Social factor versus utilitarian technology: social marketing versus utilitarian market

Abstract

Technical service and convergence have been expanding and modifying the use of products and services in the telecommunications sector, generating new markets and expanding their demographic targets through different characteristics of usage. The article developed here presents qualitative research through the netnographic study (e.g. a new structure of qualitative evaluation is used, in which thematic discussions are gathered from websites based on key words used, afterwards passing through a codification and interpretation process in reference to researched factors) based on consumers and their behaviors concerning the iPhone which is a mobile device from Apple with many integrated features and convergence in services. This study evaluated the utilitarian and social / hedonistic factors, finding that the sector market has a new series of services, attracting new groups of users to its context, and resulting in the type of marketing becoming more and more diversified. The social factor (personal image) is highlighted as a primary factor in the selection and device usage, where the actual market and product marketing are increasingly stimulating utility as a social value. Identifying the mobile phone as a utilitarian product based on kind of service and proposed system usage, leads one to believe that the utilitarian market changes its meaning when a certain quantity of integrations are highly hedonistic in their diverse uses, as well as the hedonistic and social values. The authors define the usage of a technological product with many integrated hedonisms as useful social behavior, where the product usefulness becomes social (personal presentation or individual enjoyment).