Stephanie Grubenmann

3.3 The Internet of Things as Disruptive Innovation for the Advertising Ecosystem

The connection of physical and virtual objects via the Internet, the Internet of Things (IoT), is one of the most up-and-coming technologies in the digital age. First signs show that the IoT will have a tremendous impact on the whole advertising ecosystem formed by media, agencies, advertisers, and the consumer. Analysing early implementations of the IoT in the health and fitness sector and their impact on the advertising ecosystem, the article shows fundamental alterations in the information-disinformation relation between the involved players and subsequently the impact on their business models. It should also give a guideline for consumers to exploit the new opportunities of the IoT to communicate with brands and products and to become aware of associated threads.

Commercial communication in the digital age : information or disinformation?

Ever since advertising emerged, both its functions and threats have been debated. The themes of advertising ethics and critique are multifaceted; the majority relate to the depiction of violence, hypersexualization and various “-isms” (e.g. ageism). The digital environment has added new aspects to the topic; respondents primarily worry about their loss of control, transparency and privacy. At the same time, the Internet provides a platform for critical voices – from keeping informed via the signing of petitions against certain advertising practices, to becoming an advertising activist heror himself. This chapter addresses the current state of advertising critique in this digital environment. It will give an overview of the dominant themes and important actors and drivers of advertising critique. Furthermore, obstacles and stumbling stones for both research and practice are discussed and challenges identified. The critique of advertising is as old as advertising itself; its pros and cons have been debated ever since advertising emerged. From its economic impact (e.g. Albion, Farris 1981 via the controversy about its effects on excessive materialism (e.g. Drumwright 2007), to its role in protecting the existing social order by promoting inequality, particularly in terms of race and gender (O’Guinn 2007) – the themes are multifaceted and driven by different actors with specific, often opposing interests. Without doubt, we are surrounded by advertising in its different forms, and sometimes advertising placements take grotesque shapes which affect and change our familiar patterns of reception in formerly advertising free areas, such as sports (everyone is used to it nowadays) and even religion, as the photograph in Figure 1 shows. Thereby, the importance of advertising for individuals and the society is undoubted. Potter even ascribed to advertising the role of an “instrument of social control” (2009, p. 175) and suggested that “advertising now compares with such long-standing institutions as the school and the church in the magnitude of its social influence” (2009, p. 167). In fact, scholars and professionals alike have highlighted advertisers’ responsibility in promoting societal wellbeing (e.g. Baker, Martinson 2001; Cunningham, P. 1999; Waller 2012). However, since the beginning of advertising, the debates surrounding ethical standards for advertising revolve around the same, enduring themes and thus seem to be at a “dead end”. DOI 10.1515/9783110416794-002,

1.3 Advertising Self-Reference – as Exemplified by the International Festival of Creativity

With the beginning of the use of the Internet for commercial communication, a new era in advertising was born. Today, advertising professionals increasingly orient themselves toward a service-dominant logic approach when producing information for advertising purposes. Thus advertising is developing into a postmodern marketing communication which attempts to distance itself from the persuasiveness of advertising. In this contribution, the reasons for this development are analyzed, using the theoretical concept of self-reference and the idea of advertising as a social system. The empirical background is the International Festival of Creativity (“Cannes Lions”). The analysis shows that the central features of postmodern marketing communication, hyperreality and second-order information, do not lead to a dissolution of advertising logic and thus do not lead to the desired de-differentiation between people’s everyday life and advertising. 1 Advertising and Self-Reference In recent years, the significant role of self-reference in terms of reflexivity in explaining the source and functioning of communication has been impressively elaborated in the communication sciences (Archer 2010; Schmidt 2008; Steier 1995). To summarize these ideas, reflexivity can be understood as the fundamental process in generating social structures. This process is realized as communication. Communication relies on collective knowledge which builds a bridge between human cognitive autonomy and the co-existing need for social orientation. According to Schmidt (2008), in the domain of knowledge this collective knowledge can be conceived of as reflexive loops of expectations which are expected, and in the domain of motives and intentions as imputations which are imputed. Collective knowledge is more or less shared by all the members of a society and plays a fundamental role in their day-to-day communications and in coordinating their behavior. Using a system-theoretical approach advertising can be conceptualized as a social system. As such it follows its own specific logic which is anchored in DOI 10.1515/9783110416794-004,

List of Contributors – Short Biographies

Maria Elena Aramendia-Muneta, Dr., is a lecturer in Marketing at the Business Administration Department of Universidad Pública de Navarra, Spain and researcher for Honest European Project. She has been a guest lecturer in different universities of Italy, Slovenia, Belgium, France, Latvia and Lithuania among others. Her primary research fields are e-marketing and consumer behaviour in an international environment.

