Marketing Communication: Definition and ObjectivesMarketing communication is the process by which marketers exchange or share meanings with customers through a common set of symbols. Marketing communication has five basic objectives, namely, to inform, to persuade, to remind, to add value and to assist other marketing functions. Objectives of marketing communication:Inform their customers about their new offerings, specific brands and to educate them about product features and benefits. Persuade customers to try new products and services to create demand for entire product category and to build secondary demand for the product. Remind their customers to keep the companys brand fresh in their memory and to create topofmind awareness. Add value by altering consumer perceptions and delivering sales promotions. Assist sales representatives, to presell products and to provide salespeople with valuable introduction. All these objectives are basically aimed at developing (or changing) consumer preferences.

The communication processThe communication process which begins when the sender wants to share some idea or information with one or more receivers. The sender encodes a message to convey that idea and sends it through a media. The receiver then decodes the message to interpret the meaning of the message and sends his feedback to the sender. The message is often distorted by noise, i.e., anything that interferes with the target receivers reception or interpretation of the message.

The communication process and the promotional mixMarketers achieve their communication objectives by adopting a marketing communications mix, or promotion mix consisting of the following five tools or elements which differ in their ability to affect the target audience and in terms of how they interact with the communication process.Advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. can reach masses of geographically dispersed buyers at a low cost per exposure; enables the seller to repeat a message many times; large-scale advertising says positive about the sellers size and success; consumers tend to view advertised products as more legitimate. impersonal and cannot be as directly persuasive as can company salespeople; Can carry on only a oneway communication with the audience and can be very costly.

Sales promotion: Shortterm incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product/service. Sales promotion includes a wide assortment of toolscoupons, contests, centsoff deals, premiums, and others to attract consumer attention; offer strong incentives to purchase can be used to dramatize product offers and to boost sagging sales. invite and reward quick response, often shortlived and not as effective as advertising or personal selling in building longrun brand preference and customer relationships.Public relations (PR): Building good relations with the companys various publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories, and events. Public relation is very believablenews stories, features, sponsorships, and events seem more real and believable to readers than ads do. PR can reach many prospects who avoid salespeople and advertisements. Public relations can dramatize a company or product.Personal selling: Personal presentation by the firms sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships. involves personal interaction between a buyer and a seller, is the most effective tool in building up buyers preferences, convictions and actions. The buyer usually feels a greater need to listen and respond. most expensive promotion tool. sales force requires a longerterm commitment than does advertising.

Direct marketing: Direct connections with carefully targeted individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships.Although there are many forms of direct marketing, they all share four distinctive characteristics. Direct marketing is less public; immediate; customised and interactive.By using one, more than one or all of these tools a company communicates with its target market either directly or through its various intermediaries. However, in addition to the promotion mix initiated by the company, its market offerings may also be promoted by favourable wordof mouth of satisfied customers or other publics. These, along with the promotion mix tools constitute the overall marketing communication system

Promotional goals and the AIDA conceptThe AIDA concept represents a classic model for reaching promotional goals. AIDA stands for standing for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action and outlines the stages of consumer involvement with a promotional message. The concept assumes that promotion propels consumers along four steps in the purchasedecision process.1. The advertiser must first make the target market aware that the product exists. 2. The next step is to create an interest in the product. 3. The desire to purchase the product is the third step in the process. 4. Action is the final step in the purchase decision process. The promoters task is to determine where on the purchase ladder most of the target consumers are located and design a promotion plan to meet their needs.

AIDA and the promotional mixEach promotional tool is more effective at certain stages of the hierarchy of effects model.1. Advertising is most effective in creating awareness. 2. Personal selling is most effective at creating customer interest for a product and for creating desire. 3. Sales promotion is most effective in creating strong desire and purchase intent. 4. Public relations have the greatest effect in building awareness about the company, good or service. The different elements of the promotional mix are not equally effective when buyers are at different stages as shown in Exhibit 2 below.Exhibit 2: Effectiveness of various promotional tools at various stages of buyer readiness

