically. Their goal is to get their message out and stay relevant” (Primo, 2014, para.7). Everybody follows the profiles of the brand world. People want to connect, be different and follow a lifestyle, get richer, be a better consumer, stay informed and make the best choices. The real question here is that strategic communication is no longer just an asset of corporations and media conglomerates. As Primo notices, younger generations use the platforms in a strategic kind of way. This is a major change. Nobody is just a part of a passive audience; they are user-consumers who got emancipated.