Marketing communication: principles and practice

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1 The term ‘corporate’ here is taken to mean the total social collectivity, as distinct from the
minority dominant coalition or shareholder groups. Thus, this is premised on a total social-
system model of organizing.

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steadfastly unmanageable. Further, there is no single uniform entity, the
consumer. Consumers are distinct in income, aspiration, and culture. There
is no such thing as ‘the consumer’!
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CASE STUDY 17
MARKETING COMMUNICATION MEETS
CORPORATE COMMUNICATION AT AOL.COM
Metered telecommunications charges have a long and deep-rooted history in the UK.
Charges on a per-minute basis have been the norm for so long that alternative charging
schemes such as flat-rate monthly fees were not thought by consumers to be an option,
despite US practice becoming common knowledge. As a result, time spent online in the UK
was, in 1999, only one quarter of that typical in the USA.
America OnLine UK (AOL) found in an online poll of 11,000 of their more than 600,000
members (3.8m in Europe) that 92 per cent said, without prompting, that metered telephone
charges was the only barrier to them spending more time online. Aspirations for major
growth in e-commerce were being held back by the ‘ticking clock’. BT, at the heart of the
UK charging system, would have to be persuaded to respond to calls for reform.
AOL UK determined that they should campaign for unmetered Internet access in the UK.
Thus, their ‘Stop the Clock’ campaign was conceived and initiated in June 1999. Five key
audiences were addressed with the message that metered telephone charges severely
penalized UK consumers and rendered our policy-makers’ vision of the ‘wired economy’
fruitless. This was to be a solo mission for AOL – almost all of the UK’s other so-called ‘free’
Internet service provider (ISP) services were dependent for revenues on per-minute
charges. BT themselves made £500m in 1998 by charging at least one pence per minute to
connect web users to their ISPs.
AOL commissioned economic analysis and conducted their own evaluation research to
underpin their campaign. This data strengthened the validity and weight of their proposals
as they briefed UK and European MPs, advisers, and ministers, and in discussions with the
UK regulator at OFTEL. MPs debated the issue in Parliament in early June.
A series of press releases from AOL outlined the issue. Interviews with journalists called
for, on behalf of UK consumers, an end to BT’s outmoded pricing system. These views were
amplified in AOL’s alliance with the grassroots consumer action group, the Campaign for
Unmetered Telecommunications (CUT). Some 400,000 members of the AOL community were
urged to boycott the Internet on 6 June.
A key milestone came when on 12 October, 
The Times
led its core news editorial with
the headline ‘Free the Net’. Several broadcasters used clips from AOL’s TV advertisement
to highlight high Internet telephone bills. In November, BT announced unmetered access –
but at twice the price paid by US consumers. AOL UK prepared to escalate their campaign.
In December, MCI Worldwide asked OFTEL to require BT to provide an unmetered
service. Other ISPs relented and started to attempt to launch free-access services, despite
still being obliged to pay per-minute charges to BT for connections. Clearly, the UK Internet
industry needed a timely ruling from the regulator! In May 2000, OFTEL ruled that BT 
must provide a wholesale version of their unmetered Internet tariffs (SurfTime) to their
competitors. AOL is now working to accelerate the timescale for offering lower-cost flat-
rate Internet access plans in the UK.

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