Consumer empowerment in the digital media marketing age: a comparative literature review and trends across selected countries

Globally, environment and consumer interactions are rapidly changing due to digital technologies and digital media marketing. The introduction of new digital technologies and the complexity it has brought about has led to a change in the old marketing paradigm. Traditional consumer dynamics have evolved drastically with innovative ways to interact, communicate and connect with consumers supported by digital technologies. With the progression of new age digital marketing mediums communication practices have transformed and consumers have become empowered, which has led to a shift in the balance of power towards consumers. Consumer empowerment is considered as an integrated factor which promotes adoption of digital media as it allows a consumer to communicate and share views with others. With the increased user-generated content available online, there has been a shift of power from practitioners to consumers and as such it is an important factor in the adoption of digital media. This paper applied a semi-systematic comparative literature review about the elements of digital media that lead to consumer empowerment in the context of Pakistan, and compared them with China, South Korea, and Mexico, which are the highest spending countries in digital advertising in 2021. It was found that in comparison with China and South Korea, Pakistani and Mexican brands and organizations were not well equipped to meet the multifaceted challenges of digital transformation.