Module 2: How Digital Tools Are Changing

Promotion

Table of Contents
Promotion Overview ...................................................................................................... 2
User Generated Content (Part 1) ..................................................................................... 9
User Generated Content (Part 2) ....................................................................................12
Case Study: GoPro ........................................................................................................15
Doppelganger Brand Images Part 1 ................................................................................17
Doppelganger Brands Part 2 ..........................................................................................20
Exercise: Wikipedia.org ................................................................................................23
Interview with Rafael Schwarz .......................................................................................25
Promotion Overview

The second of the four P's is promotion, this portion of the marketing mix encompasses the
methods of communication that a marketer uses to provide information about its products
or services. Typically, we think of this information as being persuasive in nature, with the
goal of getting customers to buy a particular product instead of its competitors. This
information can be both verbal and visual in nature, thus, a promotion strategy can
influence consumers by appealing to either their intellect or to their emotions.

For example, Coke has built an incredible degree of awareness and interest in its brand by
engaging in a century of effective promotion campaigns. Coke spends about $4 billion
each and every year on advertising, most of it on television.

Through more than 100 years of successful promotions, Coke is today one of the world's
most recognizable brands and the world's most popular soft drink. As an indication of its
promotional success, the word Coke is the second most recognized word on our planet,
just after the word "okay". On the screen, you'll see a selection of images illustrating the
history of Coke's advertising.

Now, when you look at these ads, you can clearly see that Coke has historically focused on
more visual versus verbal information in an attempt to build an emotional bond with its
customers.

The promotion portion of the marketing mix has a number of key concepts, including
personal selling, sales promotion, and word of mouth. In this module, we're focused on
two fundamental concepts: advertising and persuasion. Let's take a look at advertising.
Historically, the most popular promotional technique has been advertising, with television
advertising accounting for the largest portion of most firms' promotional budgets. Today,
digital advertising exceeds traditional advertising, but not by that much. TV advertising is
still a major element in many firms' advertising budgets.

For example, many large firms pay over $7 million for a 30-second advertisement during
the Super Bowl each year. Most advertising focuses on existing and potential customers;
however, advertising can also be targeted towards a firm's distribution channel partners
such as retailers, and it can also be used to build morale among employees.

The goal of advertising is to elicit some form of response. There are different types of
responses that a firm may seek. For example, a new brand may focus on developing
awareness, while an established brand may focus on changing perceptions.

Most ads are carefully planned and thoroughly developed. Usually, a firm will hire a
professional advertising agency to create an advertising campaign, and then will carefully
pre-test these ads before launching them. Once an advertising campaign is launched, a
firm will usually have a professional marketing research company track the ad to assess its
effectiveness and help decide when it needs to develop a new campaign.

Now let's talk a bit about persuasion. As noted earlier, the primary goal of most
promotional campaigns is to persuade consumers to buy a firm's products instead of its
competitors. Thus, marketers often think of promotion as a form of persuasion and employ
a number of persuasion tactics, such as celebrity endorsement, humor, or scientific
claims. The most popular theory about persuasion is a theory called the Elaboration
Likelihood Model (ELM), which suggests there are two main routes to persuasion.

The first is the central route, which is more cognitive in nature, and the second is the
peripheral route, which is more emotional in nature. According to this theory, the central
route is effective when consumers have the ability and motivation to process a persuasion
message, and persuasion occurs when we find the information to be newsworthy and
believable in nature.

In contrast, the peripheral route is effective when consumers lack the ability or motivation
to process a message, and persuasion occurs when they perceive the provider or the
message as credible and/or attractive. These two ads are good examples of these two
different persuasion routes.

Regardless of which route is employed, a persuasion tactic focuses strongly on trying to

convince customers that a product is appealing and is based on the premise that a firm
just needs to find the right message or the right message provider.

Now, let's take a look at what's changing. Historically, most large firms devoted most of
their promotion budget to advertising. The bulk of this advertising expenditure went to ads
developed by a professional advertising agency and typically aired on television.

Although a small number of customers are typically asked to provide their opinions about
these ads through techniques like copy testing, this process is largely top-down in focus.
Most ads are designed to persuade a customer to buy a firm's products by first getting
attention and then persuading them to purchase the brand.

This top-down approach is starting to break down due to the democratization of digital
tools. For example, most large automobile companies spend billions of dollars a year
advertising their products. In contrast, Tesla has built a very successful automobile
company with very little traditional advertising, and instead promotes its brand via social
media channels.

For example, Tesla has nearly 25 million followers on X (formerly known as Twitter), and
Elon Musk has over 185 million followers himself. In contrast, General Motors, which at
one point was the largest company in the world, has fewer than 800,000 followers.
In addition to making effective use of social media, the Tesla brand and its products are
widely promoted by thousands of fans via Twitter postings, YouTube videos, and other
forms of user-generated content. Thus, by leveraging the power of digital and not engaging
in traditional advertising, Tesla is able to attract potential customers without appearing like
it is trying to sell you something.

