The New Pillars of Consumer Behavior

The marketing landscape has undergone a dramatic transformation in recent years. In particular, the traditional marketing funnel, a linear structure that marketing professionals relied on for decades, no longer provides a complete view of the consumer journey. Today, people navigate a dynamic network of multiple digital touchpoints, often simultaneously, generating increasingly unpredictable consumer behavior. As a result, the evolution of this journey requires a deep understanding of the new behaviors that define interaction with brands.

Research by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), which surveyed more than 2,000 marketing professionals worldwide, revealed the existence of consumer behaviors based on 4S: streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping. These practices have reshaped the way people discover and interact with brands. Consequently, understanding each of these behaviors and adapting marketing strategies accordingly has become critical to reach audiences, connect with them, and consequently drive sales.

But what do we mean by streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping and how do these new behaviors influence purchasing decisions directly?

First, there's streaming. This behavior goes far beyond simply watching different kinds of movies or listening to music. It involves continuous and personalized content consumption through platforms such as connected TV, podcasts, and YouTube, the latter being used daily by 79% of Generation Z consumers. Streaming experiences are interactive by nature, allowing consumers to seamlessly transition from the discovery phase to decision-making. For example, Google and/or YouTube are present in two-thirds (67%) of the purchase journeys in which consumers in Mexico said they discovered a new brand, product, or retailer, according to Ipsos. In this environment, the key is to focus on intelligent content sequencing, AI-driven personalization, and interactive storytelling that transforms passive viewing into active engagement.

Then there's scrolling, a behavior that has distinguished itself by turning discovery into action. Whether browsing social media or searching for inspiration on different types of platforms, people today consume content, often without an immediate intent to purchase. However, the right ad, strategic product placement, or recommendation from a content creator can spark consumer interest and instantly drive action. In this regard, the analytics firm Ipsos highlights that online users are 98% more likely to trust creator recommendations on YouTube compared to other social platforms.

Third is searching, a search behavior that has evolved beyond the simple action of typing a query into a search engine. Today, people search for information in a wide variety of ways: whether using AI tools like Gemini for conversational exploration, Google Lens to instantly identify items of interest through image queries, AI-powered Overview to provide summaries with key information and links to drill down, or multimodal search, which combines text, image, and voice inputs. As these search habits evolve, consumers expect more intuitive, real-time answers tailored to their personal needs. This is demonstrated by the fact that more than 5 trillion searches are performed on Google every year, while Lens, a technology that allows queries to be made through image recognition, is used in more than 20 billion visual searches per month. To meet the expectations consumers have, it's important to optimize different search ecosystems and use AI-powered advertising solutions. Today, brands can save time and improve their results through products like Broad Match, which allows them to attract potential customers based on keywords found in their searches; smart bidding, strategies that use Google's AI to optimize themselves to generate conversions; and automatic resources, a feature that provides the possibility to generate additional resources such as titles or descriptions to use in combination with the resources you include in your responsive search ads. 

Finally, we come to the last behavior: shopping, where consumers usually expect a simple and frictionless purchasing experience, whether through a social commerce post, an in-app payment, or a YouTube video ad. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos, more users in the country trust their shopping journeys on YouTube than on leading social platforms. This practice has seen impulse purchases and decision-making across multiple touchpoints become commonplace over time. Given this, brands have the opportunity to integrate shopping into all the relevant marketing touchpoints. AI-based recommendations, personalized offers, and strategic calls to action (CTAs) can increase conversions at any stage of the consumer journey, while generative AI now offers advertisers the opportunity to enhance their shopping ads with immersive imagery, including virtual try-ons and 3D-generated rotating ads, for example.

Identifying behaviors through the 4S approach represents different types of challenges, but also value opportunities for brands. On the one hand, consumer journeys are more fragmented than ever, yet these same behaviors also create new avenues to engage, influence and convert consumers. 

By understanding and adapting to streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping behaviors, marketing professionals can more effectively align their strategies with the realities of today's consumer journey. Through the power of artificial intelligence, brands will be able to analyze these behaviors, personalize interactions, and ultimately, build stronger and more lasting connections with consumers, driving business growth and success.

The new digital marketing landscape, driven by changes in consumer behavior, implies the adoption of an agile mindset and a continuous investment in understanding the new dynamics of consumer behavior. Brands that are able to better adapt to 4S behaviors and integrate artificial intelligence into their marketing strategies will be better positioned to thrive in a changing and challenging digital era full of opportunities.