Georgiana Grigore

Success in the management of crowdfunding projects in the creative industries

Purpose – Crowdfunding has become a significant way of funding independent film. However, undertaking a campaign can be time consuming and risky. The purpose of this paper is to understand the predictors likely to produce a film campaign that meets its funding goal. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyses 100 creative crowdfunding campaigns within the film and video category on crowdfunding website Kickstarter. Campaigns were analysed in relation to a number of variables, followed by a discriminant analysis to highlight the main predictors of crowdfunding success. Findings – This study finds key predictors of crowdfunding success and investigates differences between successful and failed crowdfunding campaigns. The attributes of these predictors lead us to question the long-term ability of crowdfunding to aid companies poorer in terms of time, financial and personnel resources, and therefore arguably in the greatest need of crowdfunding platforms. Practical implications – The findings provide in...

Communicating CSR on Social Media: The Case of Pfizer’s Social Media Communications in Europe

Abstract Purpose Social media usage is becoming ubiquitous across the world and communicators, either corporate, independent or activist are increasingly adopting the new medium. This chapter focuses on the uses of social media for marketing communications, in particular for public relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) by Pfizer’s European offices. In doing so it evaluates the relationship between public relations and CSR as well as reviews some of the uses of social media for healthcare communications and CSR. Methodology/approach Using a deductive approach and a methodology that combines qualitative content analysis aimed at identifying communication themes and social media audits on brand integration and communication coherence, this chapter aims to identify how Pfizer’s European offices use social media to communicate online. To establish the corporate line and branding general guidelines for Pfizer, we have recorded from the company’s official website (www.pfizer.com) its corporate overview and corporate responsibility information, embedded into the ‘About us’ section of the website. From the home page, social media links were then sought. To ensure all links were recorded the researchers used two gateways, one using the social media links on the website and one through each country’s website and their social media links on their home page. The Pfizer official accounts were excluded from this analysis, the interest being on the country uses of social media and not Pfizer’s official general channels. General traffic and engagement data automatically reported by each social media platforms such as number of tweets, followers, fans, and number of views were recorded manually. For more insight into Twitter activity FollerMe was then used to capture and record each account’s most recent activity as it enabled the discovery of each account’s creation date and the most frequently used words and hashtags in its tweets. It also helped assess the levels of performance of each country on Twitter by looking at the reported ratios of replies, mentions, tweets with links, hashtags or media to the last 100 tweets sent from the each account. For Facebook and YouTube data, only the publicly reported data was recorded. The text in the Twitter bios and about sections was also recorded and compared with the company’s corporate and CSR descriptions included on the main website. Findings Out of the 20 countries that do have a Pfizer country office, only 10 of them have a social media presence. Turkey and Spain have four social media channels each and Belgium has three. All the other countries are present on only one social media platform. They show an overall integration and coordination of messages with themes mirrored from one platform to another. The channels also show an overall compliance and consistency with the brand, most of them displaying bespoke backgrounds, bios and links to the country website. When it comes to social media integration, the accounts are poorly integrated and interlinked. Moreover, although social media provides a platform for dialogue, two out of the three platforms analysed have very little user interaction. This high concern for message control can be indicative of a variety of elements: a lack of certainty/security in handling social media, a risk-averse attitude towards social media, a lack of training of staff about how to handle social media or perhaps a lack of resources. The platforms used have all different functions and address different target audiences. YouTube proves to excel as a public information/CSR medium for the general public, the most popular content fitting into those categories. Twitter is a corporate communications environment by excellence, a true mouth-piece of the organization. Finally, Facebook is Pfizer’s user engagement environment but within Pfizer’s own comfort and rules, the presence of a policy document making the boundaries of communication very clear. Research limitations/implications Although looking only at one company and its social media communication practices and although it uses only publicly reported data, this chapter raises a variety of questions about the use of social media by big, multinational corporations, the resources they allocate and the amount to which they perceive these channels as anything more than just another company mouth-piece. It also raises questions about how companies choose to portray themselves on social media in comparison to joining conversations, commenting on current trends and celebrating their partners and employees. Perhaps future research could explore these aspects in more depth. Practical implications and originality/value Pfizer who declares itself the ‘world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company’ is currently among the most influential companies in the world, occupying currently the 148th position in the Global Fortune 500 list. Due to its position within the industry, Pfizer has been the subject of previous research materials including marketing and health communications; however, no study yet has analysed Pfizer’s uses of social media. By analysing the social media communications of Pfizer in Europe and by pointing to the inconsistencies between country accounts, this chapter raises further questions about social media strategy and its implementation by corporations.