So, in this new digital environment, marketing is moving from "selling" to "telling." In this
module, we'll discuss how new digital tools are changing this element of the marketing mix
and redefining how we think about promotion.
Promotion
Do you know what user-generated content is?

Also known as UGC, UGC.

UGC, user-generated content, no.

Okay.

I heard, but unfortunately, I don't know right now.

No.

Like Instagram.

Kinda, yeah.

No.

I would say probably something like social media, like a TikToker or Instagram users
putting out content for other people to see?

True.

Sure, so it's basically when a fan or a user creates content for a brand and puts it on social
media.

Have you seen a video that you liked or have seen that is user-generated?

I get stuck in TikTok rabbit holes all the time.

Okay.

Do you have any favorite TikToks you'd like to share?

Right now I'm just stuck in book talk.

Yeah, okay.

What is a book talk?

They are promoting independent authors and certain genres of books.

Okay.

Is this the authors themselves or the fans of the authors?

The fans. The fans.

Well, that would be UGC?

Okay.

Awesome.

Have you ever used Wikipedia?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes, of course.

Not a whole lot, but yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Have you ever contributed to it?

I've not.

Can I?

Yeah, anytime.

No, that terrifies me.

Really?

I do not believe so.

Okay.
I have not.

Really?

You are in the majority, any guess of what percent of Wikipedia users actually make a
contribution to Wikipedia in terms of an entry?

I would guess probably at least 50%?

15%?

Ten.

50%?

20?

Probably like 1%.

It's probably a very small percent. Probably like in the single digits.

You are correct, 2%.

Have you heard of a doppelganger brand?

Yeah, is it just like, I guess, I don't want to say off-brand, but just another brand that's
based on something larger?

No, I don't know.

I would guess it's like something similar to another brand?

Unfortunately, no.

Okay.

Just sounds like a copycat brand.

Okay.

Yeah.

Like two people who look the same.

Yeah, like me and Brad Pitt.

[LAUGH]

Right, why are you laughing?

Probably a brand that is very similar to an already famous brand?

Yeah, but normally the intent is more negative. If you remember Joe Camel, remember
that?

She's too young, Steve.

Gosh.

McDonald's, certainly because you're mc-diabetes, for example. So it's rebranding the
brand, but in a negative way. So doppelganger brand is a negative brand image made by
people who don't like that brand.
User Generated Content (Part 1)
I'm a big believer in online communities and user-generated content, Michael Dell. As
illustrated by this quote from Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell Computer
Company, many firms rely on user-generated content as part of their promotional strategy.

Historically, most firms have carefully managed the promotion of their products. One of
the reasons why promotion has been carefully managed is because this activity is very
expensive. For example, in the US, a 30-second commercial on a national television
channel usually costs hundreds of thousands of dollars just to have it broadcast. Since
most commercials are shown multiple times, this cost quickly multiplies into millions of
dollars. This doesn't even include the cost of developing the commercial.

The rise of new digital tools has dramatically changed this equation. Low-cost digital video
cameras, free digital editing software, and online broadcasting platforms such as
YouTube, TikTok, and Twitter have made the creation and dissemination of promotional
messages much cheaper and easier than ever before. As a result, a growing number of
firms are taking advantage of these developments to reduce their promotional costs.

So, for example, a US beer called Old Milwaukee has dramatically reduced its promotional
cost by airing their ads on YouTube instead of television. In addition to reducing the
promotional cost for firms, these tools have also enabled customers to take a more active
role in the development and dissemination of promotional materials. So, for example,
there are over 600 million Twitter accounts which produce over 500 million tweets a day. It
is estimated that about 20% of these tweets are brand-related. Thus, every day there are
about 100 million free promotional messages on Twitter alone.

Today, anyone with an Internet connection, a computer, or an idea can create and
disseminate a promotional message for just about any product. In essence, digital tools
have democratized the promotional landscape. This is the basic idea behind user-
generated content, or UGC.

Here are a few examples of user-generated content. All of these examples are cases in
which firms are encouraging UGC. However, UGC often occurs without a firm's
encouragement or approval, such as when travelers post reviews about restaurants or
hotels on websites such as Travelocity.

GoPro, now, this California company develops and sells high-definition cameras. These
cameras are compact, durable, and relatively cheap and are often used by extreme sport
enthusiasts such as mountain bikers, windsurfers, and skydivers to capture their
adventures. GoPro strategically uses UGC by holding contests that ask their customers to
submit photos or videos that they have taken with their cameras. These submissions
provide a steady stream of content to GoPro's various social media sites. And also provide
a very persuasive form of promotion by showing potential customers the value of having a
GoPro camera. We'll talk more about GoPro in our case for this module.

Warby Parker is a manufacturer and retailer of eyeglasses that have a few physical retail
locations but does most of its business online. This company offers a service called Home
Try-On in which they mail customers five different pairs of glasses. Customers can try
them for five days and then send the ones back that they don't want to the company.
Warby Parker actively encourages these customers to take photos of themselves and
share these photos on social media using the #WarbyHomeTryon. Many of their customers
take and share these photos online as a way of getting helpful feedback from others. In
addition to helping their customers, these shared photos also help Warby Parker by
providing them with increased exposure and free promotion.

