Diffusion Through Communication Channels
The adoption of new methods of communication – MySpace, Facebook, YouTube,
Epinions, personal blogs and websites, online message boards, and such – have enabled
marketers to reach new markets in ways that are very different from traditional advertising
channels. These sorts of communication channels have also enabled competitors and detractors
to launch attacks that simply aren’t possible through traditional marketing channels. For
example, political candidates can start blogs or websites to express positive personal opinions of
themselves or negative opinions of others, and these positive and negative statements now
become part of the indexing on search engines. The ability to quickly reach deeply into a target
audience wasn't possible before these Web based applications; the ability to reach a target
audience at any speed without the substantial cost of advertising or without the media
gatekeepers who could pass or block publicity attempts has only been possible since these Web
based applications have been available.
Interest in this article is in suggesting the components that enable newer forms of online
communication. In order to do this, we need to look at the concept of diffusion of innovations.
Everett Rogers, perhaps the most well-known person associated with this concept, defines the
diffusion process as an innovation which is communicated through certain channels over time
among members of a social system (Rogers, 1976). Rogers was originally looking at issues such
as how rumors spread in rural settings, and this most certainly seems to be a reasonable approach
to understanding the spread of information or misinformation via newer technologies such as
chain email, blogs, or social networking websites.
The present authors propose, however, that we have to expand a bit on Rogers' diffusion
idea by adding additional infrastructures to the more singular notion of a social communication
channel. To understand how marketing communications happen on the Internet, we have to
expand on the idea of a social communication network by looking at factors that enable that
social network to exist in the first place. In adapting Rogers' idea to the diffusion of new products, Gatignon and Robertson (1985) proposed that in addition to Rogers’ basic elements of
communication channels, time, and a social system, we need to also consider the role of
marketing and competitive actions.
That is, in order for spaces such as Facebook, Epinions, or personal blogs to exist, there
has to be some sort of commercial role for these. Without some sort of financial incentive,
nobody would offer hosting services for personal websites at prices that individual hobbyists are
willing to bear. Without some sort of commercial and/or competitive incentive, nobody would
have enough motivation to run an extensive social networking system of the sort that is required
to maintain applications such as Facebook or MySpace.
Additionally, there absolutely must be the technological infrastructure on which such new
social systems ride. Before the Internet, servers, networking protocols, Web browsers, userfriendly
blogging applications, and such, the communication channels that are discussed herein
were not available. Gaining greater exposure to online communication channels can require little
more than acquiring physical resources. One common way to thwart a marketing competitor’s
ability to communicate is to block or damage those physical resources, as in a denial of service
attack.
The remainder of the article focuses on the infrastructures that would appear to enable the
diffusion of online communication channels. The hope is that we can gain a better understanding
of how to manage an organization's integrated marketing communications (IMC) by
understanding what can be enabled by these basic infrastructures rather than by sorting through
every month's new online marketing tactic or by thumbing through a marketing management
textbook that is based on traditional media and traditional ways of thinking.
Infrastructures That Enable (or Inhibit) Online Communication Channels
Core / Technological Infrastructure
Marketing attacks aimed at online communications are typically discussed with a focus
on the core/technological infrastructure. Core/technological infrastructure refers to the
interconnected computers, servers, routers, switches, and cables that make the Internet work.
Exploits of an online networking system are often made with the intention of gaining access to
internal information through system probes and scans, root and account compromise, packet
sniffing, and malicious programs (NIAC, 2004). Exploits can also be made, however, with the
intention to disrupt or harm an organization's marketing efforts. For example, when the
Colorado Rockies baseball team launched online-only sales of World Series tickets, it
immediately received an attack of 8.5 million “hits,” forcing it to halt sales efforts within the first
two hours with few tickets sold (Sports Illustrated, 2007).
While the technological infrastructure of a marketing communication channel can be
deliberately disrupted, many other kinds of marketing promotions and attacks on marketing
campaigns that involve social systems are possible. In order to understand this, one needs to
consider that the diffusion of, or acceptance of, the communication channels that can be used
relies on more than just the core infrastructure of hardware and cables.
