#SpeakBeautiful: One company’s efforts to change the narrative about body perception on social mediaMatt Tidwell, APR and Roseann PlurettiWilliam Allen White School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsUniversity of Kansas27th Annual ConferenceMid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture AssociationAtlantic City, NJNov. 5, 2016
Introduction
Common for companies to engage with customers around a social topic or a charitable cause
In 2015, Dove launched #SpeakBeautiful to engage customers and others in conversation about body shaming on social media
Literature Review
Much research on how media promotes a physical body “ideal” Kilbourne (2005) Merskin (2004)
Historical research has linked negative body perception to major health consequences including eating disorders Coughlin & Kalonder (2006) Frederickson & Roberts (1997)
Literature Review Company-stakeholder partnership research
Gummesson and co-creation of value (2011) Two-way symmetrical communications theory (Gruning,
2001) Asymmetrical: one party’s interests dominate Instead, two-way symmetrical communications aims for
alignment to get to a mixed motive, “win-win” zone Mutual “issues arenas” (Luoma-aho & Vos, 2010) “Balance zone” where dialogue, collaboration and
negotiation exist to satisfy mutual interests (Flynn, 2004)
Literature Review Research Questions
1] How and in what ways do customers interact with an expansive social media campaign designed to raise awareness about a social issue?
2] Does Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful campaign exemplify elements of contemporary stakeholder engagement as articulated in two-way symmetrical communications and other theories?
Methodology
Qualitative content analysis Matrix 100 tweets examined Twitter Advanced Search March, 2015 and October, 2016 Constructed week, systematic random sampling Thematic analysis, axial coding
Observations Building a “platform for
the positive”: The campaign appears to have succeeded in fostering inspirational messages and feelings about body image, either expressed by the participant or directed at an individual/group (RQ#1)
Observations A shared “issues arena”: Campaign participants echo
the company’s rhetoric that body shaming is negative and can be destructive (RQ#2)
Observations Observed level of interactivity between company and
campaign participants (i.e. praise for the effort, mentioning other initiatives, etc.) (RQs 1 & 2)
Observations
Questioning Dove’s motives/sincerity: Media attention calling Dove’s motives intro question brought out discussion (and defense of the company) (RQ#2)
Hashtag confusion: The hashtag was hijacked by some other movements like “eliminate the R-Word” and other activist causes
Discussion Defining an “issues arena”
Stakeholders enthusiastically embraced the inspirational tone envisioned at the campaign’s launch
Drive to satisfy mutual interests Social media allows for rich dialogue between an
organization and its stakeholders; helps companies arrive at that “win-win” zone
These campaigns can draw high scrutiny
Limitations / Future Research Drew observations from a limited number of Tweets Only looked at Tweets using #SpeakBeautiful Looked at original Tweets only (not retweets) Used Twitter’s advanced search function which has
limitations Future research can:
Look at retweets, Dove’s responses and viral spread to better assess interactivity
Our themes could guide codes for quantitative analysis of themes across a larger sample size
Questions?
Thank you!
Top Related