Entertainment marketing and experiential consumption (original) (raw)
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Towards a definition for branded entertainment: An exploratory study
Journal of Marketing Communications, 2019
Branded entertainment seemingly holds varied meanings. This is of concern as the discipline is growing in importance as a means to disrupt conventional brand communication practice. One can compare this problem to an industry that for argument’s sake does not understand or agree on the fundamental principles of advertising or public relations, resulting in ineffective communication efforts. The lack of a cohesive understanding and application of branded entertainment erodes its core value, which is to breakthrough clutter and connect with audiences through authentic narrative; thus, the potential for branded entertainment to achieve resonance is depleted. Brand resonance builds brands strategically. This exploratory study engaged the perceptions of globally recognized brand communication decision makers across six continents on defining branded entertainment. We conducted interviews with planners and creators of award-winning branded entertainment campaigns that were recognized by multiple Grand Prix and Gold wins at the world’s most respected advertising award shows. The research delivers a proposed definition: Branded entertainment is a communication effort that employs a compelling authentic narrative to achieve brand resonance. This definition can guide academics and practitioners on branded entertainment practice for strategic brand-building success.
The strategic value of authentic narrative in branded entertainment
This study explored the strategic value of authentic narrative in branded entertainment. Authentic narrative gives form to narrative that is original, communicates the brand’s identity and purpose, and aligns with the target audience’s value system in a meaningful way, with the potential to achieve customer-brand resonance – therefore, its strategic value. The discipline of branded entertainment is imbedded in alternative brand contact planning. The term branded entertainment seemingly holds varied meanings among industry professionals and academics. This is of concern as the discipline is growing in importance as a means to disrupt conventional brand communication practice and to break through commercial clutter. One can compare this problem to an industry that for argument’s sake does not understand or agree on the fundamental principles of advertising or public relations, resulting in ineffective communication efforts. In many instances, branded entertainment is employed with an overt sales orientation as opposed to a brand orientation that engages an authentic brand identity-based narrative. The brand communication effort thus comes across as insincere, in particular where Millennials are concerned. This generation responds to brand communication that they can make a genuine emotional connection with and they expect of brands to provide entertaining content in their brand communication campaigns. They furthermore engage with brands on their own terms, something that branded entertainment enables and encourages. The lack of a cohesive understanding and application of branded entertainment erodes its core value, that is to break through clutter and connect with audiences through authentic narrative and thus, the potential for branded entertainment to achieve resonance is depleted. Using a qualitative interpretivist approach with a judgement sampling design, this exploratory study was conducted to engage the perceptions of globally recognised brand communication decision makers, i.e. advertising agency-side strategists and creatives, and client-side marketers on the strategic value of authentic narrative in branded entertainment. Interviews were conducted across six continents with these planners and creators, all who have received the highest international recognition of excellence in the form of multiple Grand Prix and Gold wins at the world’s most respected advertising award shows, for branded entertainment campaigns that they were directly responsible for. Depth of thought and opinion was gained through the exploration of the potential of authentic narrative to achieve brand resonance. The qualitative exploratory research that was conducted delivers a proposed definition: Branded entertainment is a communication effort that employs a compelling authentic narrative to achieve brand resonance, being the primary contribution of the study. This definition is of significance as it provides a common understanding of the branded entertainment construct towards brand resonance and guides the application thereof. Key findings were employed during this study to deliver a conceptual framework for the strategic value of authentic narrative in branded entertainment, being the secondary contribution of the study. The findings can advise brand communication decision makers on sound branded entertainment practice that engages authentic narrative for strategic brand-building success. It is envisaged that those agencies and clients that are responsive to the explorative and experiential nature of authentic narrative employment in branded entertainment planning will find the proposed conceptual framework to be of immediate strategic value. Companies and agencies in need of empirical evidence can apply the key findings of this study in the development of hypotheses for future research.
Brand consumption and narrative of the self
Psychology & Marketing, 2010
This study investigates how consumers use brands to construct their self. Focusing on the consumer's experience of brands, the study interprets consumer narratives on how brand consumption contributes to the construction of the self. The findings demonstrate that consumers use brands in different ways: symbolic, iconic, and indexical. Apart from the symbolism of brands used to construct the self, consumers also use brands that resemble something in an iconic manner. Additionally, consumers use brands that have a factual connection to something in an indexical way to construct the self. Given these findings, this paper therefore contributes to both theory and practice. Theoretically, the findings support semiotic theory and the relationships between the object, the sign, and the interpretant. More practically, this work shows that recognition of the experiential meaning of brands informs marketers and brand managers on how to effectively market brands. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Engaging Consumers through Branded Entertainment and Convergent Media, 2015
Branded entertainment is the insertion of a brand within an entertainment property in such a way that the line between entertainment and advertising becomes blurred (Moore, 2006). This hybrid message develops in an increasingly convergent environment in which editorial content and advertising content are blended (Shrum, 2004). This indirect approach to deliver brand messages is gaining momentum as a marketing communications tool to engage consumers with brand messages in a non-interruptive and entertainment context. By using branded films, advergames, and other advertainment-type genres, advertisers aim to enhance consumers´ brand perceptions, brand awareness, brand recall, and brand recognition, along with increasing consumers´ brand attitudes and purchase intentions while providing value to consumers through brand communications. This chapter gives an overview to branded entertainment from an historical approach, analyzing the origins, conceptualization, and genres of branded entertainment. Ethical concerns and legal issues related to branded entertainment are discussed. New trends in branded entertainment are also analyzed.