Glossier is an up-and-coming brand that offers a wide variety of skincare and beauty
products such as lotions, soaps, and makeup. They're a relatively new and small brand
founded in 2014 and compete in a very crowded market and are battling many well-known
global brands as Revlon, Estee Lauder, and L'Oreal. Since they can't match the marketing
budgets of these competitors, they have turned to UGC to help them level the playing field.
Fortunately, they have a loyal and enthusiastic brand community that is willing to assist
with this effort. They leverage this enthusiasm by regularly posting heartwarming stories
and selfies of their customers. Customer UGC accounts actually account for about one-
third of Glossier's Instagram posts and nearly half of its TikTok videos. Glossier also
actively encourages and connects with these content creators through a variety of
channels, such as their blog called The Gloss, and via its Slack channel, as well as a
dedicated Reddit forum.

Definition: User-generated content occurs when a product's customers create and

disseminate online ideas about a product or the firm that markets it. These ideas are often
in the form of a text but also come in some other forms such as music, photos, or videos.
UGC has three key characteristics:

The contribution is by users of a product rather than the firm that sells the product.
It is creative in nature and the user adds something new.
It's posted online and generally accessible.
Thus, an email that transmits a link to a YouTube video created by someone else is not
UGC. Typically, UGC is non-commercial in nature and doesn't make any directional
promotional appeals. Thus, it's a very indirect and subtle form of product promotion.

Deeper dive: There are lots of interesting issues surrounding UGC. For the purpose of
discussion, I'd like to focus on three key issues.

1. What are the different types of UGC? Although most UGC appears on social media
platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, it can also appear on other platforms
such as blogs, discussion forums, or a firm's website. Some of the most common types of
UGC include blog posts, product reviews, and various types of submission to firm-based
invitations, such as Warby Parker's home try-on initiative. Of all of the different types of
UGC, product reviews seem to have the strongest impact on consumer purchasing
decisions. There's also the recent rise of UAI GC, User AI-Generated Content, in which
individuals use various AI tools such as Canva, ChatGPT, and Midjourney to help them
create content.

2. What motivates users to contribute? The factors that motivate customers to engage in
UGC are very similar to the motives that encourage them to engage in co-creation. The
biggest motive is social recognition. Being an active contributor on a social media platform
such as Facebook or Twitter can help provide a certain amount of fame and prestige. In
addition, customers can also gain social recognition when a firm profiles their contribution
on its webpage or in advertisements. For example, the yogurt company Chobani has
placed its customers' tweets on billboard signs across the US. In addition to social
recognition, some users are motivated by financial incentives. Typically, there are a few
financial rewards for UGC. However, some firms try to encourage UGC by holding contests
that provide winners with cash, gift cards, or some other type of tangible reward. For
example, Dunkin Donuts encourages UGC by holding contests in which consumers submit
photos of themselves consuming its products and rewards winners with a variety of prizes,
such as smartphones and televisions.

3. What are the benefits of UGC? Users' contributions provide firms with lots of benefits.
First, this type of promotion is typically low cost, since the content is provided freely by a
firm's customers. In addition to this cost savings, UGC is also positively related to product
sales. Research suggests that most customers trust UGC more than traditional
promotions such as paid advertising. UGC also helps meet a firm's need to keep its
content fresh and makes a website more interesting. Thus, websites that feature UGC
benefit from both higher traffic as well as longer page views.

Now, here's Eric to discuss some academic insights about UGC.

User Generated Content (Part 2)
Thanks, Steve, many marketing scholars are interested in the topic of UGC, so there's a
healthy body of research on this topic. I'd like to focus on two recent articles that compare
firm-based promotions versus UGC.

In this 2023 article published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Ali Tyrvainen and his
colleagues at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland explore the impact of user-generated
content versus firm-generated content on brand loyalty. Thus, they're testing UGC versus
FGC. They do this by conducting a meta-analysis, which in essence is an extensive
quantitative review of prior research on this topic. Specifically, they examine the results of
220 prior articles in this domain, and they find that both UGC and also FGC both have
positive impacts on brand loyalty. That's interesting.

Perhaps what is even more interesting is that the results also indicate that FGC actually
has a stronger impact on brand loyalty than UGC. Their study also suggests that the effects
of both UGC and FGC are driven by the same factors, namely the quality, credibility, and
usefulness of the information provided. Thus, this research suggests that both UGC and
FGC are actually quite similar in several ways, and that for some metrics, such as fostering
brand loyalty, FGC may actually be preferable to UGC.

In this 2023 article published in the International Journal of Marketing Research, Tobias
Roland Blasberg, who is a marketing research executive in Mannheim, Germany, and his
collaborators examine the degree to which the insights from UGC can be used as a
replacement for traditional marketing research techniques such as conjoint analysis.
Specifically, they examine a large set of over 1 million online product reviews across 50
different product categories. They then develop a cool technique based on machine
learning and artificial intelligence that uses these reviews to extract information about
consumer evaluations of specific product attributes, such as a product's taste or its price.

