Customised Communication and the Mouse Click Generation: Between Empowerment and Vulnerability
This paper examines the concept of customised communication (CC) through the emergence of changing lifestyles and consumer behaviour in a postmodern marketing environment where the market is increasingly mediated by new media technologies. The postmodern landscape is one in which Internet users are both portrayed as empowered and vulnerable. In assessing these contradictory discourses of the consumer, an effective use of CC entails reconciling these two strands. The sensitive marketer must maximise the empowering features and minimise the vulnerable ones in order to reach the consumer effectively. Sensitivity to privacy concerns and anxieties must be augmented by a service perspective which hinges on building a long term relationship and dialogue.