the largest budgets. Promotion budgets are often smaller and, in ad-speak, are "below the line" expenses administered by the same backroom marketing functionaries that handle direct marketing and point-of-sale advertising. Glamorous it isn't - and it won't be until broadband is a real medium.
So for now, it is a waiting game. While brand leaders like Coke, Pepsi and Visa have documented successes, other brands with huge marketing budgets have yet to be convinced that the Net can work for them. Meanwhile, agencies and publishers are trying to figure out how to persuade their clients to open their wallets for Web marketing efforts. And everyone is waiting for broadband, which might finally get marketers to see the Web as a direct-marketing vehicle.
"Most advertising media start out as promotional platforms and evolve into branding channels," notes Jim Desrosier, a former senior marketer at Excite, Infoseek and MasterCard, who now consults for offline companies like the BBC on Internet strategy. "At this stage, the Net's better for promotions, but it's evolving into a medium with the power to create brands. It's just a question of when."
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