They then compare the attribute evaluations from their AI method against traditional
conjoint analysis, which is a very common research technique that involves asking
consumers about their preferences. This comparison reveals that for some product
categories, such as sunglasses and toothbrushes, their AI technique based on UGC was
able to closely match the results derived from traditional conjoint analysis. However, for
other product categories like energy drinks and toothpaste, UGC provided a rather poor
match to these traditional research techniques.

Although far from perfect, this research suggests that an AI model based on a product's
reviews—its UGC—may provide a quick and rather inexpensive alternative to collecting
data about consumer preferences.

Back to you, Steve.

Now that you've learned a little bit about what UGC is and how it works, here are four
recommendations for putting this concept into practice.

One, ask to share.

As noted earlier, about one of every three Internet users has made at least one UGC. There
are over 5 billion Internet users around the world. Thus, there are over 1.5 billion people
who have shown a willingness to contribute their time, energy, and ideas on behalf of a
brand. The trick is to direct their efforts toward your brand rather than your competitors.
Research on UGC suggests that consumers are more likely to provide favorable
contributions to firms that are active on social media and encourage their participation.

Surprisingly, although most large firms have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, few of
them encourage their customers to actively contribute. For many firms, social media is a
one-way communication flow. Ideally, promotional activity should be a two-sided
conversation between a firm and its customers. A good way to get this conversation
started is to simply ask customers to share their ideas.

Two, be responsive.
After a firm asks its customers to submit their contributions, and if it's lucky enough to
receive UGC, it needs to close the loop by being responsive. For example, Dell computers
has a team of individuals solely devoted to monitoring its discussion boards and
responding to customer postings. Some firms choose to be responsive through financial
awards. For example, Taco Bell sends gift cards to active social media users who make
positive contributions to their brand. By being responsive to user contributions, firms are
more likely to obtain higher levels of UGC in the future.

Three, remember the Pareto principle.

If you had an economics class, you may remember the Pareto principle. This principle
comes from the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who found back in 1896 that 80% of the
land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Since then, this principle has become
known as the 80/20 rule and is found to apply to a large number of phenomena. For
example, 80% of the world's income is controlled by 20% of its population. This principle is
also exhibited in UGC, where approximately 90% of the content is created by only 10% of
its contributors.

Thus, not all contributors are equal. Some are more influential than others. Firms should
keep this principle in mind, seek to identify these influential contributors, and reward them
for their efforts.

Four, integrate UGC with traditional promotion.

Thus far, we have largely discussed UGC as an alternative to traditional promotions such
as television advertising. Indeed, these two forms of promotions are quite different and
often conducted as separate activities. However, firms should consider trying to link these
two forms of promotions together. For example, Target highlighted its educational
initiatives by creating a television advertising campaign that featured videos from its
customers, capturing the moment in which their sons or daughters opened up their college
admissions letter. This advertising campaign was voted as one of the best ads of the year
and resulted in substantial attention and goodwill for its brand.

Eric and I hope that you enjoyed this examination of UGC and that this concept helps
enrich your digital marketing toolkit.
Case Study: GoPro

In our new digital world, our ability to communicate via video has exploded. Today, most of
us regularly use video to talk to friends, family, and colleagues. In addition, we often post,
share, and view videos on social media, and many of us also engage with video to learn
new ideas, such as you're doing now. In fact, many of the most innovative new companies
are video-based, such as Netflix, YouTube, and Coursera.

One of the most interesting video companies to emerge from the digital revolution is a
company called GoPro, a manufacturer and marketer of small but sturdy high-definition
video cameras that have become popularized by extreme sports enthusiasts such as
surfers, skateboarders, and skydivers. GoPro cameras are often attached to an individual's
head or helmet and provide a first-person perspective of what that individual is seeing,
which allows viewers to engage in a vicarious viewing experience. In essence, when you
watch a GoPro video, you feel like you're actually there. Over the past two decades, many
GoPro users have shared their videos on a variety of social media platforms such as
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok. Many of these videos have millions of views.
Thus, GoPro is an excellent example of user-generated content.

The purpose of this case study is to illustrate and apply the concept of user-generated
content, or UGC, to an actual business. First, a bit of background. GoPro is an American
manufacturer of portable video cameras that began in 2002. It is based in San Mateo,
California, and was founded by Nick Woodman, who also serves as its current CEO. Nick
earned a bachelor's degree in visual arts, which is not typical for most CEOs, but probably
a good fit for a company that specializes in devices that create visual images.

In 2004, GoPro introduced its most popular camera, the GoPro Hero. The original Hero was
a 35-millimeter camera that could be strapped to your wrist. It was capable of taking
photos underwater. Then, in 2006, GoPro introduced a video version of the Hero camera,
along with a variety of different ways to mount this camera, including car mounts, bike
mounts, and helmet mounts. Today, GoPro cameras are available in over 100 countries,
and GoPro has established field offices in Europe as well as Asia.

