INTERNET: Marketers squabble over best model to use on the Internet

As the Internet's popularity continues to boom around the world, marketers are still in a debate over which model applies to cyber-branding and ecommerce. The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) attempted to clear the air on the subject with a recent seminar in Europe, however, the marketers found themselves deadlocked in two camps. On the one side there are the traditionalists; those who say that marketing is still about understanding and anticipating the needs of consumers and developing brands and that it doesn't matter what media channels are used. Facing them are a new breed of marketers. CIM's London-based chief executive, John Stubbs, said during a recent trip to Hong Kong: "This group argues that marketing is about creating networks and managing the company within a network, because we are in a very interactive world." However, he did say that, in his opinion, it now came down to creating alliances, coming up with new business models and working in logistics because the Internet provides very fast and accurate logistics management. Mr Stubbs referred to Amazon.com, which effectively changed the marketplace by changing the information and transaction base and changing the way products are sourced and altering the pricing context. Because of the rapidly changing business landscape, he said that there are companies which have moved from their selling their products in the traditional bricks and mortar way to becoming logistics providers for Internet firms. "How do you, as a marketer, contribute in the supply chain? How do you work more effectively to get the costs down and how do you go about exploiting information technology? "These are areas that marketers have traditionally not been expert in," said Mr Stubbs, who was deputy head of Unilever's marketing division before heading up CIM. But while he stressed that the jury was still out over who was right; the traditionalists or the modernists, he did say changes in the way marketing is conducted has taken place. "Before, you just had a given product, a given marketplace and a given set of retailers and when you launch you looked at brand name, positioning, advertising and packaging. These were the walls within which you operated. "Today, you have the opportunity to redefine channel and media. You stand back aand take a view as to how ideally you would develop relationships with consumers over the 'Net. "To do that you must find other companies and develop a group of allied companies where you all tackle issues like Internet shopping." * The full story appears in the April edition of MEDIA's sister publication, Asian Brand News. This is available only by paid subscription. For more details, please call Ms Iris Tang at MEDIA, (852) 2577 2628, or email subscrib@media.com.hk.

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