Brand-lurking Phenomenon on Social Media Abstract The key measures to assess consumer-brand engagement on social media have mainly been visible interactions with media content, including 'likes', comments and shares. However, as research into consumers' online behaviour demonstrates, only a minority of users in fact participate 'visibly'. On social media, the vast majority of users are passive participants, so called 'lurkers'. This thesis explores consumers' publicly invisible behaviours on social media and introduces an original methodological approach to exploring the otherwise invisible behavioural patterns on social media, which builds on ethnographic principles and combines digital methods with qualitative methods. Drawing on a data set of 134 hours of screen recordings obtained through ad hoc tracking devices installed on PCs and smartphones of 15 young adults from seven European countries recruited from the "Generation Z" and 15 in- depth interviews conducted with the same participants, the study proposes the following contributions. First, the thesis illustrates a research protocol to explore consumers' lurking behaviours in relation to branded content as they occur within the young people's natural social media settings. Second, it introduces the concept of invisible engagement, defined as an...

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I denna studie utreder jag om hur branded content mottas av målgruppen för digitala tidskrifter inom populärkultur genom en framträdande teknik in webb-personalisering, hyper-personalisering. Målgruppen för denna studie är unga opinionsbildare som konsumerar innehåll från digitala tidskrifter som exempelvis Nöjesguiden. Branded content, sponsrat innehåll, är innehåll som skapas för att ett varumärke skall förknippas med en kreatörs målgrupp. Alltså kan ett varumärke be Nöjesguiden skapa redaktionellt innehåll som bör tilltala målgruppen för den digitala tidskriften, och på så sätt skall målgruppen få en ny uppfattning eller fortsatt positiv syn på varumärket. Hyperpersonalisering är en teknik som appliceras för att kunna rikta innehåll, tjänster eller produkter mot individer inom en målgrupp med träffsäker relevans. Tekniken kräver en stor mängd insamlad social data och det blir därför intressant att föra en diskussion kring hur målgruppen reagerar på att man kan genomföra en sådan enorm insamling av data. Även en etisk diskussion kring tekniken förs i rapporten. För kunna besvara om mottagligheten för branded content genom hyper-personalisering är god eller ej genomfördes en kvantitativ studie i form av en enkät och en kvalitativ studie med ett användarexperiment. Enkäten besvarades av 87 personer från målgruppen och fyra personer från målgruppen fick vara med och uppleva användarexperimentet. Valet att genomföra ett flertal metoder grundar sig i att kunna ha möjlighet till en bred diskussion kring problemformuleringen. / In this study I am investigating how branded content is received by the target audience for digital periodicals in popular culture through a prominent technology in web personalization, hyper-personalization. The target group for this study is young opinion builders who consume content from digital periodicals such as “Nöjesguiden”. Branded content is content that is created for a brand to be associated with a creator’s audience. Thus, a brand might ask “Nöjesguiden” to create editorial content that should appeal the target audience for the digital magazine and so should the target audience get a new impression or a continued positive view of the brand. Hyper-personalization is a technology applied to target content, services or products to individuals within a target audience with accurate relevance. The technology requires a large amount of collected social data and it will therefore be interesting to conduct a discussion on how the target group reacts to that you can implement such an enormous collection of data. An ethical discussion about the technology is held in the report. In order to answer the susceptibility of branded content through hyper-personalization is good or not, a quantitative study in the form of a survey and a qualitative study with a user experiment was conducted. 87 people answered the survey from the target group and four people from the target group were taking part of the user experience. The choice of having a multiple number of methods was fundamental for having a broad discussion about the issue.

