Uncovering milk formula advertisements on the Chinese social media platform Weibo (Preprint)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Zhao ◽  
Becky Freeman ◽  
Rui Hua Guo ◽  
Mu Li

UNSTRUCTURED China is the largest and fastest-growing market of milk formula products and has a highly active digital media environment. Weibo is one of the most popular social media channels in China. The International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes aims to prevent aggressive marketing practices to protect mothers and babies. The advent of Weibo presents new challenges for the promotion, protection, and support of breastfeeding in China. The study aims 1) Investigate the frequency of posting by popular milk formula brands on Weibo 2) Uncover common Weibo post themes and marketing techniques used by milk formula brands and companies. We examined the four most popular milk formula brands' official Weibo accounts: Biotime, Mead Johnson, YiLi-Prokido and Friso, each had more than 1.4 million followers. We developed a preliminary coding framework with coding categories based on previous studies. Initially, we coded one hundred original posts from each account using an iterative process of coding. The final set of ten coding categories were mutually exclusive. Totaling 2,667 original posts were coded and analyzed. Three categories had the highest proportions of original posts (65%) across the four accounts; they were: increase user engagement (939/2667, 35.2%), parenting advice (516/2667, 19.3%), and celebrity endorsement (327/2667, 12.3%). The remaining seven categories, including claims that milk formula is very close to breast milk, fear appeals of breastfeeding, sponsorship or title sponsor of event/TV reality shows, accounted for 35% of the total number of original posts. This study revealed that advertising practices were common, particularly prizes, parenting advice, and celebrity endorsement of milk formula products in milk formula brands' Weibo accounts. Therefore, monitoring and regulation to ban digital media advertising of milk formula in China are urgently needed.

Author(s):  
Piotr Szamrowski ◽  
Adam Pawlewicz

The main objective of this paper is to identify the platforms and social media tools utilized by the brewing industry in communication with the stakeholders, mainly with potential clients. In addition, the study sought to determine the nature of the published content, identify those responsible for their management, and present the advantages and disadvantages of their conduct in communication and creating the image of the company. The results indicate that only 25% of the surveyed companies do not use social media in PR. This applies only to small enterprises, with regional character. All the major brewing companies in their public relations activities use at least one type of social media, focusing in most cases on social networking (Facebook) and Video Sharing (YouTube). In addition, some of the largest brands included in the individual equity groups have their own social media channels used to communicate with the stakeholders. General promotion of company products and, what is very important, creating a dialogue with social media platform community, were seen as the most important benefits of using social media.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-87
Author(s):  
Jenni Hokka

With the advent of popular social media platforms, news journalism has been forced to re-evaluate its relation to its audience. This applies also for public service media that increasingly have to prove its utility through audience ratings. This ethnographic study explores a particular project, the development of ‘concept bible’ for the Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE’s online news; it is an attempt to solve these challenges through new journalistic practices. The study introduces the concept of ‘nuanced universality’, which means that audience groups’ different kinds of needs are taken into account on news production in order to strengthen all people’s ability to be part of society. On a more general level, the article claims that despite its commercial origins, audience segmentation can be transformed into a method that helps revise public service media principles into practices suitable for the digital media environment.


Author(s):  
Suci Sandi Wachyuni ◽  
Tri Kuntoro Priyambodo

Purpose of the study: The phenomenon of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) or word of mouth communication in marketing activities on digital media is one of the most important things in improving the purchasing decision of a product or services. This study aims to analyze the effect of celebrity endorsement on consumer purchase decisions, case studies at Nona Judes Restaurant. Methodology: This research is mixed-method, both qualitative and quantitative. Data collection techniques in this study were interviews and questionnaires that were measured using a Likert scale. The questionnaire was distributed to 100 respondents who were consumers of the Nona Judes restaurant. The data were analyzed using simple linear regression analysis. Main Findings: The results of this study indicate that celebrity endorsement influences product purchase decisions. The contribution of celebrity endorsement variables to product purchase decisions is 25.9%. Researchers concluded that there are several factors considered in selecting endorsers. These factors include big names and experiences, appearance, social media strength of endorsers, and communication skills. Implications: This study is offering suggestions for company management in determining celebrity for product endorsement. The orders of indicators to consider are (1) Power, (2) Credibility, (3) Attraction. Novelty/Originality of this study: This research specifically addresses the role of celebrity endorsement in product purchase decisions in restaurants. This study also produced endorser selection criteria and their indicators, i.e. 1) Power (fame, strengths on social media); 2) Credibility (the truth of information, endorser information skills); 3) Attractiveness (physical appearance, endorser’s characters).


