Marketing communication and the world wide web - opportunities of internet marketing described

Business Horizons, Sept-Oct, 1996 by Pierre Berthon

What are those odd footnotes to magazine advertisements that begin "http://www"? Are you missing something in the latest televised beer commercial because you don't understand the http://www preceding the brewer's name just at the end of the ad? Many managers today would probably recognize this as the most common beginning of a World Wide Web address, or URL--a "uniform resource locator." Indeed, some may have been deeply involved in setting up their firm's own "Web site." Others might be considering the possibility of doing this in the immediate future. Still others might be totally confused about it all.

It is likely, however, that many managers, researchers, and academics have not yet carefully considered the full potential of the World Wide Web as a marketing tool, particularly with regard to its potential to transform a prospective buyer from merely a passive surfer to an interactive customer. Few have considered how to measure whether the Web site is achieving the marketing objectives set for it--if any have been set at all.

The World Wide Web--also known as WWW or, simply, "the Web"--has attracted a great deal of attention in recent years, both in the influential business press and in popular culture. Reporting on the Web is currently fascinating to general readers, and listing URLs is helpful to consumers. Marketers and managers recognize by now, however, that a greater understanding is required of the true nature of commerce on the Web, particularly from the perspective of using it as a marketing communication medium. With this model of Web conversion efficiency, that is what we set out here to do.

OF NETS AND WEBS

The Internet, or the Net, is a new medium based on broadcasting and publishing that facilitates two-way communication. It is not physically face-to-face, nor is it time-bound. Because it involves communication between computers on networks, it possesses what Blattberg and Deighton (1991) have termed interactivity: It has the facility for individuals and organizations to communicate directly with one another regardless of where they are or when they wish to communicate.

The Web is a hypermedia information storage system based on the Internet that links resources around the world. Browser software allows highlighted words or icons, called hyperlinks, to display a multitude of media--text, video, graphics, and sound--on a local computer screen, no matter where the "source of the resource" is physically located. Hence, it is possible for a person in New Zealand to access the Web site of a TV company such as CNN (http://www.cnn.com) in Atlanta, Georgia, read the latest news, see updated graphs on the world economy, view color photographs of a sporting event, and watch the latest video clips of the Galileo space probe as it hurtles toward Jupiter. The New Zealander can also send an electronic mail (e-mail) message to CNN and expect a reply in a short time. All this is possible despite the fact that New Zealand is thousands of miles from Atlanta and in a time zone 16 hours ahead. The Web has introduced a much broader audience to the Net. Furthermore, it allows anyone-organization or individual--to maintain a 24-hour-a-day presence on the Net.

One feature of the Web is that it offers marketers and advertisers the ability to show full-color virtual catalogues, provide on-screen order forms, offer on-line customer support, announce and even distribute certain products easily, and elicit customer feedback. Web sites have been set up by companies both large and small, such as Reebok (http://www.planet reebok.com/), the athletic wear giant, or tiny Magic Petals (http:// www.aztec.co.za/biz/africa/cadema.htm/), a kiddies' fashion outlet in South Africa; by individuals (check out Paula's Web Page at http:// http2.brunel.ac.uk:8080/~hcsrpds/); and even by whole countries ranging from Australia (http:// www.acru.uq.oz.au/~cjanz/a-z/c.htm) to Zambia (http://www.zamnet.zm).(*) Net surfers can land on these locations, visit, explore, and interact with them.

The Web is not a transient phenomenon. It warrants the serious attention of both marketing academics and practitioners. Among other key activities, academics will need to build models and theories of how the medium works and how buyers will interact with it; practitioners will need to set objectives for their use of the medium as a corporate communication tool and measure their progress toward reaching those objectives.

The statistics quoted almost daily on the size of the Web phenomenon support its permanence. No communication medium or electronic technology--not even fax or personal computers--has ever grown as quickly. According to the Economist, in 1994 the Net doubled in size, as it has done every year since 1988, and now reaches about 5 million host computers, each of which may connect several users. In other words, the Web has grown almost 20-fold in eight years. In just 18 months, users have created more than three million multimedia pages of information, entertainment, and advertising. With more than 30 million users around the globe, the Web is growing at about 50 percent per month and the number of sites is doubling every 53 days. The number of Web servers (computers providing Web sites) now stands at more than 30,000 around the world.