Now, let's take a look at the key issue. Although GoPro is a well-known brand and its
products are highly regarded, its financial performance has been rather poor. In recent
years it's faced a number of competitors in this category, including Polaroid, Sony, and
Xiaomi. Given these challenges, it doesn't have the financial resources to invest in
traditional marketing campaigns. Fortunately, thousands of GoPro users are happy to
share their videos across a variety of social media platforms.

In essence, GoPro has been able to leverage the power of UGC to help build awareness
and interest in its products. Here's a brief overview of its UGC strategy.
First, distribute UGC via social media.
Since many GoPro users are quite willing to create and share these types of videos, GoPro
was able to benefit from UGC with little strategic direction. However, in 2010, it decided to
make UGC a strategic priority and began to incorporate user videos as a key part of its
promotional strategy. One essential element of this strategy is promoting user
contributions through social media platforms, especially on its YouTube channel, which
has over 11 million subscribers and hundreds of exciting videos. Some of these videos are
traditional UGC created solely by everyday users, while others are videos produced in
cooperation with a variety of social media influencers and extreme sports stars. For
example, Shaun White, the famous American snowboarder and skateboarder, is a frequent
GoPro contributor.

Second, host UGC contests.

In addition to actively sharing UGC across social media, GoPro also encourages UGC by
hosting a variety of video contests, such as the famous Million Dollar Challenge. In this
contest, users contribute short videos for the chance to win a share of a million-dollar prize
once a year. GoPro also gives out GoPro Awards to its top contributors and showcases its
winners on its social media sites, often providing casual awards, including free GoPro
devices. These contests help GoPro attract thousands of video submissions each and
every year. Users can enter this contest quite easily through a portal on GoPro's website.

Third, help users create content.

In order to help users create content, GoPro provides a number of useful tips to potential
contributors and also offers a free music library that contributors can access to provide a
soundtrack for their videos.

As you can see, GoPro actively cultivates and strategically leverages UGC as a key element
of its promotional strategy. I'd like you to carefully consider this strategy.

In particular, please focus on these three key questions:

First, what are the secrets behind the success of GoPro's UGC strategy?
Second, what lessons can other firms learn from GoPro's strategy?
Third, how could GoPro improve its UGC strategy?

Well, I hope you enjoyed working on this case study. I look forward to seeing your thoughts.

[MUSIC]
Thanks for sticking around. Here is your bonus fact: GoPro's CEO Nick Woodman raised
money for his company by selling beads and shells on the back of an old VW bus. Peace,
Matt. Good luck with the case.
Doppelganger Brand Images Part 1

Everyone carries a shadow, Carl Jung. As illustrated by this quote by the famous
psychologist Carl Jung, we all have a shadow. In most cultures, shadows represent
something dark and often invoke a sense of unease or fear. This sense of fear is illustrated
by the German word doppelganger, which stands for Double Walker. According to German
folklore, each of us has a doppelganger, which represents our evil twin or our shadow self,
and if we see it, bad things may happen.

Similarly, due to the proliferation of digital tools, a number of brands may also have
doppelgangers, which may cause them harm. As marketers, we know that developing an
appealing and distinctive brand image is an important aspect of a firm's product strategy,
and it helps differentiate its offerings from those of its competitors. Since few products
have large differences in their tangible features, most branding efforts focus on intangible
features and try to give their brands an emotional appeal. While these appeals are
attractive to some customers, many just ignore them, and a few may actually dislike them.

In the past, if you disliked a brand image, you would probably try to avoid the brand and
might share your dislike with your friends and family. However, with the democratization of
new digital tools, you can do a lot more. Specifically, using digital design software, digital
cameras, and digital editing programs combined with the Internet, you can actually remix
or create your own version of a brand that you find offensive, and this new image may be
harmful to a brand. This is the basic idea behind the Doppelganger Brand Image.

Here are three examples of Doppelganger Brand Image:

One, New Pepsi Logo.

Pepsi introduced a new logo in 2009. It paid a famous designer firm $1 million to create this
new logo, which, as you can see, is just a modification of its prior logo. This new logo was
heavily criticized by several Internet blogs as being a waste of money. In addition, several
graphic artists created doppelganger versions of this logo to represent an obese man as a
means of protesting against Pepsi's effect on health. This doppelganger campaign quickly
became an Internet meme and increased attention on the negative consequences of
drinking Pepsi.

Two, United Airlines.

In 2017, a passenger on a United Airlines jet was forcibly removed from a plane in Chicago
because a flight attendant asked him to give up his seat and then he refused. Another
passenger captured this incident on video and posted it on social media. The video was
quite disturbing and shows a man, a medical doctor, wildly screaming as he's being
dragged off the plane by airport police. The next day, United Airlines’ CEO released a
statement on social media in which he said that this passenger was "re-accommodated."
This incident and the statement that followed attracted substantial criticism and a large
number of doppelganger brand images that reflected this incident, both in pictures and
words.

Three, Donald Trump.