Author(s):  
Reeta Sharma ◽  
P. K. Bhattacharya ◽  
Shantanu Ganguly ◽  
Arun Kumar

Today's world is technology-driven. Technology has penetrated almost every sphere of human life. Digital marking is one of the technologies that have attracted people from different age groups all over the world with their advanced nature of applications and uses. One of the foremost reasons why patrons like to use this technology is because these are not only user-friendly in nature and innovativeness but also carry the knowledge economies. Marketing and branding through digital media channels are very decent ventures that have steadily increased in value and are thereby considered safe and secure investments. In this chapter, the authors discuss a case study of ICDL 2016 conference where social media and other technology is widely used to market this event and catch prospective users.


Paradigm ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Sakshi Kathuria ◽  
Raiswa Saha ◽  
Harbhajan Bansal

Social media marketing has garnered a lot of attention in recent times. Regulators, however, do not have any established frameworks to exert a level of control on social media marketing activities. Furthermore, some research studies have shown that control at an organizational level does not appear to be either formal or particularly strong. There are other areas that require investigation as well, such as confusion on the use of personal accounts for marketing the organizations’ products and services, the pressure of releasing media content at speed and the possibility of misuse of any information that is disseminated. There is no doubt social media is an attractive channel for marketing purposes given its free usage and scale of adoption by consumers; however, there is a considerable risk it can be misused as well. Hence, it can be argued that strong control systems should be in place. The case of multiple fatalities in a mob-lynching in India, allegedly as a result of the so-called ‘fake news’ being disseminated via the social media platform Whatsapp, has caught the attention of the Indian government, which is seeking to exert more control over social media channels. Thus, this article critically examines the issue of control over social media marketing in India, and makes suggestions for the creation of a robust control and regulatory framework for the same. This study broadens our understanding of the roles of regulatory framework in social media marketing context.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 167
Author(s):  
Christian Carvajal-Miranda ◽  
Luis Mañas-Viniegra ◽  
Li Liang

The COVID-19 epidemic was the first universal health crisis since China entered the era of mobile social media. When Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) broke out in 2003, it was not until almost six years later that Weibo was born, marking China’s entry into the era of mobile social media (Weixin 2020). In this context, this research analysed the role of the social media platform Weibo and the Internet search browser Baidu, in a government controlled online media environment, during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to undertake this study, we applied the use of content and sentiment analysis to the discourse identified through the topics published during the investigation period, which encompassed 15 December 2019 until 15 March 2020. From the findings of this study, we concluded that, during the pre- and post-COVID-19 period, there was an important presence of social and lifestyle topic categories dominating the online discourse, which dramatically changed in correlation to the increasing spread of the disease. Additionally, there was a marked absence of topics in relation to economic and political information, and there was a notable absence of an official Government “voice” generating topics.


2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (9) ◽  
pp. 3243-3265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Ohme ◽  
Claes H. de Vreese ◽  
Erik Albaek

The digital media environment changes the way citizens receive political information, also during an election campaign. Particularly first-time voters increasingly use social media platforms as news sources. Yet, it is less clear how accessing political information in such a unique social setting affects these cohorts’ decision-making processes during an election campaign, compared to experienced voters. We compare effects of these two groups’ political information exposure on their vote choice certainty during the 2015 Danish national election. We furthermore test how the relation between exposure and certainty can be mediated by active campaign participation. An 11-wave national panel study was conducted, using a smartphone-based assessment of citizens’ ( n = 1108) media exposure and vote choice certainty across the campaign period. Results suggest that first-time voters’ social media exposure is responsible for their increase in certainty as the campaign progresses, while this effect is absent for experienced voters.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diane Stolte

The purpose of this research is to assess user engagement for a video-based social media campaign by a destination marketing organization (DMO). A case study methodology was applied to examine the Tourism Toronto video-based campaign of 2017 on Instagram and Twitter. Social interactions were analyzed to compare the relative engagement rates across platforms. This determined that Instagram had a higher relative engagement rate compared to Twitter. Instagram can be considered as a more desirable tool for DMOs to share videos digitally. The limited sample size presents research limitations through potentially not representing a larger population opinion’s on the content. It enables practical implications for destination marketers who have limited resources by highlighting that Instagram may be a preferred channel over Twitter due to higher engagements rates. There is a lack of research on the comparison of relative engagement rates from an academic perspective and this is the first study to explore the topic for a video-based marketing campaign in the DMO industry.


Subject Facebook's troubles and business response. Significance Facebook’s financial performance is determined by its success in adding, retaining and engaging active users of its products, particularly its eponymous social media platform and photo- and video-sharing service Instagram. Its North American and West European markets are reaching their ceiling for new users while removing fake accounts, estimated by the company to account for 3-4% of the total, is reducing overall numbers. Meanwhile, privacy, data sharing and security, and false and bot-created content concerns, put user engagement and retention at risk, further endangering revenue. Impacts A global regulatory regime against social media is highly improbable. Some US and EU regulation could be useful for Facebook as barriers to entry, as it does in such industries as banking and airlines. Sustaining advertiser loyalty is as vital to the sustainability of Facebook’s business model as growing users.


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