Original scientific paper
THE USAGE OF POP CULTURE ELEMENTS IN MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Mario Fraculj
orcid.org/0000-0001-9875-5708
; Algebra University College, Zagreb, Croatia
Lucian Lekaj
orcid.org/0000-0002-1816-9547
; Algebra University College, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The strong effect of marketing communications on people’s personalities, opinions, preferences and decisions has so far been widely studied. If marketing can sway people’s opinions and influence their character and affinities, and if pop culture is a part of those characters and affinities, it must be of interest to many to see how exactly marketing and pop culture correlate and how the general population perceives them when they are combined, for example in marketing campaigns that contain pop-cultural elements. This is explored in a quantitative study with a questionnaire that shows multiple marketing communications examples that contain pop culture elements or references and compares them to their similar versions that don’t contain such elements. The goal of the research was to determine whether consumers perceive various forms of marketing communications more positively when they contain elements of popular culture, as opposed to marketing communications that do not contain or refer to such elements. This was tested through paired comparisons of six different marketing communication examples in the form of users showing preference towards one version of the example or the other, and options of equal preference or dislike available as well. In 5 out of 6 examples analyzed, consumers preferred the pop-cultural versions of marketing communications. These results, which clearly lean in favor of using elements of pop culture, can be useful to marketing strategists and practitioners when considering the inclusion of pop culture in their marketing ommunication efforts.
Keywords
popular culture; marketing communications; ad liking; ad preference
Hrčak ID:
274495
URI
Publication date:
30.12.2021.
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