Web Advertising Essays - Marketing, Digital Technology,

Web Advertising annon Web advertising, not to mention the Internet itself, finds itself in a stage of relative infancy and therefore provides marketers with novel challenges and situations which need to be dealt with caution . The realm of Web advertising is unchartered terri tory! In terms of South Africa, the country finds itsef somewhat behind technologically. However, this may not prove to be a disadvantage as the uncertain nature of Web advertising may make a policy of 'watching and learning' most viable. What implications will this new technology have for marketing? What is the nature of Web advertising? How can a business use the medium effectively? Where is all this going ? These questions appear to be most pertinent in the process of understanding interact ive marketing on the Internet. The qualified opinion of John Matthee, a Web site designer employed by Adept Internet (an Internet service provider), was sought in accumulation of a large sum of the following data. This seems appropriate as the novelty of Web advertising at this stage h as led to generral lack of academic data in the practicalities of advertising via this medium. 2) THE INTERNET: AN INTRODUCTION 2.1) Original development of the Internet What was originally created by the US military to provide a secure means of communication in case of nuclear war, which has now become known as the Internet, has metamorphosed into the strategic global communications tool of our era. The end of the cold w ar left this massive installed structure - initially dubbed ARPANET- without much of a purpose. Soon universities, major corporations and governments began to piggyback on to the global framework, extending its reach and commercialising it. Known as the N et to aficionados, the Availability of cheap, accessible and easy-to-use Net access points throughout the world has seen the number of global Internet users increase dramatically each month. While the convenience of electronic mail was initial catalyst for Internet growth world wide, it's the emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) multimedia interface that has captured the attention of prospective users across the globe. The resources available on the WWW are as varied as they are extensive. There hundreds of thousands of sites which can be broadly categorised under topics such as sport, entertainment, finance and many more (Perlman, 1996). 2.2) Development of Internet in South Africa Perlman (1996, p 29) ventured that 'South Africa is major global Internet player. It currently rates in the top 15 in the world terms of Internet growth rates.' Local user numbers are certainly fueled by universities, companies and schools. The genesis of South Africa's rapid Internet growth seems to stem from UniNet, the Internet service offered to the countries major tertiary institutions and steered from Rhod es University. This explains the phenomenon whereby the majority of local Internet entrepreneurs - many of them are under thirty and already multi-millionaires - come from tertiary education backgrounds where they were weaned on readily available Internet access. Popular 'browser' client software for navigating the multimedia WWW includes Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer. On the other end, there exist approximately 30 local companies which call themselves ISP's (Internet Service Providers), which operate in similar fashion to a cellular company such as Vodacom, providing either dial-up connections to the Internet and/or leased line connectivity to companies. This has led to the explosion of a number of related ventures, such as companies who speci alise in producing multimedia web pages (such as Adept Internet), Internet commerce, cable companies and modem suppliers (Perlman, 1996). 2.3) Technological Implications for Marketing Joseph (1996, p. 29) concisely described the situation as such: ' Marketing, like most business disciplines, is undergoing a period of change as a direct result of the information revolution. The rapidly declining costs of and increasing power of information processing technology is altering the in which customers and businesses relate to each other. Marketers, however should be cautious not to attempt a quantum leap from more traditional meth ods as this is sure to bring issues such as lack expertise to the fore which could prove disastrous (Steyn, 1996). Essentially, the point is that as a marketing drive, the additional services supplied by technology provides the marketer with the opportunity to gain an edge in the race to win the consumer. More and more, new technology appears to be focusing on the add ition of value. On an individual level, for example, the marketer may use the technology to make himself more accessible to the consumer thus adding to his service levels. A company may realise added value by investing in expensive multimedia kiosks