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2025COM003
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23/05/2027
Doctoral thesis

Branding the web : the early history of the World Wide Web through marketing conceptual frameworks

Università della Svizzera italiana

  • 2025

PhD: Università della Svizzera italiana

History of the web
Internet history
Web history
Marketing mix
Brand naming process
Brand confusion
CERN WWW collection
Archival analysis
Non-commercial marketing
Public institutional communication
English This cumulative thesis, comprising three articles published or submitted to academic journals, examines the early history of the World Wide Web (or simply called the Web) through marketing frameworks. It addresses the central question: How did web developers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the early 1990s market and promote the Web’s development, acceptance, and use? The thesis challenges conventional narratives that attribute the Web’s success solely to its technical superiority or inevitability or that regard it merely as a marketing channel. Instead, the dissertation frames the Web as a product developed within a specific organization (CERN), shaped by deliberate communication and strategic positioning efforts to outperform competitors, and demonstrate its value to organizations and individuals. Namely, it explores how web developers navigated challenges, such as securing institutional funding, differentiating the Web from competing technologies both within and outside CERN, and addressing public confusion between the Web and the Internet. By doing so, the research reframes the Web’s early history as a case study in strategic branding within a non-commercial technological context, while highlighting decisions connected to the Web that closely mirror those made for commercial products. Situating the history of the Web within broader debates on technology marketing, branding, and organizational culture, the thesis aims to address a gap in existing Internet historiography. Historically, the Web’s development has often been subsumed into the broader history of the Internet, overlooking its distinct identity as a separate service, one of many built upon the Internet infrastructure. Therefore, the thesis wants to contribute to Web historiography by shedding light on aspects of the history of the Web that have remained invisible or overlooked by scholars, a shortcoming that can partly be attributed to the fact that archival materials stored at CERN in Geneva have only recently become accessible. Beyond Web historiography, this thesis also aspires to contribute to marketing literature by challenging the linear “best practices” in marketing and branding often considered the sole path to product success. Through the case of the Web, it critiques and expands current frameworks in marketing literature, demonstrating how the development and promotion of new products, particularly in non-commercial contexts, can deviate from these conventional practices while still achieving remarkable success (even though, in marketing and branding literature, the outcome is perceived as a failure). To answer the research question(s), this thesis adopts a qualitative methodology rooted in historical and archival analysis. Primary data are drawn from the WWW collection at CERN, which provides a repository of (un)published documents, correspondence, and visuals from the Web’s early development. These archival materials are complemented by interviews with key informants, and secondary sources, such as articles retrieved from Factiva. The methodological approach ensures scientific rigor through a deductive thematic analysis, guaranteeing a systematic examination of historical sources through the lens of three marketing conceptual frameworks: (i) The marketing mix framework (Study 1) examines the strategic use of the so called 4Ps: product, price, place, and promotion in the Web’s early development and positioning. Study 1 reveals that the Web’s release was not merely a technological milestone but a carefully planned effort to address the needs of diverse stakeholders. The decision to make the Web free and open-source, often viewed as Berners-Lee’s altruistic endeavor, was influenced by CERN’s organizational “culture” and a lack of resources to effectively manage distribution. Internally, promotional efforts at CERN focused on showcasing the Web’s ability to resolve organizational inefficiencies, while external campaigns highlighted its potential as a universal platform for global collaboration, simplifying access to information and resources. (ii) The brand naming process framework (Study 2) examines the socio-cultural and organizational factors that influenced the selection of the name “World Wide Web” for the technology, tracing its progression from the initial placeholder “Proposal X.” The study highlights the informal, non-linear and context-dependent decision-making process that led to the final name, emphasizing its cultural resonance within CERN. It reveals that “World Wide Web” was not the optimal choice as a name but it was considered temporary and selected under pragmatic constraints, such as time pressure, as having a name would help the idea gain prominence within internal CERN competition and persuade CERN management to fund the project and initiate its development. (iii) The brand confusion framework (Study 3) identifies the conflation of the Web with the Internet as a case of brand confusion that threatened to obscure CERN’s role in the Web’s development. The study explores how CERN, with the leadership of figures like Robert Cailliau, employed consciously or unconsciously marketing strategies to distinguish the Web from the Internet. These strategies included public relations efforts, event marketing, and targeted messaging aimed at highlighting the Web’s unique features and its European origins. Despite these initiatives, the study reveals that confusion between the two persists, underscoring the limitations of branding theories in resolving such challenges. Overall, the findings of this dissertation challenges success-oriented narratives about the Web’s early history, critiquing simplified, heroic accounts like those of Berners-Lee that overlook the socio-technical, organizational, and strategic contexts of its development. It highlights that the Web’s success was driven by collaborative efforts and deliberate strategies rather than a single visionary’s actions. The thesis also introduces overlooked metaphors, such as the “truck and road” analogy, clarifying the Web’s difference from the Internet, and reframes the Web’s release as public domain software as a decision shaped by organizational constraints and external pressures. By examining CERN’s public institutional context, it contributes to a European historiography of the Web, emphasizing how CERN’s scientific mission and collaborative culture influenced the development of the Web. Additionally, the research explores the Web’s pre-history (“Web -1”), revealing how early decisions, including internal promotion and naming choices, influenced its trajectory. The thesis addresses challenges like communication breakdowns, trademarking failures, and brand confusion, arguing these obstacles were integral to the Web’s development and thus questioning if they could be considered real failures. The thesis also challenges “marketing best practices,” outlining that their linearity and prescribed guidelines are not always applicable in real-world scenarios and that they are not always the best solution possible. It also expands the scope of marketing to non-commercial contexts, often overlooked by marketing scholars, demonstrating that even free, “brandless” public goods are the result of deliberate marketing efforts. Furthermore, it contributes to historical marketing research by advocating for reflexive, non-linear approaches that uncover overlooked marketing activities behind significant marketing tools whose development remains poorly understood by marketing scholars. This perspective wants to encourage marketing researchers to reflect on how marketing practices might have evolved if the development of these tools had taken different directions.
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Language
  • English
Classification
Computer science and technology
License
License undefined
Open access status
green
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https://n2t.net/ark:/12658/srd1331959
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