Digital marketing and the young consumer

This chapter analyzes the influences of the young consumer on the digital or online decision-making process for a variety of relevant brand categories. The digitalisation of media fuelled by remarkable technological advancement has changed the landscape of the business environment and the variety of functions within it since the initial development of the Internet. Significant development of digital media has led to the establishment of the term digital marketing where traditional models and frameworks of marketing could be applied in a more enhanced manner using a variety of digital platforms, drastically improving the promptness and effectiveness of marketing efforts. There is a transitional shift in marketing function overall, with more advanced and sophisticated digital marketing techniques and applications being put in place by companies for attracting, engaging, serving and maintaining relationships with customers. There has been a strategic- and operational-level transformation of traditional customer relationship management (CRM) into electronic CRM (E-CRM) and now social CRM (S-CRM)