Post on 25-Jan-2023
TWITTER ADVERTISING BY COCA-COLA; THE MULTINATIONAL BRAND
AND A LOCAL SUBSIDIARY
BY
SAMUEL RICHIE EKOW BOAKYE
10419954
THIS DISSERTATION IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA,
LEGON
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF
MA COMMUNICATION STUDIES DEGREE
JULY, 2020
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DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to my mother Ellen. Thank you for being there.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to God for the strength to carry out this study towards my master’s degree. I am
grateful to my supervisor, Rev. Fr Dominic Maximilian Ofori, for his time and effort in
guiding me throughout the research. I appreciate each lecturer at the Department of
Communication Studies, University of Ghana, for shaping me in an all new discipline. I am
eternally grateful.
I also want to thank my family for being supportive in this educational rollercoaster. I would
choose you all over and again.
Finally, to all my mates and teaching assistants from the Department of Communication
Studies, thanks for being there. You have always proved some angels ‘charge’ the earth too.
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ABSTRACT
As businesses expand from their home country to other countries, communicating to the new
markets is of utmost importance. Social media have over the years been useful in
communicating to different markets in real time. Social media go beyond geographical
boundaries, reaching everyone who has access. This research was done to study Twitter
advertising by multinational brands and their local subsidiaries. Using Coca-Cola as a case
study. The study is qualitative in nature, employing textual analysis. Based on Katz and
Blumler's uses and gratifications theory, the study found how Coca-Cola gratified the needs
of different markets, using Twitter. The findings showed that Coca-Cola, while advertising
and communicating on Twitter, meet the needs of their audiences through pop culture, sports,
festivities, promotions, and consumer interactivities. This study adds to African
communication scholarship on multinational brand advertising. Further, it contributes to
knowledge of local subsidiary advertising strategies on Twitter in the advertising literature.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION ..................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
DEDICATION .......................................................................................................................... ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................... v
CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background to the Study ................................................................................................. 2
1.1.1 Social Media ............................................................................................................. 2
1.1.2 Twitter Advertising ................................................................................................... 4
1.1.3 Coca-Cola ................................................................................................................. 4
1.2 Statement of the Problem................................................................................................. 5
1.3 Research Objectives......................................................................................................... 7
1.4 Research Questions .......................................................................................................... 7
1.5 Organisation of Work ...................................................................................................... 8
1.6 Significance of Study ....................................................................................................... 8
1.7 Delimitations of Study ..................................................................................................... 9
CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................................... 11
LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................................ 11
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2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 11
2.2 Review of Related Literature ......................................................................................... 11
2.2.1 Multinational Brand Advertising ............................................................................ 11
2.2.2 Social Media in Multinational Brand Advertising .................................................. 13
2.2.3 Brand Engagement on Social Media ....................................................................... 16
2.3 Theoretical Framework .................................................................................................. 17
2.3.1 Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)................................................................... 17
2.3.2 Uses and gratification in this study ......................................................................... 18
CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................................. 21
METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 21
3.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 21
3.2 Research Design ............................................................................................................ 21
3.3 Setting and Population ................................................................................................... 22
3.4 Sampling ........................................................................................................................ 23
3.5 Data Collection .............................................................................................................. 23
3.6 Coding Technique .......................................................................................................... 24
3.6.1 Pop culture .............................................................................................................. 24
3.6.2 Sports ...................................................................................................................... 24
3.6.3 Festivities ................................................................................................................ 24
3.6.4 Consumer interactivity ............................................................................................ 25
3.6.5 Promotions and web traffic ..................................................................................... 25
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3.7 Data Analysis ................................................................................................................. 25
3.8 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 25
CHAPTER FOUR ................................................................................................................... 26
PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION........................................................ 26
4.1 Overview........................................................................................................................ 26
4.2 Findings ......................................................................................................................... 27
4.2.1 Pop Culture ............................................................................................................. 27
4.2.2 Sports ...................................................................................................................... 28
4.2.3 Festivities ................................................................................................................ 29
4.2.4 Consumer interactivity ............................................................................................ 30
4.2.5 Promotions and Web traffic .................................................................................... 31
4.3 Discussion of Key Findings ........................................................................................... 32
4.3.1 How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication? ................ 32
4.3.2 What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-
Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited? ................................................ 33
4.3.3 In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local
subsidiaries? ..................................................................................................................... 34
4.3.4 How does Coca-Cola engage their consumers on Twitter? .................................... 35
4.4 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 35
CHAPTER FIVE ..................................................................................................................... 37
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS............... 37
5.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................... 37
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5.2 Summary of the Study ................................................................................................... 37
5.3 Conclusions ................................................................................................................... 38
5.4 Limitations of the Study ................................................................................................ 39
5.5 Recommendations.......................................................................................................... 39
5.6 Chapter Summary .......................................................................................................... 40
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 42
APPENDICES ......................................................................................................................... 49
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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Multinational brands are corporations that engage in commercial activities in and
outside their country of origin. Mayrhofer and Prange (2015) define such companies by how
the company effectively controls or influences the decision-making process of the foreign wing
of the business. These corporations, in effect, operate in several regions and will have to
advertise to consumers in all the regions in which the corporations operate. Hence,
multinational brands have taken advantage of social media like Twitter to reach audiences. A
study by Barnes, Lescault, and Andonian (2012) found that as of the year 2011, 73 per cent of
top 500 multinational brands had Twitter accounts, arguing that social media have become
important to multinational brands.