Factors affecting the promotional mixDevelopment of the promotional mix for a market offering depends on a number of factors such as: Characteristics/nature of the product; Consumer, B2B, cost, risk Stage in the product life cycle; Introduction, growth, maturity and decline Target market characteristics; highly informed buyers; brandloyal repeat purchasers Type of buying decision; Routine, complex Availability of funds shortage; sufficient advertising, public relations, sales promotion and personal selling to inform the

Integrated marketing communication

Promotion mix strategies

A push strategy involves pushing the product through marketing channels to final consumers. May include direct sales; negotiating with retailers to carry company product; sponsorship/affiliate marketing; social media advertising; telemarketing and banner ads. A pull strategy involves the producer directing its marketing activities toward final consumers to induce them to buy the product. May include blogging/guest blogging; eBooks; podcasts; webinars; social media and infographics.

AdvertisingAdvertising, one of the tools of the IMC, it helps to communicate the brands value proposition to target Customers. It must blend with other IMC elements.

Marketers need to take four decisions when developing an advertising program. These are (i) setting advertising objectives; (ii) setting the advertising budget; (iii) developing advertising strategy and finally (iv) creating an advertising message.Setting Advertising ObjectivesAn advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished with a specific target audience during a specific period of time. These objectives include: Informative advertising is used heavily when introducing a new product category. Persuasive advertising becomes important as competition increases. Here, the companys objective is to build selective demand. Comparative advertising also known as attack advertising is directly or indirectly comparing one brand with another. Reminder advertising is important for mature productsit helps to maintain customer relationships and keep consumers thinking about the product.Setting the Advertising BudgetThere are four common methods to set the total budget for advertising:Affordable Method: Refers to setting the promotion budget at the level believed to be what the company can afford. Percentageofsales Method: This method sets the promotion budget at a certain percentage of current or forecasted sales. Competitiveparity Method: This method sets the promotion budgets to match competitors outlays. Objectiveandtask Method of setting advertisement budget is considered to be the most logical budgetsetting method as it involves setting the companys its promotion budget based on what it wants to accomplish with promotion.

Developing Advertising StrategyAdvertising strategy consists of two major elements, namely creating advertising messages and selecting advertising media. After an advertisement is created by the creative department, the media department selects best media for presenting it to the target media.

Creating the Advertising Message:To gain and hold attention, advertising messages must be better planned, more imaginative, more entertaining, and more rewarding to consumers.

Message Strategy:The first step in creating effective advertising messages is to plan a message strategyto decide what general message will be communicated to consumers.Ideally the message should identify customer benefits that can be used as advertising apple. Messages may have (i) Rational Appeals; (ii) Emotional Appeals and (iii) Moral AppealsThe message should be such that it can (i) get Attention (ii) hold Interest (iii) arouse Desires and(iv) obtain Action. (A framework known as the AIDA model).

Advertising appeals: Reason for a person to buy a product.Some common advertising appeals that are considered desirable, exclusive and believable are selected by marketers as the theme for a campaign.

Message Execution:The advertiser has to translate or convert the big idea into an actual ad execution that will capture the target markets attention and interest. Popular execution styles used by marketers include the following:

Selecting Advertising Media Advertising media are channels that advertisers use in mass communication. Seven major types of advertising media, namely television, internet, newspapers, direct mail, magazines, radio, outdoor advertising and the Internet, are available to marketers.

