Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jan Crawley who wrote (4252)	5/12/1998 7:57:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Hi you guys, we are all creature of habits. Amazon.com is a habit now!! That's the product differentiation! Actually, Amazon has become an obsession. I am obsessed with seeing them fall:-) Glenn

To: Jan Crawley who wrote (4252)	5/13/1998 7:01:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

"Borderless consumers" the new force in marketing Reuters Story - May 13, 1998 04:34 %EG %ADV %PUB %BUS %US %ENR %BEV %FOD %LEI %DE KO MCD DAIG.F MOB V%REUTER P%RTR By David Cowell CAIRO, March 13 (Reuters) - In the long history of punch lines and catchphrases popularised by the advertising industry, it has none of the instant appeal of baby-boomer, jet-set or Generation-X. But with the globalisation of media and markets, the notion of "borderless consumers" will be worth more than all of them put together, experts believe. "Borderless consumer purchases are often driven more by lifestyle needs than by the cultural or national environments in which they live and work," Jan Soderstrom, executive vice president for marketing at Visa International, told Reuters in an interview. "We do a lot of global research when we develop products and when we deliver campaigns so we have a good opportunity to determine how similar people are in terms of how they respond to different concepts," she said. The emergence of the borderless consumer follows years of exposure to borderless media such as CNN, Star TV, MTV and the internet. Cultural barriers are being knocked down at an unprecedented rate. Marketing experts point out that radio took 38 years to reach 50 million people, television hit the target after 13 years, while the internet needed only four. Global brands like Coca-Cola , McDonald's and Mercedes derive a majority of their revenues from beyond their home markets - and the overseas share is growing all the time. Soderstrom told delegates at the 36th World Advertising Congress in Cairo that close to one billion companies are expected to conduct electronic commerce over the internet within the next five years. "The implications for marketers of this emerging group of borderless consumers are enormous," she said. "We have to learn how to research, codify and continually replenish our understanding of who these borderless groups are and what makes them act in similar ways. "We foresee borderless consumption expanding over the next 20-25 years from a relatively small group of mobile or cosmopolitan consumers to broad sections of populations around the globe." She dismissed the idea that cultural and national differences would ever be swamped by a homogenized world economy. And commmunications experts cautioned that global consumers would not be docile and easily bewitched by mass media. "Your message will be clearly tailored to the relationship you are trying to build -- not to the medium you are using to build it," said Robert O'Leary, general manager of global public affairs at Mobil Corp . "My concern is that advertisers are being tempted by the new media to shift their money and resources toward the media and away from the development of the message. "At best that's a monumental waste of money. At worst, it's counterproductive."