This study looked at the advertising of multinational brand, Coca-Cola on Twitter.
Coca-Cola Company is a soft drink company that started in 1886, with their flagship
drink Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola Company exists in over 200 countries producing over 500
different beverages. In March 2009, the multinational brand, Coca-Cola signed on to Twitter
and posted its first tweet. Subsequently, the Ghanaian subsidiary created a Twitter account in
March 2015, beginning Coca-Cola communications on Twitter.
This chapter talks about background to the study, which gives an insight into Twitter
advertising and Coca-Cola. The problem of the research is stated as well as the research
objectives and the research questions to guide the study. Also, the chapter shows the importance
of the study to scholars, researchers and industry players as well as the delimitation of the
research.
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1.1 Background to the Study
Since the inception of new technology, such as new media, many companies have
shifted from traditional ways of operating. For instance, the use of paper-based recordkeeping,
messaging by postal services and print advertising, among others, has decreased because of
new methods of operating with the internet. Now, companies have access to digital database
management, e-mailing and social media advertising. The advent of the internet has developed
businesses and has triggered an increase in innovation at workplaces (Ciobanu & Neamtu,
2017). Subsequently, social media have become popular among business corporations, because
some targets of the businesses can be found on social media.
1.1.1 Social Media
Social media, according to Merriam-Webster (2019) “are forms of electronic
communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which
users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other
content (such as videos).” These electronic communication use internet applications that make
it possible to create and transmit content in the form of words, pictures, videos, and audios with
ease.
Social media sites have been categorised into groups namely, microblogging sites,
media sharing sites, bookmarking sites, social networks, blog comments and forums, social
news sites, and finally, social gaming and virtual worlds. Microblogging sites allow users to
put up short posts on feeds for other users to see (Java, Song, Finin & Tsen, 2007). Twitter and
Facebook are examples in the microblogging category. Media sharing sites are sites where
people create profiles to share and manage media in the form of photos, audio and videos (Safko
& Brake, 2009, pp. 27-28). Media sharing sites include Vimeo, Rhapsody and YouTube.
Bookmarking sites are sites that allow users to tag sites that other users can also access. Social
bookmarking sites allow annotation, editing, and sharing of such tags (Khan & Sharma, 2017).
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Pinterest and Flipboard are examples of such bookmarking sites. Social networks are sites
where people create profiles and are allowed to connect with other people of similar interest
(Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Examples of social networks include Facebook and LinkedIn. Blog
comments and forums are forums that allow users to comment on topics posted on the online
communities (Bach, Hai & Phuong, 2016). Quora and Nairaland are examples in this category.
Social news sites give users access to news and links to other articles where users vote on their
prominence (Weninger, Zhu & Han, 2013). Sites like Reddit and Digg fall within the social
news category. Social gaming and virtual worlds are sites allow users to create or join
immersive settings, which are enabled by a network of computers for real time interaction
(Girvan, 2013). Immersive settings of these virtual worlds are used for educational, gaming and
other recreational purposes. Examples include Second Life and World of Warcraft.
The ability of social media to accommodate convergence in communication and take
feedback has presented brands the ability to be advertised with vast options. Social media, with
an effective strategy can increase return on investments (Kumar & Mirchandani, 2012). In
2019, a world- wide statistics portal, Statista ranked the top 10 social media apps, based their
popularity and user base. They were Facebook, Whatsapp, QQ, WeChat, QZone, Tumblr,
Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and Baidu (Clement, 2019).
According to a 2018 Statista report, in the year 2010, 9.7 million people were on social
media globally but the number was expected to reach 2.77 billion by the end of 2019 (Clement,
2019). Inherent in this is the revelation that social media offer a good medium for reaching out
to a large number of audiences. These audiences can be reached, regardless of geographical
barriers, thereby making it possible for companies to build global presence, which is vital to
multinational brands. This study focuses on Twitter advertising by multinational brands and
their local subsidiaries, using Coca-Cola in the study.