The major steps in advertising media selection involve (1) deciding on reach, frequency, and impact; (2) choosing among major media types; (3) selecting specific media vehicles; and (4) deciding on media timing. Before discussing each of these steps, it is important to know the advantages and disadvantages of each of the seven media listed above which are described below. Characteristics of various media Television including networks (ABC, Seven, Nine, Ten and SBS), independent stations, cable channels and direct broadcast satellite television can be useful for reaching specific markets. Television reaches a huge market, but both the advertising time and production costs are very expensive. Thirty seconds of advertising time during the final episode of the Australian version of Big Brother cost about A$49 000. Thirty seconds of regular primetime midweek advertising time on Network Ten costs between A$17 000 and A$25 000. The infomercial is a thirtyminute or longer advertisement. They are popular because of the cheap air time and the relatively small production costs.The Internet and the World Wide Web has established itself as a solid advertising medium. Popular Internet sites and search engines generally sell advertising space, called banners. Banner ads are judged to be as or more effective for boosting brand and advertising awareness. The challenges posed by online media include more consumer control and measuring effectiveness.Newspaper advertising has the advantage of geographic flexibility and timeliness. Newspapers reach a very broad mass market. Cooperative advertising is an arrangement in which the manufacturer and retailer split the costs of advertising the manufacturers brand. Yamaha will pay for 50 per cent of its dealers costs (up to a set annual limit) to advertise in local print and broadcast media. Newspaper ads have a very short life.Magazines are often targeted to a very narrow market. Although they may offer a very high cost per contact, the cost per potential customer may be much lower. One fullpage colour ad in Newsweek costs US$100 000.Radio can be directed to very specific audiences, has a large outofhome audience, has low unit and production costs, is timely and can have geographic flexibility.Outdoor advertising is a flexible, lowcost medium that may take a variety of forms, such as billboards, skywriting, ads in and on modes of transportation and so on. It reaches a broad and diverse market.Alternative media: Marketers can also use alternative media such as facsimile (fax) machines, video shopping carts, electronic placebased media, interactive computer advertising and cinema and video advertising to reach their target market.Deciding on Reach, Frequency, and ImpactTo decide the particular media to use for the advertisement message, the media planner has to know the reach, frequency, and impact of each of the major media types.Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target market who are exposed Evaluation of advertising effectivenessAdvertisers should regularly evaluate (i) Communication effect and (ii) Sales and profit effects. Measuring the communication effects of an ad/ad campaign tells whether the ads and media are communicating the ad message well. Sales and profit effects: Harder to measure. Sales and profits are affected by many factors besides advertisingsuch as product features, price, and availability. Compare past sales and profits with past ad expenditure; Through experimentation (CocaCola uses this method). Return on advertising investment: It is the net return on advertising investment divided by the costs of the advertising investment.

Organising for advertisingDifferent companies organise in different ways to handle advertising. Small companies, advertising might be handled by someone in the sales department. Large companies set up advertising departments whose job it is to set the advertising budget, work with the ad agency, and handle advertising not done by the agency. Advertising agencies employ specialists who can often perform advertising tasks better than the companys own staff. Most large advertising agencies have the staff and resources to handle all phases of an advertising campaign for its clients, from creating a marketing plan to developing ad campaigns and preparing, placing, and evaluating ads.

More complex than domestic ad decision. Standardisation vs. localisation: Standardisation reduces advertising costs; provides greater global ad coordination and a more consistent global image. But it ignores the fact that country markets differ greatly in their cultures, demographics, and economic conditions. Ad media costs and availability and regulatory practices differ vastly from country to country. Although advertisers may develop global strategies to guide their overall advertising efforts, specific advertising programs must usually be adapted to meet local cultures and customers, media characteristics, and advertising regulations.

Advertising Avoid false or deceptive advertising. Must not create ads that have the capacity to deceive. Avoid baitandswitch advertising that attracts buyers under false pretences

Sales promotionSales promotion refers to various shortterm incentives offered to consumers or channel members to induce the purchase of a particular good or service. It is the act of influencing customer/consumer perception and behaviour to build marketing share and reinforce brand and the companys image.Reasons: high demand for profits and sales.Purpose: attract new users, build brand-loyalty and increase purchase frequency.

Major sales promotion tools

Each of these tools is designed to add perceived value and encourage the purchase of a product. Trade promotions Persuade resellers to carry a brand, give it shelf space, promote it in advertising, and push it to consumers. Manufacturers direct more sales promotion dollars toward retailers and wholesalers (78 per cent) than to final consumers (22 per cent). They offer several trade promotion tools such as straight discount (also called a priceoff, offinvoice, or off list); allowance (usually so much off per case); free goods; push money and free specialty advertising items.

Business promotions This is used to generate business leads, stimulate purchases, reward customers, and motivate salespeople.

Conventions and trade shows: Firms selling to the industry show their products at the trade show. Vendors receive many benefits from such events include opportunities to find new sales leads; contact customers; introduce new products; meet new customers; sell more to present customers; educate customers with publications and audiovisual materials and reach many prospects not reached through their salesforces.

Sales contests are generally organised for salespeople or dealers to motivate them to increase their sales performance over a given period. Sales contests work best when they are tied to measurable and achievable sales objectives (such as finding new accounts, reviving old accounts, or increasing account profitability).

