David Edelman believes the funnel model is outdated and shows this through his post on LinkedIn. He explains that the model only shows a narrow array of choices until the consumer’s purchase. It leaves out the fact that consumers consider their set of decisions after buying a product just as importantly as before they buy the product.
I agree with Edelman’s post, I believe that as technology advances, the evolution of consumer’s preferences will as well. The funnel model is very linear; awareness and opinion leads to consideration, consideration leads to preferences and preferences ultimately leads to purchase. The problem with the model being so linear is that as modern time has advanced, social media has given consumers the ability to view information and opinions about brands. Therefore as people explore which products to buy they are exposed to new brands, which causes product consideration to expand, precisely when the funnel model might expect them to narrow. This is one reason why the use of this model is outdated. The cyclical plan that Edelman gives is great because it puts the consumer at the centre of the model by exploring the complete brand experience and highlighting important components of the journey.
http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121018110732-1816165-the-funnel-is-dead-the-new-consumer-decision-journey