Portland State University PDXScholar University Honors Theses University Honors College 5-25-2018 Film Marketing on Instagram: A Model for Effectively Employing Influencers Bryce Earhart Portland State University Follow this and additional works at: https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/honorstheses Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Earhart, Bryce, "Film Marketing on Instagram: A Model for Effectively Employing Influencers" (2018). University Honors Theses. Paper 554. https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.560 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access. It has been accepted for inclusion in University Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of PDXScholar. Please contact us if we can make this document more accessible: [email protected]. Film marketing on Instagram: A model for effectively employing influencers by Bryce Earhart An undergraduate honors thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in University Honors and Communication Studies Thesis Adviser Erin Spottswood, Ph.D. Portland State University 2018 FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Introduction 2 Instagram 3 Instagram Influencer Marketing 5 Diffusion of Innovations 6 Opinion Leaders 7 Social System 10 Message 12 Case Study: Jurassic World & Zach King 15 Conclusion 17 References 18 FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 2 Abstract This article discusses the diffusion process of Instagram influencer marketing for a film as sponsored content moves from an influencer through Instagram’s social network. Instagram influencer marketing is broken down into to three major pieces: the influencer, the social system, and the message. Each piece is explored within the context of Rogers’ theory of Diffusion of Innovations to build a model that explains successful campaigns. This model is laid onto a case study of Universal Studios’ 2017 Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom campaign to showcase an Instagram influencer effort employed by a major film studio. Identifying the diffusion that occurs during Instagram influencer marketing informs a film marketer’s approach to effectively employing Instagram influencers. Introduction Today’s film marketer is faced with both an opportunity and a challenge when considering Instagram as a platform to market films. Instagram influencer marketing is on the rise as giant blockbusters such as Jurassic World and Zootopia successfully market with Instagram influencers, but a lack of existing research can leave a marketer with due hesitation. (Djafarova & Rushworth 2017; zachking, 2018). Instagram influencer marketing is on the rise (Biaudet, 2017; De Veirman et. al. 2017; Djafarova & Rushworth 2017). As of 2013, “65% of companies are participating in influencer-based marketing (Technorati, 2013)” (Biaudet, 2017, p.6). Instagram is a photo sharing site on which hundreds of millions of users interact on a day to day basis (Chaykowski, 2018). Instagram influencers are “sophisticated media consumers whose reach is coveted by not only media companies but also brands (Swant, 2015)” because of their ability to sway consumer decisions (Dunkley, 2017, p.32). Marketing with Instagram influencers FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 3 is found to be an effective tool in swaying consumer opinions and brand attitudes, which can ultimately drive sales (De Veirman et. al, 2017). As interest builds for Instagram influencer marketing, a need evolves for its analysis. This article provides the marketer with an effective path to measuring, predicting, and explaining the results of an Instagram influencer campaign for film. Instagram Instagram debuted on July 16, 2010 with a single picture posted by founder Mark Krieger (Bruner, 2016). The photo sharing app is now owned by Facebook, and has since grown to host 500 million users, including 63% of all millennials in the United States, and to be worth as much as $50 billion (Chaykowski, 2018). Instagram is an app that enables users to engage collectively in conversation through the sharing of images and videos (Instagram Inc., 2018). Instagram’s founder, Krieger, believes that the platform transcends language, pointing to images as the “most powerful way of communicating” (as cited in Chayowski, 2018). The platform of Instagram is one of “food pics, animal photos, artsy images, and of course plenty of documentation of carousing” (Bruner, 2016). With users that communicate publicly online on a day to day basis, a marketer can use Instagram to reach a large base of potential consumers. There are three pieces that make up Instagram’s social system: communication between users, how information is found, and communities behind accounts. Communication between users happens primarily through posts: which are comprised of an image or video with an optional caption (Bruner, 2016). Users interact with posts through ‘likes’ and comments, which are both metrics of a community’s engagement with the post. ‘Likes’ act as approval and acknowledgement that a user has seen the post while comments allow users to respond to the post with dialogue (Instagram Inc., 2018). Each post