Today’s consumers behave in ways that are antithetical to traditional marketing and advertising models. They have come to rely on advancements that foster new ways of behavior and decision making. Time and place shifting, free information, user-generated content, word of mouth, avoidance of commercials, and, most important, a sense that someone is providing a better experience somewhere else—and yet these realities are not accounted for in today’s marketing models and plans. Designers of commercial interactive experiences often consider these realities at odds with traditional thinking and creative direction, findings that often result in constrictive, alienating funnels. With new marketing models to work from, however, it doesn’t have to be this way.

The swirl is a model of consumer behavior that fuses these new realities with the accountability demanded by marketing and sales groups. It replaces the inflexible, unnuanced marketing cliché of AIDA (awareness, interest, decision, action) with a model that more accurately reflects the Internet and Web 2.0 realities. The swirl not only closes the conceptual gap interactive designers face with clients and internal marketing groups, but it also provides a roadmap for adapting Web 2.0 sensibilities to existing experiences.

This presentation reviews:
1) challenges to the old modes of thinking;
2) the new model of consumer shopping patterns;
3) some tactics that are being effectively deployed; and
4) a review of Web 2.0 design sensibilities that respond to the new realities.