Beware the pitfalls of digital marketing

THE quantity versus quality equation is an age-old conundrum. As out-at-elbow students devouring cheap stomach-roiling buffets that had us floating to the ceiling each night bloated with gas, the logic against small savoury meals served on clean china was simple. Quality is expensive. Like the guns-and-butter dialectic, it continues to perplex everyone from seasoned economists who swear by the logic of markets, to lemming-like retailers who, also believing in the market, go with the flow and hope for the best come cliff or high water.

In the internet age where everything from mobile phones to music, movies and news is apparently free, and people follow trends more than ever before, the discussion has taken a perverse turn with "quan…