How Digital Era Change Consumer Behaviour

Millennial and smartphone are two things that inseparable these days. The data showed in the article is that 90% of millennial uses smartphone. It means that social media is on their fingertips.  Furthermore, there is a changing habit caused by smartphone, millennial is no longer going to the supermarket to buy groceries, but they prefer to use a smartphone to shop on their favorite e-commerce. In this essay, I will examine three example of changes in the marketing world due to extreme use of technology and digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tokopedia.

First, we won't see the ads we don't need. Pre-internet era the only entertainment we have is TV. When you watch your favorites series, you will be interrupted with a bunch of ads. The internet era has shifted the way we see ads.  We can identify demographics of internet users, for example as the article has stated that millennial with kids prefer Pinterest, while the youngsters prefer Twitter and Instagram, and Facebook still the most favorite platform for the internet users generally.  So, we already learn this demographic. What can it do? The demographics of internet users can help in planning on targeting ads to consumers. Facebook has an algorithm which can target ads based on the likes of their users so the ads will be effective. Same as the Instagram algorithm that allows their ads to pop up on users based on the search history.  The traditional word-of-mouth has been replaced with the word-of-web obviously. 

Second, a moment of truth. Remember 10 years challenge that has been circulating all over social media? No, I'm not going to talk about your evolution of your haircut or how your body has changed. Why do I talk about the ten years because I want you to look back on how we buy things 10 years ago. Ten years ago when we need shampoo, we merely go to the nearest shop. Our decision to pick a shampoo will be based on our visual stimulus. The color of the bottle, then we will take a look at the information provided if we like the product we will choose it. P&G marketers introduced this model. The frameworks captured the consumer decision process (first moment),  experiencing the product (the second moment of truth, and eventually become the customer. However, this model wasn't used anymore. A decision made by consumer no longer based on the moment of truth, in fact,  the consumer will search the reviews on the web before buying anything.  

Third, zero journeys and zero moments of truth. Let's go back to the shampoo story. As a customer, we have access to our smartphone, and the internet goes beyond supermarkets when we look for a review. We tend to look for "the best", "the cheapest," and so on depends on your preference. So, we'll go the web to search all of that. In fact, instead of having a journey to the supermarket, we tend to choose the easy way, Tokopedia. This change makes e-commerce proliferate since 2015. 

In conclusion, so you know how powerful the digital era is. What you can do now is that we must begin our step to prevail in this digital age. First, you need to learn how "the buzzwords" works. Second, invest in technology.  Artificial intelligence is getting smarter, cheaper, and easier. With the right technology, you can accurately target your audience. Lastly is don't stop to experiment. Digital platforms are the best learning experiment, and the good news is that it often free. So, don't hesitate to experiment.

Blunt Opinion on Beauty Pageant; Add or Eliminate?

According to Wikipedia, a beauty pageant is a contest that mainly focuses on the physical beauty of its contestants. The contests often incorporate personality, talent, and answers to judges’ questions as criteria. The beauty pageant can be traced back a century ago, but the first modern beauty pageant began in 1920 when the first beauty contest was documented in a hotel in Atlantic City. However, the event was not meant to compete for beauty but to promote the hotel. Yet, the documentation gained positive feedback from the audience; it created more contest with similar ideology. Then in 1951, Eric Moley founded Miss World, and the following year Miss Universe was founded. Later in1960 the first Little America Pageant was formed. This event introduced the children into a beauty pageant. 

Nowadays, beauty pageants claimed that they serve a purpose; it's not only about looks but also promote self-confidence, leadership, poise, and public speaking. However, the first requirement to enter a beauty contest hasn't changed since centuries ago. The primary requirement is that the contenders must be tall and slim. These things caused fatalities among audiences and contenders. A story that posted on seventeen.com (link below) by Christa Brown depicted the struggle of being Pageants contestant. According to Christa, even she's been told the judges/interviewer to become herself, the judges implicit her to lose weight. Furthermore, on the D day, Christa saw many girls struggled to stay thin, they took laxatives and ate baby food only. 

So, are they good or bad? Let me break it down to you. According to debate.com. Beauty pageants have pros and cons. 

Pros

• Help get rid of stage fright and boost confidence
• Teach public speaking
• Helps girls feel beautiful inside and out
• Provides scholarships and grants
• Teaches girls to express themselves
• Gives girls an alternative for sports

Cons

• Promotes sexist views, objectifying and sexualizing girls
• Lowers self-esteem because of the primary emphasis on physical beauty
• Makes women more cocky than confident
• Pressures women to strive for unattainable perfection, leading to depression, low self-esteem, eating disorders and poor body-image

The table above shows that the cons are more serious than what we think. It's destructing. Without proper understanding about the sole purpose of beauty pageant both for contenders and audiences, it might do more harm than good. 

And what's the point of beauty pageant?

