From cyber to cyborg : The influence of motivation and personality traits on the merging of consumer and technology

As technology extends further into consumer daily lives, consumers develop significant relationships with their technology, particularly mobile devices. This conceptual paper aims to investigate the merging of consumers and their technology, termed the cyborg consumer, which has been previously overlooked in the marketing literature. More specifically, this investigation extends the marketing theories of consumer psychological motivation and ersonality traits in examining the influence of these elements on cyborg consumer behaviour, such as intensive consumption of technology and construction of an important part of the self on the Internet. A conceptual framework of the cyborg consumer is presented, which will help marketers to better understand how consumers’ relationships with technology are changing and how marketing practices can be better targeted to the cyborg consumers

Love as a Commodity : Human branding in the online dating context

The increasing integration of the Internet into individuals? lives and the changing lifestyles has evoked the trend of online dating. While branding activities were generally constructed for products/services, we argue that branding elements can be applied to an online dating context in the terms of autonomy, relatedness, and competence. The 'buying' and 'selling' process in this context intrigued the question of whether individuals are being commoditised as they are perceived as brands. Findings from this qualitative research provides an insightful understanding into emerging branding applications into this area of what strengthens this attachment and the commoditisation of humans in the online environment