Introduction

Theoretical Framework

Historical Approach: Rationale and Method

Results: The Four Eras of the Development of Internet Cultures

Discussion: Mechanisms of the Evolution of Digital Marketing

Conclusion

References

Abstract

The digital marketing discipline is facing growing fragmentation; the proliferation of different subareas of research impedes the accumulation of knowledge. This fragmentation seems logically tied to the inherent complexity of the Internet, itself resulting from 50 years of evolution. Thus, our aim is to provide an integrative framework for research in digital marketing derived from the historical analysis of the Internet. Using practice theory and institutional theory, we outline a new type of institutional work: imprinting work. We apply this framework to the analysis of historical secondary sources. We find four cultural repertoires on the Internet (collaborative systems, traditional market systems, co-creation systems, and prosumption market systems) and describe the dynamics of imprinting work leading to their creation, showing how new systems are created by appropriating and assimilating existing cultural repertoires. We contribute to the digital marketing literature by providing a cultural framework and a theory explaining the dynamics of the creation of four cultural repertoires. Moreover, we outline three paths of potential evolution of the digital landscape. Our framework may help managers make sense of their digital strategy and navigate the various Internet systems.

Introduction

Most recent reviews of the digital marketing literature observe a fragmentation in the discipline (Lamberton and Stephen 2016; Yadav and Pavlou 2014). This fragmentation is not surprising when we recognize that the Internet is an extraordinarily complex system (Hewett et al. 2016). This complexity is the natural outcome of a complex history, and fragmentation is the outcome of the absence of a comprehensive view of the Internet. Some academics tend to overlook the fact that the Internet did not emerge suddenly and uniformly, and while some authors acknowledge that the technical architecture of platforms has an impact upon the link between marketing actions and consumer behaviors (Yadav et al. 2013), these contingency effects are still considered exogenous in most research work. However, when adopting a historical perspective, contingency effects are seen less as independent factors than as cultural features: behaviors and platforms are interdependent, and the Internet is both an outcome and a determinant of the behavior of consumers and firms. In this article, we aim to investigate this issue by reconstructing the cultural history of the Internet and its relationship with marketing. In so doing, we provide an integrative cultural framework for subsequent research in digital marketing. A cultural approach emphasizes the mutual constitution of the environment and the actors over time (Reckwitz 2002b). Toward the end of the 20th century, Nicovich and Cornwell (1998) describe what they call “the Internet culture” as a unique cultural repertoire. However, the Internet has grown in complexity in the last 50 years, and new cultural repertoires have appeared.