INTERACTIVE  MARKETING: The Future & Present

 AN INTRODUCTION

By Dr. Edward Forrest and William Coble

     The purpose of this book is to examine the nature and scope of impact that interactive communication technologies are (and will be) having on marketing  research, strategies and techniques.

     We are within one of those rare and unique periods of history when we are able to witness the emergence of an entirely new mode of  communication;  Just as if we were living in the 15th century  and witnessed the invention of the printing press, or were present  earlier in this century  heard the first radio broadcasts or watched the first television programs. Today, we are witnessing the  dawn and development of computer-mediated interactive technologies; From interactive kiosks, CD-ROM catalogs, personal digital assistants and on-line services to fully interactive television systems with electronic coupons, virtual malls and movies-on-demand, and of course the mother of all interactive technologies- the Internet and the World Wide Web.

    Like Gutenburg's  printing press, these emerging interactive technologies are  revolutionizing the way we store, distribute, retrieve and present information. In its time, the printing press proved to be a catalytic technology that helped bring about the Reformation and Renaissance.  The parallel is drawn by the former CEO of Apple Computer, John Sculley, who observed that, "we are, today, in need of a second Renaissance, which like the first also can be galvanized by technology" and that interactive multimedia  represents a  "tool of a near tomorrow" that "like the printing press, will empower individuals, unlock worlds of knowledge, and forge a new community of ideas."  However, the  impact  of the emerging interactive technologies will not take the one hundred years it did with Gutenberg's printing press.  Sculley

also observed: "The changes are already happening. They started with the wide acceptance of the microcomputer and continue as we move toward videocomputers, interactive television,

and electronic books. Three industries-computers, television, and publishing—that were quite separate during the sixties started to overlap in the seventies and eighties." By the nineties these three industries have become inextricably intertwined.

    The need for  this text is premised on the fact that within the next decade interactive multimedia will emerge as the predominant mode of information storage and retrieval.  As the new digital-interactive-information technologies  begin to supplement and inevitably supplant the established media of print & broadcast as our primary means of data storage and information dissemination, marketing researchers and marketing communication specialists will need to acquire an entirely new sensibility in order to use the emerging technologies to their fullest potential. 

    The catalyst underlying this revolution and  inter-industry fusion can be directly attributed to digitalization. For:

With digitalization all the media become translatable into each other--computer bits migrate merrily--and they escape from their traditional means of transmission. A movie, phone call, letter, or magazine article may be sent digitally via phone line, coaxial cable, fiberoptic cable, microwave, satellite, the broadcast air, or a physical storage medium such as tape or disk. If that's not revolution enough, with digitalization the content becomes totally plastic--any message, sound, or image may be edited from anything into anything else (Brand, 1987).

     Like the limitless energy that can be generated by nuclear fusion, the communication power which can be  generated by media fusion is formidable. The ability to digitally mix all media  on a common palette provides one with the ability to present and simultaneously illustrate any idea or concept with multiple windows of audio & visual, text & graphics.

The INFO-NOMICS of Interactive Multimedia

     Beyond the power and beauty proffered by the digital palette, the sheer magnitude of information that can be cost-effectively assembled and disseminated by interactive technologies ensures its preeminence. Interactive multimedia remains unsurpassed in the amount of information which can be accessed. Whether on-line or on-disc, no other medium can match the sheer volume of personally selected and instantly accessed information. Indeed, by whatever  attribute-- qualitative or quantitative--one evaluates the character and impact of a medium, interactive multimedia communication has a decided edge over all preceding print-based, broadcast and analog media. 

On the now common 5" (650 "meg") compact disk you can store up to 250,000 pages of text, "the equivalent of 500 books-- a truckload--instantly computer searchable and publishable at one-fiftieth the cost of printing on paper" (Brand,1987). But, as remarkable as the current capacity of compact-disc technology is, it is nothing  compared to what will be coming on the market in the near future. To wit: 

IBM has already demonstrated a rewritable optical disc based on the blue laser, and it offers five times the density of any disc thatis read by infrared lasers.... If you're not impressed by a mere five fold increase in storage density, what does 50 times do for you? That capacity is possible today with new multilevel discs being developed by IBM... combine a Baby Blue Laser and one of these multilevel discs and you'd have a rewritable DVD (digital videodisc) that holds 50 times the data of today's music CD. That's enough room for 33 hours of laserdisc-quality video. (Heald, 1995).

