On the Internet as the emerging media:
It's always the emerging medium that becomes a mass medium. And the Internetis one such example. The transformation of this emerging medium into a massone was more evident recently during the publishing of the Starr report andthe White House rebuttal. The report was downloaded from the net by millionsacross the globe within minutes of its publishing.

On the reach of the Net:
The Internet is the fastest growing medium of all other mass media. Itentered into the households of about 50 million people in a matter of fiveyears as compared to the television which took 15 years to seep in.Subsequently, the American Internet spend has already touched a figure of $1 billion in 1998 and is projected to reach $ 11 billion by 2005.

On brand recall on the Net:
A recent study said that the percentage recall of brands advertised on thenet is 40 per cent compared to the advertisement recall from the televisionmedium which is about 41 per cent. A recent AOL survey had pointed out thata majority of the people hook on to the Net cutting short their televisionviewing time. It is imperative that companies take to online advertisingsoon.

The driving force:
The driving force to Net advertising is consumers and not technology. It isthe number of people who access the Net which are important than the latesttechnologies that one adopts. And the key to consumer satisfaction isconvenience. Products that deliver convenience are the ones that live.Others perish.

The success formula:
Online success comes from the four Cs: convenience, community, communicationand commerce. The foremost of the formula is ease of online access. Anindividual accessing online service then joins together with individualssharing common interests to form a community. These people startcommunicating with each other and at a later date end up doing commercebetween them.

Net for more than advertising:
Internet is the only medium that can accommodate all the three stages of asales cycle: branding, information and the sell. It is an interactive mediumwhich can create a brand consciousness about your product leading to theconsumer seeking more information on it at the Website and in the endtranslating into a real sale through e-commerce.

Tips for online advertising:
Put your brand in context with the customer. Know the customer traits. Beaware of his online habits and the sites that he accesses the most throughan offline survey. Follow it up with banner ads in the preferred sites-andbegin to see the impact.