Donna L. Hoffman and Thomas P. Novak
The World Wide Web possesses unique characteristics that distinguish it in important ways from traditional communications environments. Because the Web presents a fundamentally different environment for marketing activities than traditional media, conventional marketing activities are becoming transformed, as they are often difficult to implement in their present form. In this article, we discuss the idea that these changes portend an evolution in the "marketing concept" and argue that in order for marketing efforts to be successful in this new medium, a new business paradigm is required. In this new approach, the marketing function must be reconstructed to facilitate electronic commerce in the emerging electronic society underlying the Web.