Am I just late to the Frank Green Party?

Am I just late to the Frank Green Party? #helpmefrank

In the 21st Century, products and the brands that create them have moved simply from tangible, everyday necessities, to more intangible, socially curated pieces that say more about consumers than the products themselves. Wernick, 1991, first discussed this through his study of the wedgwood pottery, and the ability for products to become so entrenched in the medium of promotion, that it becomes an independent acting force on the products own social construction. This is further emphasised through something noted as the ‘promotional skin’, a layer that wraps around the product to create additional value.

Objectives

The line between consumer, product and relationship has become so blurred, that it’s hard to see where one starts and the others begin. From this discourse, the outcomes would be more engagement through the post allocated (dictated by likes, shares, and comments). Given the context of the video and immediate effect it aims to have on students, I am targeting an above average engagement rate of 0.20% on Facebook (Atherton, 2019, p.28). This video is a more critical examination of the impact promotional culture has on not only our discourse internally, but also the discourse externally between consumers and businesses. Expecting more and holding businesses accountable will always be something that we can instigate as consumers and should do far more often.

Target Audience

The target audience for the video will be primarily aimed at a younger demographic, between the ages of 18 -34, and identify as male, female or other. This is a large window to be targeting, so to combat this there are also opportunities to segment this further down, to help build a more niche audience. An example of such an audience would be students, in their early 20’s who are interested in social media, marketing, human psychology and purchasing behaviours. Their role within a company could be an intern through to a junior level marketer who might be building their theoretical base of information for further discourse as they began their careers.

Tactic

The tactics behind my communication is to ensure there is a discourse in the comments to acknowledge how companies have situated and built their ‘promotional skin’ to be seen as a sustainable and inherently a ‘green’ brand, and how this affects the promotional culture attached to the consumers. Inherently, if consumers are to buy this product, instead of feeling like they are attributing to the problem they have been informed on, i.e. Environmental destruction, they are actually ‘helping’ to contribute to the modern day fordism, and in turn, their consumerist behaviour. This video itself does not need to change minds straight away, but I want to make sure that we are building knowledge and almost looking to reflect on the buying behaviours we have everyday.

Goal: To further develop dialogue and discourse around companies’ effective use of ‘green’ promotional culture. 

The goal and idea behind my video, is to change the discourse on consumption through advertising, and inherently how the ‘promotional skin’ of most eco-friendly products are still attributing to the environmental concerns they plan to alleviate.

Evaluation Metrics

Given the lack of social clout and recognizable audience interaction, the video will be based on averages across the platform of choice (Facebook Feed) and the average engagement rate of them (0.16%) . The brief that was also provided will help to dictate the success of the video if certain parameters are met, and also the key learnings if they are not, and where we can focus for the next iteration. IN this regard, I would be looking to have an engagement rate of 0.20% (Sutherland, 2020) as this would help to deliver 20 people to engage with the post (be this comment, like, click through, etc).

 

References

Atherton, J. (2019). Social Media Strategy: A Practical Guide to Social Media Marketing and Customer Engagement. Kogan Page.

Benoit, A. (2019, January 21). Gillette’s #MeToo-inspired ad represents a cultural shift. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/gillettes-metoo-inspired-ad-represents-a-cultural-shift-110080

Lekakis, E. (2022). Consumer activism. (Vols. 1-0). SAGE Publications Ltd, https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529782929

Sutherland, K. E. (2020). Strategic Social Media Management: Theory and Practice (1st ed.). Springer Nature Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4658-7

Wernick, A. (1991). Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression. SAGE Publications. 991012430789703131