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Various developments in the marketing terrain in combination with the emergence of a new breed of information and communication technologies have been constantly transforming market dynamics and customer behavior over the last two decades. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons behind one of these changes – the customer empowerment – and to discuss the implications of this development for the marketing practice.

The article analyses the background of customer empowerment on the basis of literature review, anecdotal evidence and underlines the role of the internet as a tool of customer empowerment. The paper attempts to identify the main issues around this new subject and often makes use of practical cases. The scope of the paper is to underline the need for marketing strategists to approach their customers and markets in new ways.

The old type push marketing approaches based on mass media and massively produced products become less and less effective.

Marketers must realize that the empowered consumer is now in control of the message and the communication process. He is able to ignore the marketer and make decisions based on high quality information, many alternatives and new forms of transactions. Reaching this consumer requires a trust‐based approach (customer advocacy) based on openness and a real effort to help the customer achieve his objectives.

The paper summarizes several ideas and demonstrates with many practical examples the new market realities. The paper argues that strategists and marketers failing to understand the impact of the internet and the consequences of customer empowerment on their markets suffer from “Digital Myopia” that could endanger the survival of their business in the future.

Architectonics is proposed as a dialogic theory and method to research three discursive spheres: McDonald's corporation, McDonaldization, and McDonaldland.

Bakhtin proposed architectonics as a new method for the human sciences, one that interanimates cognitive with ethical and aesthetic systemness. This essay develops architectonics further, and applies it to the study of globalization and localization of the McDonald's and Wal‐Mart corporations, which now cohabits with each other in New Mexico (and elsewhere).

A general inquiry system is suggested as a framework to analyze the architectonics of other organizations, in future international studies.

Through the application of the notion of architectonics to the McDonald's and Wal‐Mart corporations the authors develop an innovative approach to understanding organizations.