Prosper Yao Tsikata

As the internet becomes global, it is envisioned to supplant traditional values and bring about universal values and consumption patterns. This global cultural homogeneity is erroneously envisioned in Americanization, with multinational marketing [advertising] activities expected to bring about worldwide convergence.

Advent of the Adva ARPANET was a product of the Cold War ARPANET was interlinked with NSFNet

in the late 1980s, and the term internet was use to describe the global TCP/IP network

Prodigy is noted to be the pioneering online advertiser dating back to 1990

Today the facility is ubiquitous around the globe with disparities

Interactive-enabling consumers to interact with ads, the advertiser, and elicit response

Time and space limitation collapsed-unlike the traditional media, it has no time-space limitations.

Multimedia capabilities-it converges media forms pre-dating it

Global audience-you have the whole world full of potential customers

Floating ads, buttons, sponsored pages, pop-ups, paid links, text message, newsletter ads, advertorials, text links, cursor ads, interstitials, and superstitials

Websites part of the internet advertising syndicate

New Technologies in support of internet ads include Facebook and YouTube

http://www.oregonlive.com/mediakit/ad_gallery.html

http://xbox360.rocktheconsole.com/interstitial-ad-sample/

http://www.wddw.net/buttons-and-banners.htm

Diffusion along the lines of communication infrastructure antedating it

Global North-South dichotomy or the “Digital divide”

Rural-urban divide, making it urban-based tool

Inequality in access, use, knowledge all of which invariably affect internet advertising

Region Percentage %

Africa 4.8%America 37.0%Asia 11.6%Europe 35.7%Oceania 57.2%World 17.4%

Gender-Use of the internet depicts male dominance at ration 63% male 37% female

Age-Usage and growth strongest among young people

Education-education has been recognized as an important requirement for effective participation in use and application

Extra technical skills are required in designing online advertising campaigns

Country 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

North America

183 520 188 415 194 990 200 271 207 570

Western Europe

113 513 119 976 124 420 129 770 135 781

Asia Pacific

94 719 102 807 111 534 119 001 127 916

Central & Eastern Europe

25 799 31 563 37 041 42 628 48 424

Latin America

22 638 26 329 30 924 35 130 38 920

Africa/M. East/Row

13 406 16 490 18 606 21 871 25 938

Total 453 595 485 580 517 515 548 671 584 550

Country Ad Expenditure

USA 179 251

Japan 41 017

Germany 25 758

UK 25 429

China 16 049

France 13 890

Italy 12 249

Spain 10 738

South Korea 9 967

Australia 9 831

Medium 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Newspaper

127 353 130 467 131 870 133 342 136 069

Magazine

56 010 57 926 59 178 61 354 63 569

TV 167 155 178 765 191 918 201 874 213 186

Radio 36 907 38 439 39 725 41 242 42 687

Cinema 1 987 2 219 2 407 2 619 2 857

Outdoor 27 705 29 910 32 800 35 771 38 724

Internet 30 567 41 226 52 220 64 076 78 199

Total 447 478 953 510 120 540 278 572 290

Medium 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Newspaper

28.4% 27.2% 25.9% 24.7% 23.7%

Magazine

12.5% 12.1% 11.6% 11.4% 11.0%

TV 37.3% 37.3% 37.6% 37.4% 37.1%

Radio 8.2% 8.0% 7.8% 7.6% 7.4%

Cinema 0.4% 0.5% 0.5% 0.5% 0.5%

Outdoor 6.2% 6.2% 6.4% 6.6% 6.7%

Internet 6.8% 8.6% 10.2% 11.9& 13.6%

Internet ads is intricately linked with e-commerce

Buyers view ad on the internet and proceed to use their cards to make a purchase

By 2004, Europe’s online retail market was 40 billion Euros, B2B totaled 2.2 trillion Euros in 2006 in e-commerce

US trade US$31.7 billion for the first quarter of 2009

China US$8.25 billion in 2007

Unavailable e-commerce infrastructure in most developing countries especially Africa

Lack of logistical requirement to ensure product delivery to a global market

Citizens in countries without the infrastructure unable to complete real-time buying and selling of goods online

While there are infringements associated with internet advertising and e-commerce, regulations regarding the global medium vary from country to country.

Data Protection Act of 1984 in the UK, Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail Choice Acts of 1997 in the US

In most developing countries, the media laws of the yesteryears are incongruous with internet advertising and out of touch with global trends.

Control of the media and communication industries rests in the hands of a small number of firms within the global system

Not all opinions and voices are equally heard and some values and lifestyles are more acceptable

The internet is a conduit for dumping media and cultural product around the world as part of the process of hooking people into the capitalist system (Williams 2003: 221)

There is technological convergence-TV, telephone, broadband

There is also convergence between online advertisers, publishers and traditional advertisers

Messages and brands are consistently traversing multiple media with people intercepting information at all levels in the information food chain.

Societies and cultures are being affected differently, creating disparities

The whole of Sub-Saharan Africa with less than 1% of the world’s online community (2000) received less benefits from the medium

Evidence suggest widening gap between the global North and the South

Western values dominate in this medium There is both convergence and

divergence

Internet infrastructure and advertising and e-commerce will continue to grow on a global scale.

The early adopters will maintain their dominance

There will continue to be diverging effects and results for different countries, societies and cultures, such as, differences in regulatory regime, application and use, language, and gender variations in use.

“Glocalization” defines the future