Developing the Sales Promotion Program

Public Relations [PR]The Role and ImpactPublic relations [PR] may be defined as a nonpaid strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and its publics. Impact: Can have a stronger impact on public awareness at a lower cost than advertising can. If the company develops an interesting story or event, media may publicise it. The company does not pay the media for PR. So it has more credibility than advertising. Often described as marketings stepchild because of its limited and scattered use.

Major Public Relations ToolsPublic relations use several tools such as news, speeches, special events, written materials, audiovisual materials, corporate identity materials and public service activities. Management should set PR objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the PR plan, and evaluate the results.Public RelationsPublic relations departments may perform any or all of the following functions: Press relations or press agency: Creating and placing newsworthy information in the news media to attract attention to a person, product, or service. Product publicity: Publicising specific products. Public affairs: Building and maintaining national or local community relations. Lobbying: Building and maintaining relations with legislators and government officials to influence legislation and regulation. Investor relations: Maintaining relationships with shareholders and others in the financial community. Development: Public relations with donors or members of nonprofit organisations to gain financial or volunteer support. Public relations may promote products, people, places, ideas, activities, organisations, and even nations.

A Public Relations Plan A basic public relations plan or strategy should contain several elements. They are objectives, definition of the target audience, message (what do you want to say to the target audience), strategy, tactics, planning, budget, key performance indicators (KPI) and evaluation mechanism. For example, the main tasks that can be used to help a tourism company develop its public relations strategy are set out below. These can be divided into internal public relations (aimed at the workers) and external public relations (aimed at clients, investors, public institutions, etc.).

Personal sellingPersonal selling is the interpersonal arm of the promotion mix. It is practiced by businesses that employ a "sales force" to sell the product after meeting facetoface with the customer. These people promote the product through their attitude, appearance and indepth product knowledge. They aim to inform and encourage the customer to buy, or at least trial the product. Hence, personal selling is effective than advertising in complex selling situationPersonal selling can foster relationship marketing (RM). RM the process of creating, maintaining and enhancing strong, valueladen relation ships with customers and other stakeholders by creating superior customer value and satisfaction Many types of personal selling jobs The person making the selling personal is the salesperson, often called sales representative and account executive. Role of sales-force serves as a critical link between a company and its customers.

1. Managing the sales force:

2. Recruiting and selecting salespeople: recruiting will attract many applicants from whom the company must select the best.3. Training salespeople: most companies provide continuing sales training via seminars, sales meetings and web e-learning throughout the salespersons careers.4. Compensating salespeople: to attract good salespeople, a company must have an appealing compensation plan.5. Supervising salespeople: continuing supervision and encouragement should be given to new salespeople in order to help them do a better job even though they have already received formal training.6. Evaluating salespeople: getting regular information from salespeople is a key factor in ensuring effective evaluation of their performance. This can be done through sales reports, call reports, expense reports and feedback and return on investment.

ationships with them. The salesforce plays a major role in facilitating transactions by serving as a critical link between a company and its customers. In the context of B2B marketing, the salespeople represent the company to customers and they represent customers to the company.The role of personal selling varies from company to company. In most firms the salesforce plays a major role; however, some companies for example, those that sell only online or through catalogues, or companies that sell through manufacturers reps, sales agents, or brokers have no salespeople at all.Salespeople can be classified as field salesforce or outside salesforce and inside salesforce. The outside salespeople travel to call on customers in the field while the inside salespeople conduct businessfromtheirofficesviatelephone,theInternet,orvisitsfrombuyers. Mostcompanies now tend to use team selling to service large, complex accounts. Sales teams can unearth