Film or Film Brand? UK Consumers’ Engagement with Films as Brands
British Journal of Management
Many films are produced annually, but only a small number of films reach the state of being considered and identified by consumers as film brands. Film-brand identification is difficult to achieve, but it leads to engagement behaviours (e.g. repetitive viewing, positive word-of-mouth and purchase intention of relevant merchandise/franchise). To help filmmakers better develop films as brands and benefit from their brand status, this paper takes a consumer-centric approach to investigate how and why films are identified and engaged by consumers as brands. Using an abductive mode of reasoning, a consumer film-brand engagement framework was developed through qualitative data collected from 35 semistructured interviews and then validated using survey data with 1030 participants. This consumer film-brand engagement framework shows that film identity coherency drives film-brand identification through the mediation effects of popularity, sequels and emotional bonding, whilst marketing effort, iconic status, franchising/merchandising activities and timelessness are highlighted as key moderators, resulting in positive brand engagement behaviour. The paper sheds new light on film-branding literature by theoretically explaining and empirically showing a sequential and consolidated process, which consumers go through to identify and engage with films as brands, leading to several managerial and marketing implications for film-makers. Research and European Journal of Marketing. Her main research interest is branding at different levels and entities, including product, corporate and institution.
Do you really feel a superhero? antecedents and consequences of brand engagement in self concept
2017
The current research aims to shed light on consumer-brand relationship, adopting the self-determination theory as theoretical lens for the definition of the antecedents and the consequences of the Brand Engagement in Self Concept (Sprott, Czellar, & Spangenberg, 2009). Thus, the goal of this study is to test a model previously proposed by Razmus, Jaroszyńska, & Palęga (2017) in a community of high engagement manifestations, that is the cosplayer community (e.g. dress-up as their own favourite character) shedding light on the relationship between engagement and brand related constructs such as brand advocacy and brand loyalty.
Building brands through experiential events: When entertainment meets education
African Journal of Business Management
Experiential marketing is increasingly getting companies' attention as a strategy to interact with consumers and engage them to better convey their brand image and positioning. However, its effects are still unclear both at the aggregate and individual levels. This paper addresses this topic and presents a field experiment investigating the effects of experiential marketing on brand image in retailing. Two similar consumer electronics stores with different strategiestraditional vs. experiential constitute the setting in which a field experiment has been run. Two similar samples of consumers took part in our study by visiting one of these two stores, and answering a questionnaire before and after the visit with the primary goal to investigate the brand image and its changes due to the shopping visit. Brand image was measured as the overall brand attitudevia four itemsand five specific desired brand claims that the company wanted to convey to consumers. Findings show that engaged consumers through the multisensory and interactive event arranged in the experiential store register higher levels of both brand attitude and all brand claims than those visiting the traditional store, and that the increase in both the dependent variables after the visit of the experiential store is higher than the increase in the traditional store. Thus, experiential stores are not only able to entertain consumers, but they are also able to educate them, by conveying them a set of brand claims more effectively than the traditional store.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012
We study the role of social engagement and advertising in building entertainment brands. We develop a structural model of viewing behaviors and apply the model to a new television program setting using a data set that contains both viewing and stated expectations and experiences. We use this model to not only assess the relative impact of advertising exposures and social engagement, but also to distinguish multiple roles that advertising and social engagement might play-reminding (i.e., activating memory), informing (i.e., learning about the quality of the program), or enhancing enjoyment (i.e., gaining additional utility from socializing about the program). We present descriptive analyses and results from our structural model, both of which indicate that advertising effects are largely due to reminding, that social engagement effects are due to a combination of reminding and enhancing enjoyment, and that information comes primarily watching episodes. Our results imply that the average effect of paid media is four times larger than that of earned media, but that if earned media strategies can expand the proportion of frequent socializers, it can have a profound effect on viewership.
Being as becoming: Play as a core concept in consumer-marketing studies
2014
Purpose: Rejecting a stimulus-response approach to research on young persons as consumers subjected to marketing, this paper draws on phenomenology’s practices perspective. Embodied, equipped understanding is always already in use - in minimally monitored (tacit) play-like projecting, a participatory production of meaning. The paper investigates mall and media immersion as young people’s understanding-in-use: in discussion, they present visiting a massive shopping place as engaging with ludic location or a ‘second home’. Methodology: The paper reflects on Chinese Malaysian student narratives of consumer activity. Research commences from the ‘hypothesis’ of hermeneutics - or the philosophy of understanding-in-practice(s) as play-like - tested in a focus group. Visiting shopping mall or social media involves ‘ready-to-hand’ (little reflected on) ‘projecting’ and producing intelligibility, an integrating narrative, (dis)enabling ‘being-with-others’ (Heidegger). Talk in discussion enabl...