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Belch: Advertising and
Promotion, Sixth Edition
V. Developing the
Integrated Marketing
Communications Program
15. The Internet and
Interactive Media
The Internet: Powerful IMC Tool
or Just Another Medium?
The rise and fall of the World Wide Web (WWW)
brings to mind images of riding a roller-coaster.
First there was the very rapid growth of the
medium and the dot-com boom. Next came the
dot-com bust and rapid downhill spending by
marketers. Now the predictions are that the Net
is slowly climbing back up. It appears that the ups
and downs of this medium have many marketers
confused about how to use the Internet.
Part of the problem regarding how best to use
the Internet can be attributed to the infancy of
this medium and to differing opinions as to what
role the Internet should assume. Direct marketers,
for example, argue that the Internet is
just another direct-marketing medium—albeit
one with great sales potential. Others take a
much broader perspective, viewing the Internet
as an important IMC tool capable of supporting
and enhancing other program elements. They
see the Internet as a medium whose role is central
to the effectiveness of the IMC program.
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2003
One of the proponents of the latter perspective
is David A. Aaker, a University of California–
Berkeley professor and the author of numerous
articles and books on branding. Aaker argues that
one of the ways to improve the ROI of brand marketing
is to “increase the synergies and impact
among the firm’s individual brand-building programs
so that the whole is greater than the sum
of its parts.” Aaker’s view of the Internet is not
that it is just another medium but that it is the
“integrator” of the IMC program—the “glue”
that holds the IMC program together. Proper integration
of the Internet into the IMC program, he
argues, requires that it is used creatively and as a
component of the overall brand-building process.
He feels that the Internet can be used to amplify
other IMC elements.
One of the problems with the Internet, however,
has been the inability of marketers to
implement what Aaker has suggested. For years,
companies have struggled with how to use the
Net for branding purposes. The literature is full
of articles on this problem, and many are of the
notion that marketers aren’t quite there yet.
They cite the fact that there are not many powerful
success stories to support the branding
efforts.
At the same time, there are numerous examples
of Internet success stories that go beyond
direct marketing and support the position of proponents
of a more enhanced role for the
medium. Aaker cites numerous examples of effective
branding and integration programs involving
PepsiCo, Oscar Mayer, Valvoline, FedEx, and Procter
& Gamble among others. Since it declared
bankruptcy in 2002, Kmart has also relied more
heavily on the Net to reclaim its brand image,
emphasizing tighter cross-integration of IMC
components through its “Stuff of Life” campaign.
Its website now carries exactly the same logo,