Marketing Across Cultures On The Internet: A Case Study Of European Telecommunications Web Sites

Author: Melissa Fannon
Graduation Year: 2000
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Since 1998, the telecommunications industry in Europe has undergone a transformation ignited by major policy changes, spawned by the European Commission's directive (DG IV) allowing for open competition in the telecommunications sector. Therefore, corporate Internet marketing strategy in the European Union has changed to reflect the rapid liberalization of the telecommunications market. As Internet technology is one of the most revolutionary and ubiquitous mediums of all time, the web site is considered to be a cornerstone in business marketing strategy today. Therefore, I found it appropriate to explore this medium as a tool for competition in the telecommunications industry in Europe, and to discover which paradigm for web-based marketing has emerged.

This project utilizes the case study approach, both the "explanatory case study" method and the "embedded single case study" design. Each case study entails a company overview and web site content analysis of the mobile communications divisions of five European telecommunications companies, including, France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom and British Telecom, Orange (UK) and Telecom Italia. In conducting web site content analysis, a "checklist" of variables was created for gathering data about each company web site, including functionality, navigation, design, foreign language versions, multimedia and ecommerce, to name a few. Then, a competitive analysis comparing and contrasting each web site was presented in the conclusion.

It was my hypothesis that European telecommunications companies would use a cross-cultural marketing strategy when marketing their mobile services online in Western Europe. This, in turn, offered the possibility of framing a competitive response based on information revealed through each company's web site. However, having tested my hypothesis by examining the web interfaces of the mobile divisions of France Telecom, Deutsche Telekom, British Telecom, Orange and Telecom Italia, and conducting a competitive analysis to discover if European telecommunications companies will likely use a cross-cultural marketing strategy when marketing their services in Western Europe; I discovered the opposite, or null-hypothesis to be the case.

My conclusion is that European telecommunications companies are moving away from a cross-cultural marketing strategy on the World Wide Web, in favor of an entirely new model featuring the notion of the "global customer" as Internet marketing strategy.