The answer may be tricky. Well, for a contestant, a little bit of sparkly tiara, a beautiful nightgown, and pretty makeup won't hurt. It's about freedom of expression. Some girls like the attention and exposure, and that's okay. If they won, they can also do charity works and advance social works that matter to them. It will become easier since the publicity gained during the event. Also, during the event, the contestant will meet new people, it's called networking. For the audience, it's just a matter of entertainment. The contests are meant to entertain, and that's it.

In reality, it's unlikely that the contests serve its sole purpose. Many people, both contenders, and audiences misinterpret the intent. Many people still believe that the competition is only about beauty and being slim. People still don't understand that beauty is subjective. It's unlike a math problem that has the exact answer - there can be multiple viewpoints on what makes a person beautiful. I have to say that beauty contests should be banned, any kind of it. Beauty should not be standardized. The contest doesn't emphasize the talents of the contenders; instead, they exposed their physical appearance and sex appeal. That's why they put minimum height and body type in the first place as the requirement. 

Today, real beauty is about being authentic and transcendent.All of these pageants are very damaging to women, and ‘no’, nothing has changed or improved beyond the fact that the event organizers, promoters and participants are now simply more ‘politically correct.’ We can SAY that it’s about poise, we can SAY it includes a few token questions for the contestants (to see how intelligent, poised, civic-minded, etc. they are), we can SAY it’s about musical/dance, etc. talent, but at the end of the day every single one of these women are of a certain height, below a certain weight, and all are what we’d consider very attractive. Bathing suit competitions? Ball gowns? Really? And yet they still try to tell us this is NOT about conforming to certain standards of beauty? The day I see a short, heavy, ‘unattractive’ woman winning such a pageant, that’s the day I’ll truly know it’s about all that ‘other stuff’ and NOT about looks.

Until such time, these pageants are nothing but substantial money-making schemes for the TV show advertisers, the sponsors, the hotels, and the countries that host the pageants also get a tourism boost. And less directly, such pageants, by perpetuating notions of beauty, help to keep the cosmetics, hair care product, and plastic surgery businesses as a whole, flourishing.

Why Young People Don't Vote

Indonesia is heading to the presidential election this April 2019. Half - 187.1 million of Indonesian voters are from the millennial generations, born roughly between 1982-2001 (Titi Anggraeni - Executive Director Perludem). In the 2014 election,  less than 30% of youngsters cast a ballot. The number of youth voters in 2019 is quite big and will contribute significantly to the victory of the Candidates — however, youngsters are not sufficiently engaged in politics. They remained apathy towards the political process because they assume that political dynamics are not attractive and doesn't seem to affect their everyday lives. The decline in the political involvement of younger generations and the decreasing levels of youth participation not only endanger the democratic representativeness of today but also jeopardize the democracy of tomorrow. In 2014's youth participation, there are several reasons why young people don't vote.

First, registration was a hurdle. In 2014, many youngsters still hadn't gotten E-KTP which was needed to vote. Voter-eligibility regulations were confusing, too. As an instance, even as the minimum vote casting age was 17, all and sundry who was married and had an identification card could vote. Ladies as younger as 16 could marry legally. With those confusing rules, the young voters didn't want to put in the effort to get them registered or get themselves the voter ID cards. Also, some made it precise that the electorate must be from the addresses they paid taxes from or where their vehicle was registered. This indicated college goers would need to journey back domestic or request an absentee ballot week in advance. This problem still exists until now. If the KPU take action, make the registration easier, the youth participation projected will increase in 2019.

Second, scandals involving numerous political parties. The number of corruption has been spiked over the years also caused apathy of young voters. Young people didn't have very high belief and faith in the legislative branch, especially when they see the leaders abusing powers and not doing their work correctly. 

Third, unaffected by changes. Most policies and issues that candidates had to offer didn't affect people much until later in life. Which potential turnout for older people expected to be high in most elections. However, due to the fact of this, candidates tackled worries of the older generations and positioning themselves as beneficial to older folks. This made the issues that have long-term consequences out of the picture. So, young voters didn't see their concerns being addressed and determined not to support either candidate. This reason kept younger voter turnout low in the elections. Parties saw youth issues like a low return on investment.

Take an example of the United States, a large chunk of the youth population was reluctant to use their power. That was one of many reasons why Donald Trump was elected as the 44th POTUS. It's clear that the youth regretted their past action. Youth voter turnout spiked during midterm elections, a significant increase from 21 % to 31 %. The Youth may feel that electing a president won't affect their lives as in now, but they will in four years, then they came in the realization that every vote matters. Every policy made by a president or senator will have the following effect. Adulthood brings many new challenges, like school, marriage, mortgage, health insurance, and being an entrepreneur, all of which could radically transform your view on political issues.  At the same time as you can't predict who or where you may be in four years, you may make sure that the senator/president elected into the house and the policies they put into effect will impact your life within the coming months and years. Why don't vote? Speak up, cast a ballot, and take part inside the election to guard your interests in your life.