5 | P a g eproblems; develop solutions, and sales opportunities that no individual salesperson could. Such teams might include experts from any area or level of the selling firmsales, marketing, technical and support services, R&D, engineering, operations, finance, and others.Coordinating Marketing and SalesTo help bring its marketing and sales functions closer together a company can take a number of actions. For example, it can increase communications between the buyer and the seller by arranging joint meetings and by spelling out when and with whom each party should communicate. The company can create joint assignments and/or joint objectives and reward systems for sales and marketing. Also, it can appoint marketingsales liaisonspeople from marketing who live with the salesforce and help to coordinate marketing and salesforce programs and efforts. Finally, it can appoint a chief revenue officer (or chief customer officer) a highlevel marketing executive who oversees both marketing and sales.Managing the salesforceSalesforce must be properly managed involving analysis, planning, implementation and control of salesforce activities. Salesforce management includes designing salesforce strategy and structure, recruiting; selecting, training, compensating, supervising them and finally evaluating their performance. The major salesforce management decisions are briefly discussed below.The personal selling processMany companies, particularly those in the B2B marketing context, take a customeroriented approach to personal selling. Salespeople try to identify what the customer is looking for and then find the solution for that. In such a way, companies may attract customers to buy the product and build longterm relationships with them.Steps in the selling processThe selling process, i.e., the steps that a salesperson follows when selling, consists of seven distinct steps. These are (i) prospecting and qualifying, (ii) preapproach, approach, (iii) presentation and demonstration, (iv) handling objections, (v) closing and (vi) followup.1. Prospecting and qualifying: Defined as the first step in the personal selling process, prospecting and qualifying involves identification of qualified potential customers by the salesperson or the company. The salesperson must approach many prospects to get a few sales.2. Preapproach: In this step, the salesperson tries to know the background of the organisation and its buyers as much as possible before calling on a prospect.3. Approach: This step requires the salesperson to decide how to meet and greet the buyer and how to get a good start.4. Presentation and demonstration: At this step, an introduction of the products is given to the buyer. The salesperson tells the value story to the customer, showing how the companys offer solves the customers problems.5. Handling objections: This is the step in the selling process in which the salesperson seeks out, clarifies and overcomes customer objections to buying. Customer hesitations, questions and objections, which can be logical or psychological, are a normal part of any sales discussion and relationship. The salesperson should use a positive approach to address these issues.6. Closing: Closing is defined as the step in the selling process in which the salesperson asks the customer for an order, and for many people is the hardest part of the sales process due to unsuccessful handling of objections and lack of confidence. Several closing techniques can be used to attract customers to make orders, such as lower price and extra quantity at no charge.7. Followup: Followup is when the salesperson follows up after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. It is the last step in the process and may actually be the most important. The delivery time, purchase terms and other matters should be completed in this step.

Direct and Digital MarketingDirect and digital marketing is more than just a communications tool; it constitutes an overall marketing approach a blend of communication and distribution channels all rolled into one.

Direct marketing is an interactive system of marketing which uses one or more advertising media to effect a measurable response and/or transaction at any location It consists of direct connections with carefully targeted individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships. Direct marketers communicate directly with customers, often on a onetoone, interactive basis.

Digital marketing: interacting with known customers and others in the marketing channel, on a onetoone basis, using electronic network tools and technologies interacting with known customers and others in the marketing channel, on a onetoone basis, using electronic network tools and technologies.

Forms of Direct and Digital marketingThe main forms of direct and digital marketing include internet and mobile marketing, direct print and reproduction, direct response television and radio, telemarketing, telesales and kiosks and electronic dispensing.

Internet marketing: Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to advertising and marketing efforts that use the World Wide Web and email to drive direct sales. Internet marketing can be categorised under three specialized areas, namely Web marketing, email marketing and social media marketing. Web marketing includes ecommerce Web sites, affiliate marketing Web sites and promotional or informative Web sites, online advertising on search engines, and organic search engine results via search engine optimisation (SEO). Email marketing involves both advertising and promotional marketing efforts via email messages to current and prospective customers. Social media marketing involves both advertising and marketing (including viral marketing) efforts via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Mobile marketing refers to marketing on or with a mobile communication device, such as a smart phone, tablets and other mobile device connected to the Internet. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas. Marketers send their message through SMS (Short Message Service) as well as MMS (Multimedia Message Service). In recent times, many marketers have started using smartphone apps for mobile marketing as this allows for direct engagement, payment, and targeted advertising.

Direct print and reproduction involves directmail marketing and catalogue comprising mailouts of letters, samples, paperbased as well as digital catalogues on CDRom or DVD. Directresponse television and radio involves putting commercials on air that persuasively describes a product and then provide a toll free number to viewers to call and place orders. It is used to develop a database as well as to make immediate sales. Telemarketing and telesales, though often used interchangeably are related but different concepts.