Esta investigación profundiza en las relaciones entre la música y la publicidad y más concretamente analiza los contenidos musicales producidos por marcas o branded content musical. La omnipresencia de la publicidad en la vida cotidiana y la importancia que la música tiene para las personas justifican un estudio profundo y crítico de los mecanismos de producción, consumo y significación de los mensajes que utilizan la música con finalidad comercial. Los cimientos teóricos de la investigación se asientan sobre la corriente de los estudios culturales, la semiótica y la economía política de la cultura. El análisis del origen y la evolución de la música en la publicidad permite trazar, a priori, una relación simbiótica entre ambas, pero a la vez plantea un reto, porque ese relación dista mucho de ser simple: la necesidad de crear el concepto musicidad para explicar cómo y por qué las marcas utilizan la música como vehículo de conexión con una audiencia que rechaza la publicidad convencional. Para ello, observamos qué tipos de sectores producen música y qué forma tienen los contenidos creados por las marcas. Con el objetivo de alcanzar el reto, seleccionamos una muestra de 165 contenidos musicales puestos en circulación por cien marcas distintas entre 2009 y 2013 y aplicamos un análisis de contenido. A partir de variables formales y de contenido, observamos el rol de la música en la creación de significado. Un análisis cualitativo de los casos más significativos del branded content musical completan la metodología de la investigación. La interpretación de los datos indica, entre otros resultados, que los sectores más activos en la producción de música son la moda y las bebidas (alcohólicas y refrescos). Los formatos utilizados por los anunciantes son los videoclips, los contenidos audiovisuales y la música en directo. A través del concepto musicidad y su aplicación en los contenidos observamos que las marcas se apropian del valor simbólico de la música porque es una manifestación estética que emociona, significa, seduce, comunica y crea identidad.

This thesis examines how authenticity is articulated and communicated in contemporary forms of branded entertainment. In a digital media landscape, participatory culture and co-creation has become of primary importance, leading to ‘authentic’ and ‘amateurist’ characteristics being strategically implemented in advertisements and professional media content production. At the same time, research on brand communication and authenticity have overlooked the many ways in which brands extend and mediate authenticity, especially in relation to symbolism and visual semiotics. In this thesis, we explore the way symbolic meaning is constructed in We the Bathers, a documentary produced in 2019 by director Phoebe Arnstein in collaboration with Lush, a cosmetic brand known for their vegan-friendly and cruelty-free products. The study was conducted using visual analysis which allows us to approach the study object in a qualitative and exploratory way. We then apply the theoretical frameworks of cultural myths and digital storytelling to analyze the effects and strategies employed in We the Bathers to communicate authenticity through the filmic medium. By extending Bell & Leonard’s framework for evaluating organizational storytelling, which highlights the role of the communicative codes of affinity, authenticity andamateurism, we argue that the overall notion of authenticity in video content produced for digital environments can be determined through either of these lenses. By examining the intention of the sender in terms of genuineness (authenticity), relatability (affinity), and techniques which lends the story a sense of ‘realness’ (amateurism), our findings indicate that authenticity can be viewed as a tool for producing certain media effects as opposed to arising from the mediation of inherent personality traits.

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This paper examines the concept of brand-funded documentaries that center on the issue of climate change and uses Aristotle’s Rhetorical Triangle to better understand how the films use rhetoric in communicating their message. A rhetorical analysis was conducted using four brand films from Amazon, Corona, Patagonia and REI and the results are intended to demonstrate the best methods of persuasion and the most effective rhetoric utilized in brand-funded documentaries. Because brand-funded documentaries not only make an argument about a particular issue, in this case climate change, but also must communicate a particular brand’s values and commitments, examining the rhetoric in these films proves particularly interesting and informative both for advertisers and filmmakers. The research shows that using emotions such as fear, awe, sadness, and joy serves to complement information dissemination in documentaries and allows for stronger engagement with audiences.

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Social media platforms have significantly transformed the marketing landscape, providing brands with powerful new opportunities to engage with their target audiences. This study delves into the comparative analysis of social media influencer marketing and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) within the context of outdoor branded products in China, examining their effects on consumer purchase decisions. A structured online questionnaire survey was employed as the primary research method due to the significant advantages of quantitative methods in providing objective, quantifiable data. Through statistical analysis, the study reveals the magnitude and correlation of the effects of social media influencer marketing and eWOM on consumer purchase intention. The findings revealed that both influencer marketing and eWOM significantly influence consumer purchase intentions for outdoor branded products in China. Additionally, the study highlighted the pivotal role of informativeness, which showed higher significance in eWOM channels compared to influencer marketing. These outcomes offer valuable insights for marketers operating in the outdoor branded products sector, providing actionable implications for enhancing consumer engagement and driving sales in the dynamic landscape of digital marketing.