Laugh to Achieve Business Success There are many advantages and disadvantages associated with Internet advertising and developing an e-business. Today it is very clear that the use of the Internet as an additional media channel is only the beginning of the application of media in a business context. But there are many things to consider. A company cannot expect to make a profit from an Internet business based on how the company creates value and profit in the non-digital world. The consequence of this will very often be just another channel supported by an additional layer of parallel processes, resulting in additional costs for the company. Very few succeed in making a profit and for most the investment cannot be characterized as anything other than a learning experience. To avoid this, you need to change the way you think about e-marketing and integrate communication -cation experts into the website composition process. This has proven to be very profitable in the world of e-marketing, which is basically about attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. But to attract new customers you need to incorporate complex concepts such as creativity and humor into your strategy. While it stands to reason that things like creativity and humor are rarely found in a computer expert's office and are more likely to be found in advertising or communications agencies, it still seems that companies have failed to take advantage of them. As written in the Sunday Telegraph of 15 July 2001, research shows that 90% of websites are developed by computer experts or communications novices as they call them. So, if companies start working with advertising and communications experts to incorporate creativity and humor into their e-marketing strategy, they should be able to laugh their way to e-business success. But how effective is the Internet when used for marketing purposes? In 2001, a research group called Forrester Research did an analysis of how large websites market themselves. One of the things that stands out is the fact that websites spend almost half of their marketing budget on offline media such as magazines, television and radio. This seems quite strange to me, because websites are supposed to represent the digital world. But it simply proves that the Internet cannot stand on its own when used for marketing purposes.