‘A Balancing Act’: How Young Consumers Experience Brands’ Communicative Adjustments on Social Networking Sites
(2021) SKOM12 20211Department of Strategic Communication
- Abstract
- Social networking sites have become platforms of strategic importance to brand communication. However, to date, little is known about how brands should communicate with overstimulated digital natives on these platforms, especially concerning the language style they should use. In light of the phenomenon of brands increasingly adjusting to a human style of communication, this qualitative study takes a consumer perspective and aims to understand how members of Generation Z experience personalization approaches – a conversational human voice and communicated relational commitment – in brand communication on social networking sites and the personality of brands that employ them. Based on this, the present study aims to contribute new knowledge... (More)
- Social networking sites have become platforms of strategic importance to brand communication. However, to date, little is known about how brands should communicate with overstimulated digital natives on these platforms, especially concerning the language style they should use. In light of the phenomenon of brands increasingly adjusting to a human style of communication, this qualitative study takes a consumer perspective and aims to understand how members of Generation Z experience personalization approaches – a conversational human voice and communicated relational commitment – in brand communication on social networking sites and the personality of brands that employ them. Based on this, the present study aims to contribute new knowledge on how to better communicate with young consumers on social networking sites in the future. Applying a multi-faceted framework of interpersonal theories, including communication accommodation theory, role theory, and expectancy violations theory, to data collected from 15 in-depth interviews with German participants, this study shows that brands’ communicative accommodation is evaluated positively only when adjusted according to consumers’ individual communicative characteristics, perceived to follow an internal interaction effort and benevolent intent as well as respecting social norms and expectations. While underpinning the effectiveness of communicative adjustments for building more human-like brand personalities, findings also point to a possible drawback of personalization approaches and suggest transparency and openness as a more authentic expression of relational commitment to Generation Z consumers in social network contexts. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9052873
- author
- Peters, Maren LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SKOM12 20211
- year
- 2021
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Social networking sites, brand communication, consumer-brand relationships, brand personality, personalization, communicative accommodation, communication style, language, conversational human voice, communicated relational commitment, Generation Z
- language
- English
- id
- 9052873
- date added to LUP
- 2021-07-01 09:15:43
- date last changed
- 2021-07-01 10:12:36
@misc{9052873,
abstract = {{Social networking sites have become platforms of strategic importance to brand communication. However, to date, little is known about how brands should communicate with overstimulated digital natives on these platforms, especially concerning the language style they should use. In light of the phenomenon of brands increasingly adjusting to a human style of communication, this qualitative study takes a consumer perspective and aims to understand how members of Generation Z experience personalization approaches – a conversational human voice and communicated relational commitment – in brand communication on social networking sites and the personality of brands that employ them. Based on this, the present study aims to contribute new knowledge on how to better communicate with young consumers on social networking sites in the future. Applying a multi-faceted framework of interpersonal theories, including communication accommodation theory, role theory, and expectancy violations theory, to data collected from 15 in-depth interviews with German participants, this study shows that brands’ communicative accommodation is evaluated positively only when adjusted according to consumers’ individual communicative characteristics, perceived to follow an internal interaction effort and benevolent intent as well as respecting social norms and expectations. While underpinning the effectiveness of communicative adjustments for building more human-like brand personalities, findings also point to a possible drawback of personalization approaches and suggest transparency and openness as a more authentic expression of relational commitment to Generation Z consumers in social network contexts.}},
author = {{Peters, Maren}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{‘A Balancing Act’: How Young Consumers Experience Brands’ Communicative Adjustments on Social Networking Sites}},
year = {{2021}},
}