displays a FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 4 metric of the ‘likes’ and comments that it has received including a list of the accounts that interacted with the post (Instagram Inc., 2018). Posts can also include hashtags, location tags, account tags which aid other users in finding the post. Users find information on Instagram on their feed as well as through a search bar for hashtags, location tags, and accounts (Instagram Inc., 2018). A user’s feed is made up of recent posts from the accounts that a user is ‘following’ (Instagram Inc., 2018). A user can curate their feed through selecting the specific accounts that they wish to ‘follow’. If a user wants to find posts from accounts that they are not ‘following,’ they can search for a topic of interest in either the hashtag, location tag, or account search bar (Instagram Inc., 2018). Hashtags are words or phrases embedded into posts that function as searchable links, and location tags are searchable links relating solely to the location in which the post was reportedly taken. Accounts are the galleries of posts created by a specific user. Accounts are linked to a user’s username and can be searched for by username in the account search bar. Through these search bars, a user is exposed to new accounts whose content they may wish to subscribe to. Communities on Instagram are made up of groups of users that ‘follow’ a specific account. Communities are formed when multiple users ‘follow’ the same account. Each ‘follower’ finds the account through their own search of Instagram’s information (Instagram Inc., 2018). Mutual interest in the account leads a group of users to interact with each other as the users engage with the account through ‘likes’ and comments (Instagram Inc., 2018). Accounts on Instagram can be held by users that are individuals, public figures, and brands (Instagram Inc., 2018). Whether an account is backed by a corporation or an individual, communities on Instagram form around it for the same reason; mutual interest. Instagram’s social system, FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 5 however, can only blur the line between individuals and public figures, both showcasing glimpses into personal life. This cannot be said for brands. Instagram Influencer Marketing Instagram influencers are not brands, they are real people. Influence describes the process of affecting a consumer’s behavior without directly giving commands (Almgren, 2018). On Instagram, influence is shifting away from traditional celebrities such as actors, filmmakers, and public figures towards the accounts of key ‘Instafamous’ personalities such as bloggers, Youtubers, and non-traditional celebrities (Djafarova & Rushworth, 2017). The more industry savvy term is ‘Instagram Influencers,’ which De Veirman et. al use as a label for Instagram accounts with an elevated level of influence on peers (2017). Given Instagram’s social system, an Instagram influencer is the account of a person, not a brand or celebrity, that holds a large community of ‘followers’. Significant to a marketer, Instagram influencers feel more accessible to a typical Instagram user than a celebrity or brand does, affording them “higher authenticity and credibility, which subsequently leads to lower resistance to the message” (De Veirman et. al. 2017, p.798). An Instagram influencer is perceived to be a friend with high social capital, and therefore is easier for users to trust. Instagram influencer’s also come tailor-made with their own unique community of users surrounding them due to the way that communities form on Instagram. Instagram Influencer marketing generates online communication, or ‘buzz,’ about a specific product or brand (Biaudet, 2017). The communications of past, present, and potential consumers in relation to a product or brand online is referred to as electronic word of mouth (eWOM) (De Veirman et. al., 2017, p.801). On Instagram, eWOM takes place over the ‘likes’, comments, and posts that make up the platform’s available communication tools. The results of FILM MARKETING ON INSTAGRAM 6 an Instagram influencer campaign can best be measured through “cost-per-engagement (CPE)… in terms of dollars spent per ‘like’ [or] comment” (Biaudet, 2017, p.29). CPE focuses on the measurable values of brand awareness and attitudes made apparent through eWOM. CPE takes advantage of the publicly viewable data of platforms such as Instagram to provide quantifiable results for influencer campaigns. Diffusion of Innovations Everett Rogers’ theory of Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) tracks an innovation, or new idea, as it is communicated and adopted within a social system over time (1962). Rogers’ theory has been cited in over 55,000 scholarly journal articles, lending it credibility as a predictive model for information diffusion (Geary 2017). A marketer can use DOI to explain the outcome of an Instagram influencer campaign due to DOI’s ability to track the movement of information through a social system (Rogers, 1962). Most significantly, DOI provides key insight to the path of least resistance for information as it spreads by word of mouth from an influential member of a social system.