IoT Stories: The Good, the Bad and the Freaky

Publications

Suggested Citation

Giesler, M., & Fischer, E. (2018). IoT Stories: The Good, the Bad and the Freaky, GfK Marketing Intelligence Review, 10(2), 24-29. doi: https://doi.org/10.2478/gfkmir-2018-0014

Read whole article

Year

2018

Authors

Markus Giesler,
Eileen Fischer

Publication title

IoT Stories: The Good, the Bad and the Freaky

Publication

NIM Marketing Intelligence Review

Markus Giesler and Eileen Fischer

Consumers’ perceptions of technology are less matters of product attributes and concrete statistical evidence and more of captivating stories and myths. Managers of IoT can instill consumer trust when they tell highly emotional stories about the technologically empowered self, home, family or society. The key benefit of this approach is that storytelling-based IoT marketing allows consumers to forge strong and enduring emotional bonds with IoT and, in many cases, to develop loyalty beyond belief.

However, stories aren’t always positive. Negative stories and meanings about a technology that are circulated in popular culture can be dangerous and harmful to a brand or a new technology. Regardless of its source, marketers need to understand the nature of the doppelgänger images that may be circulating for their technologies. They can be regarded as diagnostic tools to better understand how consumers think about and experience their IoT solutions. Also, doppelgänger narratives are valuable raw ingredients from which marketers can cull new, more captivating IoT stories that nurture consumer adoption.

Authors

Markus Giesler, Associate Professor of Marketing & Director of the Big Design Lab, Schulich School of Business & Big Design Lab, York University, Toronto, Canada, mgiesler@schulich.yorku.ca
Eileen Fischer, Professor of Marketing and the Max and Anne Tanenbaum Chair of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise, Schulich School of Business, York University. Toronto, Canada, efischer@schulich.yorku.ca

Share Publication

Copy link

Here you can find more exciting articles of this issue.

To the entire issue

Up to now, IoT device adoption is happening mainly in the niche segments of technologically sophisticated upscale consumers and technology-…

The benefits brought to us by recent product innovations also come with potential burdens for people who are motivated to consume by …

The pressure of delivering products in hyper-competitive markets often leads developers to ignore basic data management precautions, along …

What consumers notice from the IoT is just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the surface, dozens of applications are communicating and …

Augmented Intelligence – effective human-computer symbiosis – has the potential to address emerging challenges successfully, possibly more …

IFTTT is a neutral platform that offers easy and free ways to get all your apps and devices talking to each other. Millions of users …

The classical customer journey with its touchpoints is transformed into a lifelong, interactive customer relationship within an IoT-based …

Scroll to top

Other articles of the MIR issue “IoT - Consumers and the Internet of Things”