Chapter 15 Summary - Belch and Belch

This chapter introduces you to the Internet and interactive media. It explains some of the objectives for these media and how they can be used in an IMC program. The discussion of the Internet focused on understanding the key terms used in the industry, the objectives sought when using the Internet, and Internet communications strategies. In addition, the role of the Internet in an IMC program was discussed, with an explanation of how all the IMC program elements can be used with the Internet.

The features of internet as discussed in the chapter are:

·         Electronic mail (e-mail) -  Allows users to send electronic mail anywhere in the world

·         Usenet - Discussion groups, newsgroups, and electronic bulletin boards, similar to those offered  by online services

·         Telnet - Online databases, library catalogs, and electronic journals at hundreds of colleges and public libraries

·         File transfer protocol (ftp) - The ability to transfer files from one mainframe or hypertext transfer computer to another protocol (http)

·         Client server - Allows for the transfer of files from one mainframe computer to another

·         Gopher -  A document retrieval system used to search for information

·         Wide Area Information - Enables one to use keywords in specific databases and Server (WAIS) retrieve full text information

·         World Wide Web (WWW) - Does much the same thing as gopher and WAIS, but combines sound, graphic images, video, and hypertext on a single page; the commercial arm of the Internet

Advantages of the internet                                                                                                     

·         including the ability to target markets

·         interactive capabilities,

·         relationship building

Disadvantages of the internet—

·          high costs

·         Unreliable measurements and statistics

·         relatively low reach (compared to that of traditional media)

Some ways to measure the effectiveness of internet as discussed in the chapter are:

·         Ad impression. - This is a measurement of responses from an ad delivery system to an ad request from the user’s browser

·         Click -This measure includes three forms: click-through, in-unit click and mouse-over. A click-through occurs when the viewer clicks on the ad to have information sent to him or her. The in-unit click and the mouse-over are ad interactions without the content being sent to the viewer.

·         Visit - A visit is defined as “one or more text and/or graphics downloads from a site qualifying as at least one page, without 30 consecutive minutes of inactivity, which can be reasonably attributed to a single browser for a single session.” The browser must “pull” text or graphic content to be considered a visit

·         Unique measurement (browsers, visitors, and users)--This is the number of actual individual people, within a designated reporting timeframe, with activity consisting of one or more visits to a site or the delivery of pushed content. A unique user can be either (1) an actual individual who accesses a site (unique visitor) or (2) an actual individual who is pushed content and/or ads such as e-mail, newsletters, interstitials, and pop-up or pop under ads. Each individual is counted only once in the unique-user or visitor measure for the reporting period. When no attempt is made to estimate the number of unique users based on the number of unique cookies received, the measure should be referred to as unique browsers.

·         Page impression -This is a measurement of the responses from a web server to a page request from the user’s browser. Pagelike items should be counted as follows:

Ø Pop-ups—ad impressions

Ø Interstitials—ad impressions

Ø Pop-unders—ad impressions

Ø HTML newsletters (if opened)—page impressions (if ad only—ad impressions)

Ø Auto-refreshed pages—page impressions

Ø Frames—page impressions

Sources of Internet measurement data were also provided. The Internet has been the most rapidly adopted medium of our time. It holds great potential for both business-to-business and consumer marketers. However, contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not a stand-alone medium. Its role in an integrated marketing communications program strengthens the overall program as well as the effectiveness of the Internet itself. Interactive media is in its infancy. This medium has not received the acceptance and use expected.