Blue laser technology is also being applied to the development of 3-D TV. The  U.S. Navy is already  using a red, green and yellow laser system  to track aircraft. By replacing the yellow laser with blue laser "the Navy's system will be able to recreate real-time 3-D images of any subject in any color" (Heald, 1995). Needless to say, with 3-D TV one's product demonstrations can take on a whole new dimension. If an on-screen 3-D presentration of your product is not enough,  perhaps having the ability to set up your "demo" right in the middle of the consumer's living room is more intriguing. For the next step beyond 3-D TV is already being perfected:

....holovision, or, as the researchers at MIT prefer to call it, holovideo... (is) a real-time 3-D holographic display that projects images into dimensional space. You don't need special glasses or ahelmet to view its true-to-life images; it's reality without substance - you can reach out a touch the image, but when you do nothing's there. (Heald, 1995).

The MIT team expects to have a "salable" holovision system as early as 2005. While we are waiting for our home version of the Starship Enterprise's "Holodeck," engineers at Bell Labs, IBM and Stanford University are working on a three-dimensional data storage system known as "holostors:"

To create a holostor...(one uses) traditional holographic techniques to record "pages" of digital information at different angles on a piece of polmer film that's about the size and thichness of a dime.... A charge- coupled device... reads the digital data projected by the holostor. Each page can be accessed just by changing the angle of view, and each dime-sized volume can hold more than 100 pages....Eventually, IBM expects to shrink the dime-size down to the size of a pin head, providing 100 times more capacity. You could slip on of these babies into your holograhic VCR and record 6 hours a day for a year before you filled it up. (Heald, 1995).

   Truly, these advances in information storage and presentation are mind-boggling and fantastic. But the more immediate challenges to traditional marketing practices are already in play with the advances in information distribution and retrival. What can be more revolutionary than the World Wide Web. Here, marketers are given a FREE information distribution system that is global in reach with tens and eventually hundreds of millions of consumers with instantaneous, interactive, up-close and personal access to one's every marketing message. With on-going enhancements, such as  Xing Technology Corporation's server software, Streamworks, every marketer will have the ability to run the equivalant of their own personal radio and TV networks. As recently reported by Interactive Age :

Coming: Web TV

              Xing readies software that enables real-time audio,video

Streamworks... delivers audio and video on demand, rather than requiring a user to download a file off the Web and play it back from a local drive. The system can be used to deliver stored files and can broadcast live programs, as well. "The big picture is that this really turns the Web into a radio network, and a little furter out, a TV network.... And it does it by the existing (Internet) infrastructure. That's a powerful concept. (Interactive Age , July 31, 1995)

     To the point every domain of marketing communication is being profoundly effected by these pronounced  advances in interactive communication technologies. Accordingly, there is a pronounced need for marketing pratitioners to acquire a new sensibility and skills to how best blend these new technologies into the marketing mix. To this end it was the editors' intention to invite a wide range of authors with academic as well as professional perspectives on interactive technology's ramifications on marketing.

    Ergo, the power and promise of the interactive technologies awaits. By the turn of this century interactive multimedia communication will have emerged as a full-fleged, if not dominant form of communication .

To dismiss its inevitable impact on marketing strategy and technique is to prematurly evaluate its potential simply on the bases of its current level of adoption. One need only be reminded of the following story:

   In the city of Mainz, Master Johann Gutenburg has just developed a machine that can reproduce manuscript-like pages in many copies. News of his worh has reached the local ruler, the Elector of the Rhineland Palatinate. In the spirit of Renaissance inquiry, the Elector asks a group of scholars and businessman to assess the machine's impact on the local economy and culture. Since bureaucracy is just beginning to assert itself as an organizational force, the group is designated The Select Committee to Evaluate Multiple Manuscript Production:

   The committee visits Gutenburg's workshop...the inventor demonstrates his machine...the committee is impressed, but skeptical. After considerable debate, the group submits its report to the Elector. The machine is undoubtedly a technological advance, the report concludes, but it has only limited application to the Palaintate needs. The committee recommends that the government not invest research and development funds in the project. Its reasons are direct and cogent: (1) a large workforce of monks copying manuscripts would lose theirjobs if the Gutenburg machine were encouraged; (2) there is no heavy demand for multiple copies of manuscripts; and(3) the long-term market for printed books is doubtful due to the low literacy rate.(Dizard, 1989).

  REFERENCES  

Brand, S. (1987), The Media Lab  (Viking Press: New York) pp.18, 20.

Dizard, W.P. Jr. (1989), The Coming Information Age: An Overview of Technology, Economics, and Politics  (Longman: New York & London) pp. 45-46.

Heald, T. (1995) Future Intense, (June, 1995) pp.19-22.

Interactive Age , July 31, 1995, p.1.

Sculley, J. (1988), as quoted in his introduction to: Interactive Multimedia Visions for Multimedia Developers, Educators and Information Providers,  Edited by Sueann Ambron and Kristina Hooper (Microsoft Press: Redmond, Washington,1988).