Telemarketing focuses on generating interest, creating opportunities, providing information, seeking customer feedback, making appointments and producing leads by telephone. Telemarketers professionally presents the company brand, product or services to potential customers. Inbound telemarketing viewers are invited to call. Outbound telemarketing telemarketers call out.

Kiosks and Electronic dispensing. Kiosks are information and ordering machines placed in stores, airports, hotels and other locations frequently visited by people. EDMs are card reading telephones that dispense cash.

Customer databaseA customer database is an organised collection of comprehensive data about individual customers or prospects, including geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioural data. A consumer database might contain consumers demographics (age, income, family members, birthdays), psychographics (activities, interests, and opinions), and buying behaviour (buying preferences and the recency, frequency, and monetary valueRFMof past purchases). A business marketing database will contain B2B customer profile in terms of the products/services the customer has bought; past volumes and prices; key contacts (their ages, birthdays, hobbies, and favourite foods); competing suppliers; status of current contracts; estimated customer spending for the next few years; and assessments of competitive strengths and weaknesses in selling and servicing the account.Companies use their databases in many ways 1. to locate good potential customers and to generate sales leads and 2. to learn about customers in detail.

Using a Database in Direct and Digital MarketingOrganisations use databases in a number of ways. Databases are used for identifying prospects, for deciding which customers should receive a particular offer, for deepening customer loyalty, to reactivate customers purchases and for Data mining. Strategic approaches to database use should utilise an integrated direct marketing approach.

Setting Up An Online Marketing PresenceThere are four ways an organisation may develop an online marketing presence:

Creating a Website: For most companies, the first step in conducting online marketing is to create a website. They can have the most basic corporate (or Brand) which are designed to build customer goodwill, collect customer feedback, and supplement other sales channels, rather than to sell the companys products directly. Alternatively, they can develop a marketing Website that engages consumers in an interaction that will move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome.Designing Effective WebsitesDesigning a website that is attractive on first view and interesting enough to encourage repeat visits is a challenging task. Online marketers should pay close attention to the seven Cs of effective website design:1. Context: the sites layout and design 2. Content: the text, pictures, sound, and video that the website contains 3. Community: the ways that the site enables usertouser communication 4. Customisation: the sites ability to tailor itself to different users or to allow users to personalise the site 5. Communication: the ways the site enables sitetouser, usertosite, or twoway communication 6. Connection: the degree that the site is linked to other sites 7. Commerce: the sites capabilities to enable commercial transactions

To keep customers coming back to the site, companies need to embrace yet another C constant change.

Forms of Online Advertising Banners are bannershaped ads found at the top, bottom, left, right, or centre of a Web page. Interstitials are online display ads that appear between screen changes on a website, especially while a new screen is loading. Popups are online ads that appear suddenly in a new window in front of the window being viewed. Popunders are online ads that appear in a new window that evades popup blockers by appearing behind the page youre viewing. Rich media display ads are online ads that incorporate animation, video, sound, and interactivity. Searchrelated ads (or Contextual advertising) are online advertising in which textbased ads and links appear alongside search engine results.

Other Forms of Online Promotion

Challenges of social media include: Online networks are new and difficult to measure effectiveness. Marketers cannot simply alter social dialogue Networks are user-controlled Corporate communication can be seen as intrusive.

Evaluating direct and digital marketing results The most common assessment involves comparing sales before, during and after implementing any of the promotion campaigns discussed above. However, the profitability of such offers and the return on investment are even more important. Direct and digital marketing organisations are usually interested in a number of measures of performance, both for individual programs and integrated campaigns.

Public policy issues in direct marketingIrritation, Unfairness, Deception, and Fraud: Internet fraud, including identity theft and financial scams, has become a serious problem. Phishing is a type of identity theft that uses deceptive emails and fraudulent websites to fool users into divulging their personal data. Online security issues continue to grow. Consumers fear that unscrupulous snoopers will eavesdrop on their online transactions, picking up personal information or intercepting credit and debit card numbers. Access by vulnerable or unauthorised groups is another area of concern. For example, marketers of adultoriented materials have found it difficult to restrict access by minors.Privacy