Doppelganger brand images can also harm political brands. For example, the American
businessman turned politician Donald Trump has attracted a considerable number of
doppelganger brand images over the years. These doppelganger images have attacked a
wide variety of aspects of Mr. Trump, including his hair, the way he talks, and his brand
slogans. For example, anti-Trump activists have transformed his well-known slogan "Make
America Great Again," that usually appears on his iconic red hats, into a variety of
doppelganger brand images, such as "Make America Mexico Again" and "Make Red Hats
Wearable Again."

Definition.
A doppelganger brand image is a collection of dispiriting images and stories about a brand
circulated in popular culture by a loosely organized network of anti-brand activists,
bloggers, and opinion leaders. Doppelganger brand images are usually focused on well-
known brands that are viewed as lacking authenticity and trying to create false or
misleading emotional appeals through their promotional activities.

There are a lot of interesting issues surrounding doppelganger brand images. For the
purpose of this discussion, let's take a look at three issues in particular:

One, what motivates somebody to create a doppelganger brand image?

Creating a doppelganger brand image takes a substantial amount of time and energy, so
why would someone do this? Typically, these efforts are motivated by the perception that a
brand is being inauthentic by claiming to be something that it is not, or disguising its true
nature. This seems to be the motive for the anti-Trump campaigns, which seem to be
motivated by the belief that Donald Trump is a dishonest individual who cares more about
enhancing his own personal welfare than improving the lives of everyday Americans. Given
the recent advances in generative AI, which allow all of us to easily create a variety of
content, it seems likely that creating a doppelganger brand image will become easier than
ever before. Thus, it seems likely that brands will face even more doppelgangers in the
years ahead.

Two, what type of brands are most susceptible to doppelganger brand images, or DBIs?
Typically, most DBIs are focused against large, well-known brands. These brands have a
high degree of familiarity, which means that their business practices are more likely to
come to the attention of anti-brand activists. In addition, doppelganger campaigns
targeted against larger brands are likely to get more attention than those aimed at smaller
brands. Thus, Walmart has several anti-branding doppelganger initiatives aimed against it,
while Target has far fewer. For example, there are dozens of "People of Walmart" viral
videos that have millions of views, and there are very few, if any, "People of Target" videos.
Three, where are DBIs found?
Many DBIs are created as a form of individual protests and are located on this individual's
blog, Twitter account, or Facebook page. Sometimes these individual accounts are picked
up by larger media outlets such as Reddit, Digg, BuzzFeed, or even a traditional news
channel. For example, Pepsi's DBI was initially focused on its creator's blog, which had
very few followers, but then was popularized on BuzzFeed in a feature called "Logos That
Look Like Other Things." This posting received over 300,000 views. DBIs can also be found
on websites such as Adbusters, which are dedicated toward creating DBIs for a wide
variety of brands, including McDonald's, Starbucks, and Calvin Klein. Finally, there are a
number of brand-specific DBI initiatives targeted against specific brands. For example,
Walmart has over a dozen websites dedicated against it, including "hell-mart.com" and
"walmartsucks.org."

Now here's Eric to discuss some academic insights about DBIs.

Doppelganger Brands Part 2

Thanks, Steve. Doppelganger brand images is a fascinating topic and one in which I am
personally connected. I'd like to share an early study in this domain as well as a more
recent one.

This study was conducted with two of my former colleagues back when I was at the
University of Wisconsin. This article actually established the concept of the Doppelganger
Brand Image. In this research, we conducted a qualitative study of Starbucks' DBI.
Specifically, we observed and interviewed around 30 patrons of local coffee shops, both in
Wisconsin and Illinois, and asked them what they liked about their local coffee shop.
Although we never mentioned the term Starbucks, all of them said that one of the key
reasons they liked the local coffee shop was because it wasn't Starbucks. They had a
negative impression of the Starbucks brand due to their impression that it lacked
authenticity by trying to take on the image of being a local, intimate coffee shop, while in
reality being one of the world's largest global brands, and the fact that most of its shops
lacked any sort of local distinction. This article provides the first evidence that a DBI may
have a negative impact on a customer's willingness to buy a brand.

In this more recent article, my former doctoral student Gokcen Coskuner-Balli, who's now
at Chapman University in California, and her colleagues examined the role of
doppelganger brand images in the newly emerging cannabis market. This article was
published in the Journal of Macromarketing in 2021.

As you may know, the sale of cannabis, or marijuana, has been recently legalized across
many US states, including the state of Illinois. This legalization has been driven in part by a
growing body of research that suggests that cannabis can help treat a number of medical
conditions, such as glaucoma and epilepsy. Although most Americans believe that
cannabis should be legal for medical usage, this product category has a number of
negative associations. For example, people who smoke marijuana have been traditionally
viewed as stoners—individuals who are constantly high, lazy, and unproductive. Thus, the
cannabis industry has to overcome these rather negative images.

Gokcen and her colleagues examined this issue by conducting a case study of a new
cannabis company called MedMen. They found that this company combated these
negative images of the "stoner" by engaging in a new advertising campaign called Forget
Stoner. This campaign sought to reframe cannabis users from stoners to everyday people
like you and me. For example, a large billboard on a Los Angeles highway showed the
image of a stylish, gray-haired older woman with the word stoner crossed out and replaced
with the word grandmother. In essence, this campaign sought to normalize the use of
cannabis and create a new identity for cannabis users. As illustrated by this study,
sometimes firms have to combat doppelganger brand images at the level of the product
category rather than just the brand itself.
Back to you, Steve.