4.3 User-Generated Internet Memes as Advertising Vehicles: Visual Narratives as Special Consumer Information Sources and Consumer Tribe Integrators

Internet memes – highly evolutive iconic, yet topical contents with shared meanings replicated and spread by and to the Internet folk – have become a prevalent Internet phenomenon (Figure 1). Embedded in a culture of consumption, Internet memes often employ branded contents in the expression of personal messages, which often could not be farther from the contexts originally intended by organizations. Yet, there is little business insight into memes. The following chapter introduces the concept of memetics and its connection with Internet memes as a cultural phenomenon and a social communication channel. The prospects for using Internet memes as marketing vehicles are then evaluated.

1.2 Information and Disinformation Through Advertising Literacy in Communication Studies: Action Research and Real Social Projects

In today’s “liquid modern world” where everything is transitory and perishable and consumerism has become a social product in itself accelerating the cyclic reposition of worn goods and services, nourished by a fear of dropping out of “the social circulation” of esteem and human networks a growing number of critical societal actors have started to demand a more responsible approach for commercial communication, requiring more complete, accurate and truthful information about brands and corporations. Consumers, consumer organizations, communication scholars and media, among others, are willing to become part of the co-creation of brand information and stories, moving the focus from disinformation to information, responding to the demands for a more responsible commercial world, aligned with the emerging concept of responsible research and innovation (RRI). New interactive ways of advertising and the blurring of boundaries between advertising and entertainment also contribute to creating a challenging scenario for future advertising professionals who need to re-define their way of informing and communicating not only with consumers but all other societal stakeholders. The purpose of this article is to explain how including advertising literacy and education in the curricula of university level communication studies and applying innovating teaching methodology can efficiently respond to at least part of these new societal demands, emphasizing the “right impacts and values” of advertising by future communicators. 1 Advertising Literacy and Youth Since the start of the new millennium, dramatic changes in the commercial media environment have occurred because the boundaries between advertising, entertainment and information have become increasingly blurred (Balasubramanian

2.1 Human Processing of Commercial Information in Digital Environments

In theories of advertising effects attention is generally considered as being most essential for consumers’ processing of commercial messages. Especially in digital media environments where many different information sources compete for the users’ attention and where the next channel is only a fingertip away it is import to provide content that satisfies the users’ needs and is attractive to them. The good news is: information processing with reduced attention can also result in intended effects. To understand which specific conditions cause such effects and what different kinds of effects are to be expected, active psychological research on advertising in digital media settings is necessary. In this paper, selected results from this research will be discussed in the framework of a limited-capacity model of human information processing.

1.1 Advertising Critique: Themes, Actors and Challenges in a Digital Age

Ever since advertising emerged, both its functions and threats have been debated. The themes of advertising ethics and critique are multifaceted; the majority relate to the depiction of violence, hypersexualization and various “-isms” (e.g. ageism). The digital environment has added new aspects to the topic; respondents primarily worry about their loss of control, transparency and privacy. At the same time, the Internet provides a platform for critical voices – from keeping informed via the signing of petitions against certain advertising practices, to becoming an advertising activist heror himself. This chapter addresses the current state of advertising critique in this digital environment. It will give an overview of the dominant themes and important actors and drivers of advertising critique. Furthermore, obstacles and stumbling stones for both research and practice are discussed and challenges identified. The critique of advertising is as old as advertising itself; its pros and cons have been debated ever since advertising emerged. From its economic impact (e.g. Albion, Farris 1981 via the controversy about its effects on excessive materialism (e.g. Drumwright 2007), to its role in protecting the existing social order by promoting inequality, particularly in terms of race and gender (O’Guinn 2007) – the themes are multifaceted and driven by different actors with specific, often opposing interests. Without doubt, we are surrounded by advertising in its different forms, and sometimes advertising placements take grotesque shapes which affect and change our familiar patterns of reception in formerly advertising free areas, such as sports (everyone is used to it nowadays) and even religion, as the photograph in Figure 1 shows. Thereby, the importance of advertising for individuals and the society is undoubted. Potter even ascribed to advertising the role of an “instrument of social control” (2009, p. 175) and suggested that “advertising now compares with such long-standing institutions as the school and the church in the magnitude of its social influence” (2009, p. 167). In fact, scholars and professionals alike have highlighted advertisers’ responsibility in promoting societal wellbeing (e.g. Baker, Martinson 2001; Cunningham, P. 1999; Waller 2012). However, since the beginning of advertising, the debates surrounding ethical standards for advertising revolve around the same, enduring themes and thus seem to be at a “dead end”. DOI 10.1515/9783110416794-002,