A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

pull marketing communications

 technique (but email can be considered as a 

push 

marketing communications

 technique). Figure 8.16(b) shows how the Internet should be 

used to encourage  two-  way communication; these may be extensions of the  direct-  response 

Push marketing 

communications

Communications are 

broadcast from an 

advertiser to consumers 

of the message, who are 

passive recipients.

Pull marketing 

communications

The consumer is 

proactive in interacting 

with companies 

through actively 

seeking information 

or entertainment on 

company websites 

or social media 

sites through search 

engines, comparison 

intermediaries or direct 

navigation.

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Chapter 8  Digital marketing

approach. For example, FMCG ( fast-  moving consumer goods) suppliers such as Nestlé 

(

www.nescafe.co.uk

) use their website and social media presence as a method of generating 

interaction by providing incentives such as competitions and sales promotions to encour-

age the customer to respond with their names, addresses and profile information such as 

age and sex.

Hoffman and Novak (1997) realised early in the development of the web that interactivity 

was significant enough to represent a new model for marketing or a new marketing para-

digm. They suggest that the facilities of the Internet represent a  computer-  mediated environ-

ment in which the interactions are not between the sender and receiver of information, but 

with the medium itself. They said:

consumers can interact with the medium, firms can provide content to the medium, and 

in the most radical departure from traditional marketing environments, consumers can 

provide  commercially-  oriented content to the media.

The  user-  generated content customers can provide may be directly commercial such as auc-

tioning of their possessions such as via eBay (

www.ebay.com

) or can include comments on 

products or suppliers on a neutral site (e.g. 

www.kelkoo.com

) or a destination site (

www.

firebox.com

). (The Focus on Social media and social CRM strategy section in Chapter 9 cov-

ers techniques for harnessing the interactivity of the web in more detail.)

2 Intelligence

The Internet can be used as a relatively  low-  cost method of collecting marketing research, 

particularly about customer perceptions of products and services. In the competitions 

referred to above, Nestlé is able to profile its customers on the basis of the information 

received in questionnaires. The Internet can be used to create  two-  way feedback which does 

not usually occur in other media. Financial services provider Egg (

www.egg.com

, which has 

now been transferred to Yorkshire Building Society) collected information about its online 

service levels through a questionnaire that was continuously available in the customer service 

Figure 8.16

Summary of communication models for (a) traditional media, (b) new 

media

Company

Customer