Now that you've learned a little bit about what a DBI is and how it works, here are four
recommendations for putting this concept into practice.

One, monitor digital cues.

Firms should view DBIs as not just a threat, but also an opportunity to ensure that their
brands stay relevant. They can take advantage of this opportunity by carefully monitoring
digital cues for the potential signs of emerging DBIs. Brand managers should carefully and
regularly monitor industry and brand-related websites, social media channels, and review
sites in order to keep on top of any potential brand backlash. In addition to web browsing,
there are a number of tools for tracking brand-related conversations, such as Google
Alerts, Topsy, and Brandwatch. The next course in the specialization will discuss these
tools in much more detail.

Two, identify and track brand avoiders.

In addition to monitoring these digital cues, firms should also identify and track consumers
who are avoiding their brand due to the presence of a DBI. Blogs and anti-brand websites
are a good starting point for locating these individuals. Once these avoiders are identified,
a firm can conduct research to determine which specific DBI meanings are resonating the
most with them. For example, through a series of small, relatively simple interviews, we
were able to determine that coffee shop customers were avoiding Starbucks primarily due
to its lack of authentic personal touch rather than problems with the quality of its product.

Three, develop and test a new story.

Firms need to be proactive. Once a DBI is identified, even in an early stage, brand
managers should seek to craft a new story that either addresses the DBI or bypasses it
entirely. For example, when the wrinkle remover Botox was first launched, anti-brand
activists created a DBI that focused on its potential health risks and propagated claims
that using Botox could be fatal. In response, Botox brand managers developed a new
campaign that positioned Botox not only as safe but as a miracle of modern medicine. This
type of strategy must be handled delicately and remain true to the brand, as an inauthentic
story will be quickly detected and exploited by anti-brand activists.

Four, vaccinate your brand from the threat of a DBI.

In essence, DBIs are viral campaigns that socially critique inauthentic brands. Thus, firms
may be able to vaccinate their brands from this critique by crafting their own viral
marketing campaign that displays their brand in an authentic manner. A great example of
this is the Will It Blend? campaign by the US blender manufacturer Blendtec. In these viral
videos, Tom Dickinson, the founder of Blendtec, conducts a series of fun experiments in
which he attempts to blend a variety of objects, such as a baseball, a garden hose, and
even an iPhone in a Blendtec blender. In addition to being fun and authentic, these videos
also provide a clear demonstration of the blender's performance and capabilities.
Eric and I hope that you enjoyed this examination of doppelganger brand images and that
this concept helps enrich your digital marketing toolkit.
Exercise: Wikipedia.org

If you're like most people, you're probably quite familiar with the website, Wikipedia. It's
one of the world's most visited websites and obtains over 10 billion views each and every
month. In my experience, both college students and also professors use Wikipedia as a
key information source. In fact, I even used it to help prepare for this video. However, if
you're like most of our students, you have read Wikipedia articles, but haven't written any.
Thus, you've used UGC (User-Generated Content), but you haven't actually created it. This
exercise will give you the chance to do just that.

Wikipedia was launched in 2001 with the goal of providing a free online encyclopedia in
which entries can be made by anyone and are unsolicited. This was a dramatic departure
from traditional encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia Britannica, which solicits entries
from recognized experts like scientists and professors.

Since its launch, Wikipedia has experienced phenomenal growth, and currently has over
60 million entries across more than 300 different languages. To provide a sense of
perspective, it would take over 25,000 volumes of a printed encyclopedia to capture the
information contained on Wikipedia.

Although Wikipedia is not a traditional firm, it is a large organization with many firm-like
characteristics, such as a multilevel management hierarchy. It also develops new product
offerings and engages in marketing activity. In addition, Wikipedia is a strong global brand
and depends heavily on user-generated content, thus, this is a great example for an
exercise on UGC.

[MUSIC]
The purpose of this exercise is to gain hands-on experience with user-generated content to
help better understand how this process works, and better appreciate its impact on
marketing in general and promotion in particular.

Here's what you need to do:

First, please go to wikipedia.org.

Second, pick a language.

Third, go to the Help page to edit an article of your choice.

Fourth, decide what you want to write about this topic. Before you do that, please do some
browsing to make sure that what you're adding is something unique to this entry.
Fifth, create an account, which is optional, but if you do create an account, there's a
greater chance that your entry will stick.

Sixth, make your edits to this existing entry.

Seventh, and finally, please check-in in about a day, or so, just to see what happens to your
entry.

Now, here's your assignment:

Record your Wikipedia entry, the name, and the URL.

