Brands and Consumers on Web 2.0: Myth or Reality?

1. We want to question the idea that brands are having conversations with consumers on web 2.0 devices and especially on Facebook. We seek to qualify the relationship and interactions occurring, or not, betwwen brands and consumers in the social media system. Karine Berthelot-Guiet Brands and Social Media The Advertising Show AcrossDisciplinary and Cultural Boundaries

2. Methods : Content analysis mixing socio-semiotic analysis, visual semiotics, semio-linguistic analysis and discourse analysis 2 corpuses : A set of professional writings from the field of marketing and advertising taken in professional press and recognized websites. A set of screenshots of Facebook brand pages popular and comparable in France and USA : Oasis , M&Ms. Oasis has been chosen because it is, in France, for 3 years the Facebook brand page gathering the highest number of followers M&Ms was selected in order to have a US comparable Facebook brand page to analyze. The two brands have an advertising discourse based on humor and jokes with cartoon brand egeries The corpus gathers 3 months (December 2014-March 2015) : all the posts and commentaries were collected and printed in order to enable a full content analysis. Karine Berthelot-Guiet Brands and Social Media The Advertising Show AcrossDisciplinary and Cultural Boundaries Brands and Social Media Promotion, Conversation or Advertising Show ?

3. THE MYTH OF BRAND CONVERSATION - Back to professional roots “Markets are conversations” : Clue Train Manifesto, 1999 Conversation: an ideal of communication Anostalgic idea of conversation taking roots in a pre-industrial fantasy of an Eden of communication: the old famers' market place. This pre-capitalistic conversation is depicted as true and direct. The contrary of conversation analyzed by linguists who speak about s a "battle for dominance", always giving place to an agonistic relationship, The marketing conversation is a hybrid production, highly consensual and paradoxical in the fact that is at the same time innate for consumers and to be learned for brands. Marketing and advertising professionals redefine the concept of conversation eliminating from it balance of power and hierarchy. Conversation becomes an irenic idealized mode of communication, as voxpopuli. Karine Berthelot-Guiet THE MYTH OF BRAND CONVERSATION

4. THE MYTH OF BRAND CONVERSATION Conversation versus advertising a new demarcation between a good, transparent, non-manipulative communication, close toinformationand a bad, opaque and manipulative one, in other words, advertising From Advertising to Unadvertising - a context: People tend to be more and more defiant and even opposed to classical media advertising At the same time, we live in societies where advertising is ubiquitous in everyday life. It produces a saturation of space with advertising. Every single media or so-called media seems literally packed with advertising. Karine Berthelot-Guiet THE MYTH OF BRAND CONVERSATION

5. From Advertising to Unadvertising 2 solutions have occurred in professional uses 1/ "un-advertising” : erasing a maximum of classical advertising features, 2/ "hyper-advertising” : optimizing advertising quality and/or trying to find new media or transforming things into a media for advertising. Brand conversation is part of unadvertising tactics : Brands try to benefit from new forms of communication intended to redistribute communicational parts such as blogs, co-produced content and social media Karine Berthelot-Guiet THE MYTH OF BRAND CONVERSATION

6. BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES? Brand conversation: free or imposed program Is Facebook the ultimate brand conversation? Let the brand show start The hyperadvertisingshow of brands on Facebook Advertising must go on Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

7. Brand conversation: free or imposed program Branded blogs and dedicated conversational devices (ancestors of social media) are completely mastered by brands They duplicate the brand signs as logotypes, claims, signature and visual charts. Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

8. Is Facebook the ultimate brand conversation? Most of the time, brands are proposing while consumers are reacting more than interacting. It looks more like a classical stimulus-response system than a real polyphony The architext of a Facebook page isolates the exchanges by automatically closing the direct access to their content and offering instead the counts of the numerous "like", "share" and "comment". It’s an audience counting system rather than a dialogical one. Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

9. Is Facebook the ultimate brand conversation? Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

10. Let the brand show start many people participate on these Facebook brand pagesso it is important to understand what they do if the do not dialog as in a conversation with these brands. What we find inside these brief comments cannot really be qualified as conversation, it looks more like answers to the brands' various stimuli: written laugh (LMAO! Hilarious, lol, mdr, hahaha, etc.), enthusiastic appreciation or should we say gusto as one can express during a show (« Aaawwww I love it! », « Yay », « i like it!!so gooodddddddd*** », « cool », « bienouej' », « excellent »), short answers inspired by theses brands advertising mottos (« Go yellow », « You go RED!!!»« Çavadéfruiter !», « Toutesnosfraizelicitations au papaye et a la mamangue»). short declarations of love (« Love m&m », « my favorite is still the one where red takes it all off I miss that commercial », « The best ever M&M commercial is the one with Santa, "He does exist!" "They do exist!" Simultaneous faint, candle falls to the floor.... the absolute best M&M commercial ever!!!!!! », « Vousêtes trop forts avec vosjeux de mot », « j'adore les jus de mot oasis », « àchaquefoisçacartonne... vousêtes des fous chez les publicitaires Oasis »). Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

11. Let the brand show start Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

12. The hyperadvertisingshow of brands on Facebook M&M’s and OasisBeFruitFacebook brand pages appear to be some hyperadvertisingdevices with an omnipresence of these brand names and logos The discourse is highly linked to brands TV commercials The advertising show is obvious : participants directly qualify the "authors" as advertising professionals : « Simultaneous faint, candle falls to the floor.... the absolute best M&M commercial ever!!!!!! » « àchaquefoisçacartonne... vousêtes des fous chez les publicitaires ». Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

13. The hyperadvertisingshow of brands on Facebook Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

14. Advertising must go on Advertising show comes with amateur advertising reviewers who demonstrate a true advertising culture Participants give their evaluation of this advertising discourse, demonstrations of aesthetic judgment and specific ideas about what can be considered as a good commercials depending of the brand concerned. Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

15. Advertising must go on Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?

16. Comingsoon Analysis of different Facebook brand pages in order to be sure that the previous analysis were not magnifying effects related to the kind of brand/product. The largest audience fan pages in 2014 US ratings : Disney, Coca-Cola, Red Bull and Starbucks are among the top five. The weight of advertising show isobvious ` Disney is the homeland of themed worlds and products is show makers, master of entertainment. Coca Cola contribution to Facebook is called "Coca Cola journey" and gives mostly place to the idea of happiness, the brand-advertising motto and displays proof of the brand integration to popular culture. Starbucks tends to drive its brand towards heritage showing it as a piece of coffee culture. Red Bull shows the largest extension of their advertising claim "Red Bull gives you wings" into a global entertainment factory extended towards sport shows and music production. This brand goes so far in the idea of advertising show that we can even wonder about its true activity: producing and selling energy drinks or producing shows Karine Berthelot-Guiet BRAND CONVERSATION OR COEXISTENCE OF SOLILOQUIES?