New Corporate Responsibilities in the Digital Economy

Theories that relate to digital technology and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have been dominated by online CSR communication and disclosure practices. Almost entirely absent in such CSR research is a consideration of new areas of responsibility that are emerging from digital technologies and related online communication platforms. We argue that responsibility in the use of digital technologies requires more than just legal compliance. We therefore ask what it means to be a responsible corporation in the digital economy. We then establish an extended agenda for responsibility in the digital economy by identifying potential areas of irresponsibility and highlighting new responsibilities related to, for example, use of consumer data, service continuation, control of digital goods, and the use of artificial intelligence. In doing so, we address a need to theorize responsibilities derived from the use of technologies that have been previously silent in CSR literature or only tangentially discussed within the domain of CSR communication, even as they are a focus in other fields (especially legal compliance, or organizational performance).

Games people play with brands: an application of Transactional Analysis to marketplace relationships

Relationships have been normalized in marketing theory as mutually beneficial, long-term dyads. This obscures their emotional content, ignores critical conceptualizations of corporate exploitation and fails to capture the range of possible marketplace relationship forms, including those that may result from individuals’ biographical psychology and that lead to repeated dysfunctional exchanges. In this article, we offer Berne’s (1964) transactional analysis (TA) as a way to uncover the biographical psychology that informs marketplace relationship structures and their accompanying emotions and to provide a critique of such arrangements. We first explain TA, its origins, its relationship with psychoanalysis, its limitations and contemporary extensions beyond therapy. We then present the structural basis of marketplace relationships from a TA perspective, before illustrating how a game in TA can be applied through an analysis of the iPhone and related mobile phone contracts and the Games If I didn’t Love Apple and Smallprint. Finally, we discuss the implications of such an approach for transforming market practices based on recognition of marketplace Games and their modification.

When corporate responsibility meets digital technology: a reflection on new discourses

References to the transformative aspects of digital technologies within academic corporate responsibility discourses have recently emerged, including discussion of interactive corporate social responsibility communication, of virtual corporate social responsibility dialogs and of corporate social responsibility in the network societies. In this chapter we reflect on such new discourses and suggest that the language they use and subsequent claims made may further fragment the field of corporate responsibility, and may ignore aspects of contemporary online cultures. We agree that there must be engagement between the extensive literature on online community, communication, and indeed power relations, and the work on CSR. We conclude this chapter with our own advice on how to go about researching and understanding how online community might be understood as important for the project of CSR.

Corporate Responsibility and Digital Communities: An Introduction

Digital platforms are becoming part of the mainstream media, and online communities are seen as providing contemporary business opportunities and challenges that emerge from engagement with a variety of stakeholders. Credible use of digital technology has become vital for businesses of all sizes, making this book timely as it provides a framework that deepens understanding of new corporate responsibilities resulting from engagement with digital technologies. Following the 2008 global financial crisis, governments and corporations have looked towards the digital economy to help restore growth, provide competitive advantage and achieve sustainability. Engagement with a broad range of audiences through new, interactive social media has proved challenging for many organisations, whether for-profit or otherwise, but has been particularly problematic for those organisations ill-prepared to respond to well-aimed criticism, or even anger from the general public. Thus the significance of this book, that not only expands knowledge on new and rapidly evolving areas of corporate responsibility, but which has a broader societal impact beyond academia.

Digital Reflections Of Pharmaceutical Companies And Their Csr Communication Strategies

Practical implications and originality/value This chapter promotes an alternative exploratory method of online discourses through computer-aided techniques.