Corporate Web Sites as Advertising

The primary purpose of this study is to explore and explain the concept of the Web site as corporate advertisement. Three coders analyzed 160 corporate Web sites. Corporate Web sites are able to combine multiple functions such as providing information and image-building strategies for companies and their brands as well as direct and indirect selling functions. Corporate Web sites are also able to address multiple audiences from a single umbrella site. Message strategies were more likely to be informational than transformational - possibly reflecting the information-delivery potential of the Web. In general, high-revenue companies had more functions and addressed more audiences through their Web sites than low-revenue companies. High-revenue companies were also more likely than low-revenue companies to use transformational message strategies. However, no predicted relationships were found between overall message strategy and either number of functions at the Web site or number of audiences served. The study provides details on application of a relatively new message strategy model to a unique new form of corporate advertising - the World Wide Web.