The study aims to analyze how user-generated content contributes to the representation ofcompanies in the context of digital trends. Digital marketing has become a norm forbusinesses in all fields and is a constantly changing phenomenon. Due to the overwhelminguse of influencer-marketing, trust in influencers has decreased. This has contributed to agrowing demand for authentic and relatable material on social platforms. Because of this,user-generated content is on the rise, especially on platforms like TikTok, which has becomean arena for digital marketing. This study examines how the brand Normal is portrayedthrough user-generated content through the TikTok-trend “Run, don’t walk to”. Normal is acompany that has become successful through user-generated content and electronic Word ofMouth (eWOM) on Tiktok, especially via the TikTok-trend “Run, don’t walk to”.We have used a qualitative multimodal analysis to study how the company Normal isportrayed in the trend “Run, don’t walk to”. The analysis examines several semioticresources: linguistic, auditory, visual and gestural and the interaction of the semioticresources. To understand the trend, the way users participate and interact is also studied. Wediscovered that Normal is portrayed in a positive way through user-generated content onTikTok. This is due to users' ambitious and authentic videos that load the brand withfavorable value and attributes. Users participate and interact primarily through archivingpurposes that include liking and archiving. Users' participation in the trend manifests itself ina similar way across all videos. The result is consistent with Dallas Smythe's theory ofaudience commodity, as users do not perceive the production of videos as a burden eventhough they contribute to the free marketing of the brand Normal. Users' participation in thetrend and the calls for consumption can be seen as a transaction and payment for an entry intothe consumer society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-223129 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Andersson, Sanna, Bendrik, Klara |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för kultur- och medievetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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