Marketing and Technology: Are We Consumers or Products?

In an era where bits and bytes have become an integral part of our ecosystem, the line that separates consumers from products becomes increasingly blurred. Are we in the driver's seat, or are we in the back seat as commodities on our way to the vast data market?
 

It's important to know that from the earliest barter transactions, the first sales, and from the moment basic goods like food and shelter existed, marketing planted its seed within the system as we know it.
 

Ancient merchants used ingenuity to convince buyers of the quality of their products, farmers had to promote their quality produce, and commodities like gold or myrrh took on values that we assigned to them.

The result of all this is evident today; marketing continues to be an art of communication and persuasion deeply rooted in economic history and in constant evolution as a species.
 

However, the fusion of technology and marketing has given birth to a new kind of relationship. While we started with marketing products, goods, and services, a new product has emerged that has infinite uses and innovates more than any data projection: our own information, once private, has now become a commercial asset.
 

Every click, every like, every moment spent viewing, even the reading time of this article, is recorded and analyzed, allowing ads to tailor themselves to our lives like a glove on a hand.
 

Advertisements (or advertisers) know us at the most intimate level, predicting our preferences before we even realize them ourselves. Technology has built a direct bridge between brands and our needs, making every ad feel as if it were meant just for us.
 

However, as we get swept away by the melody of personalization, we must ask ourselves if we are truly in control of our choices. While algorithms serve us options that align with our profile, are we really creating the algorithm, or is the algorithm creating us?
 

Technology has transformed the way we interact with brands. But as we scroll and click, we are also relinquishing not only valuable information but also a part of our very personality.
 

As we know well, we are what we read, hear, taste, and see, and the more we see, the more we believe we know. However, this cycle of learning closes when the algorithm identifies something you like and bombards you with it to the extreme.

While following trends is relevant for creating a conversation with people who consume similar content, or we can create our own interpretation of the information given to us, both advertising and more organic content play a role in which information saturation can be too much for what we know.
 

In a world where products are both physical and digital, we must remember that our choice and discernment remain powerful tools. The sin is not in sharing or receiving information; the sin lies in knowing what we do with it. While we can use it, it can also use us, and the battle begins between what you want and what your information says you want.
 

The key here is to find a balance, to recognize how technology can enrich our lives without defining them entirely. Our relationship with technology, marketing, and our judgment should be a symbiosis in which we preserve our authenticity.
 

As we navigate the ever-changing territory of the internet, let's remember that we are the ones influencing what we see, capable of deciding which parts of ourselves we share and which parts we reserve for the life that surrounds us outside of digital channels.

Written by Luis Angel Perez, Project Manager.