Why did you decide to make an entry about this particular topic?
What happened to the content you contributed — is it still there, or did something else
happen to it along the way?
What did you learn about UGC from this exercise?
Finally, before we leave, let's check in with Professor Steve.
Interview with Rafael Schwarz

Welcome to our second Expert Insight. In this module, I interview Rafael Schwarz. Rafael is
the director of marketing for Territory Influence in Munich, Germany, and an expert on the
topic of UGC. Welcome, Rafael, thank you for joining us.

Sure, yeah, so, I'm Rafael, I'm one of the managing directors of Territory Influence. I've
been working in marketing for 15 years on the industry side for some of the leading
consumer goods companies. And now, since seven years, I'm on the agency side, leading a
team of around 40 people located across Europe to consult our clients on influencer
marketing campaigns and programs. And also doing marketing basically for our own
agency.

Yeah, for me, it really means any type of content that consumers publish online based on
actual usage of a brand, of a product, of a service. So hence, for me, it includes photos and
videos that are published on social media, but it also includes ratings and reviews that
consumers would publish on an e-commerce site, on Amazon or on a review portal. But
also, recommendations on the socials, so on private Facebook groups or on WhatsApp or
messengers, on closed forums — that would all, for me, be part of user-generated content.

I think there are tons, a lot of companies include user-generated content on their website,
on their social accounts, but also on their e-commerce shops. Because they realize that
actually user-generated content gives them a lot of credibility, it gives them a lot of
authenticity. And it's proven to convert better and it's proven to capture the attention of
consumers much better than branded content.

Pampers is one of our clients who really does it well, who actively works with consumers
and encourages them to publish recommendations. A lot of food brands do a really good
job to encourage consumers to share recipes online. But also, some of the consumer
electronic brands are doing a really good job encouraging users to publish how-to tutorials
and video tutorials.

Yeah, it's a good question, we did actually a research study last year about that to find out
why a consumer would actually even bother. And it was quite surprising because the
overwhelming amount of consumers, over 80%, do it really because they want to help
others make better decisions. So there's a very kind of human intrinsic motivation to help
others, and that's what's driving most people to generate user-generated content. There's
also the desire to support the brands that consumers love, so they want to give praise for
the brand or the service or the product they like.

And it was very interesting for us to see that only a minority of consumers, 27% to be exact,
actually publish content to express their dissatisfaction with a product or service.
Yeah, I think maybe a couple of ideas. I mean, one is, really think about UGC across your
entire purchase funnel, right? So I think a lot of companies have realized that UGC, in
particular reviews, are important to drive conversion at the end of the funnel. But it also
helps at every other stage, right? It helps to increase visibility through content that is
published on social media. It helps as a source for inspiration. It helps as a guidance on
how to use products and services.

So I think one tip I would give to companies and marketers is to really think about UGC
across all touch points — where can they actively leverage user-generated content?

And the other one, I think the other big question is, for brands these days, how can you
actually motivate consumers to publish user-generated content in the first place? So
rather than just sitting by and hoping that something is gonna happen, how can you
actively reach out to your consumers? And particularly to those who are loyal and who are
excited about your brand, and make sure that they actually publish positive
recommendations online?

One of the things we are doing with some of our clients is really setting up entire
communities of brand advocates and using that community to continuously publish
recommendations online. And have a constant stream of UGC, of touch points across
different channels, across different social media platforms, but also across the relevant e-
commerce platforms. To ensure that the brand is visible and there's a high conversion.

Yeah, I think that there are two huge things, super question, by the way. There are really
two things that companies need to do. One is, they need to make it easy for consumers to
raise their concerns, right? So the more difficult companies and brands make it for
consumers to reach them directly through hotlines or social media, the more likely they are
to actually voice their dissatisfaction in public.

And I think the other tip I really need to give to any brand and any customer service
department is that consumers expect brands to react. So if they raise a concern or if they
share a negative experience they have, they do expect brands to react, and to react
quickly. I mean, they expect them to react within 24 to 48 hours. And if companies do so,
there's a high chance that the consumer will appreciate that and will in turn either, for
example with ratings and videos, adjust a negative rating upward because they are so
thankful that the company is listening and responding. Or if they learn something and know
how to better use the product or service, you might actually get a positive review next time.

Yeah, I think user-generated content is going to become even more important in the future,
and I think that's driven by two facts.

One is, our distrust as consumers in traditional media, advertising, and official
organizations. So I think that will facilitate a lot of focus on user-generated content,
because people trust other people.
Second, the whole drive to e-commerce, and particularly social commerce, potentially is
going to help UGC. With the pandemic, brands have learned how reliant they are on
traditional content creation. And on the other hand, you have millions of consumers who
can create content anytime, anywhere. With smartphones and the technology available to
all of us, with the quality of photo and video production through smartphones, this is a
source of novel and relevant content for brands that they hadn't realized until the
pandemic hit and disrupted traditional marketing approaches.

I think a lot of companies have realized that why should they spend millions on advertising
production when they could get much more authentic and credible content from users at a
fraction of the cost.

So, for me, best to connect with me on LinkedIn, very happy to connect with anyone
interested to continue the discussion. Check out my profile, I'm hopefully very visible
there. And for the company, visit our website, territoryinfluence.com, or also visit our
LinkedIn page for more details.