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1.1.2 Twitter Advertising
Twitter is described by Kwak, Lee, Park, and Moon (2010) as a microblogging site,
which uses posts, known as tweets, to communicate. Tweets originally only had a 140character
limit. In November 2017, Twitter doubled the number of characters per tweet to 280 for most
languages. Twitter is a new form of RSS (aggregated feeds), Instant Messenger, and a Short
Message Service. Twitter is a place where business is conducted as it enables advertisers to
post links to direct consumers to website of businesses (Suster, 2010).
Twitter (2019) categorises some Twitter advertising into cards. These cards are tweets,
which have been put in a package with web links that lead one to the website of the brand, or
to a webpage where the software application of the brand can be downloaded. These cards can
be promoted advertisements, which are not necessarily sent to only followers of the brand’s
Twitter account. The cards could also be targeted advertisements, which are sent to specific
audiences based on their recent activities. Though promoted advertisements work well to reach
target audiences, multinational brands like Coca-Cola still go a step further create multiple
accounts, which are operated by their local subsidiaries in order to communicate with audiences
in those localities. Here, Coca-Cola uses a simpler form of advertising by posting tweets.
Advertisers hereby use Twitter as an attempt at “starting the conversation rather than
concluding it” as argued by Murthy (2013).
1.1.3 Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a soft drink which is produced by the Coca-Cola Company, headquartered
in Georgia, USA. The drink was invented in 1886 by John Stith Pemberton (later sold to Asa
Griggs Candler) as an alcohol free drink and intended as a patent medicine
(Eschner, 2017). Coca-Cola has since its commercialisation, has been a top brand worldwide.
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Coca-Cola in Africa started in 1989 with the franchise of Coca-Cola Company for Equatorial
Guinea, expanding to Guinea, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and The Gambia then
finally to Ghana, Morocco and Algeria (Daurella, 2017).
In Ghana, the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Ghana Limited was formed by a
divestiture in March 1995 of Ghana National Trading Corporation's Bottling Division. The
Company produces and markets Coca-Cola and its affiliate drinks such as Fanta and Sprite,
nationwide (GNPC 2010). Coca-Cola over the years has market its products in Ghana through
outdoor advertisements such as billboards, branded bus stops, coke kiosks and activation
events. Coca-Cola Ghana, also engages in electronic media advertisements on radio and
television, as well as print media advertisements. As new media gained prominence in Ghana,
Coca-Cola has taken advantage of the internet to reach audiences on social media.
In March 2015, a Twitter account was created for Coca-Cola Ghana to communicate to the
Ghanaian audience.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The advancement in internet technology has brought with it many improvements to the
business climate such as ease of operation and effectiveness. These improvements in internet
technology will be adopted by a number of people. Target consumers of advertisers may be in
this group of adopters and as such advertisers will have to keep up with the pace in order to
reach such clients. Exponential growth in new technology such as social media have gained
interest among business advertisers.
As businesses expand out of their home regions, the number of people businesses have
to reach increases. Such expansion calls for communication media that reach all targets of the
business. Social media present a form of omnipresence such brands seek. Ayivor (2015) and
Zhang and Mao (2016) noted that social media have become popular among businesses, and as
such, businesses have been experimenting the prospects social media.
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Some of these businesses which are multinational such as Coca-Cola have added social media
to their means of communication and even created social media accounts for their local
subsidiaries around the world.
The Coca-Cola Company over the years has a good track of integrated market
communications (Stringer, 2015). Since the year 2014, Coca-Cola has won World Branding
Awards for the beverage – soft drink category (World Branding Forum, 2019). At the local
level, Coca Cola’s outstanding performance in social media was rewarded in Ghana’s 7th
National PR and Communication Excellence Awards. This award was picked up by Coca-
Cola’s advertising agency, Ogilvy Ghana (Tetteh, 2019). Though both levels (global and local)
of the company are being lauded at their respective levels, there is hardly any scholarship on
how the brands use social media for advertising and communication.
Studies such as Whitelock, Cadogan and Ogasaki (2013), and Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi,
and Algharabat (2017) have researched three “key theoretical approaches” which, enable a
better knowledge of social media to advertisers. There is, however, limited scholarship on how
local subsidiaries of multinational brands can leverage social media. There are two main
schools of thought for local subsidiaries in brand communication. The first school of thought
recommends the local subsidiary stick to the standard messaging strategy set by the global
level; then, the second school of thought recommends the messaging strategy must be adapted
to the local market (Leonidou, Katsikeas & Coudounaris, 2010).
Research that examines both multinational brands and their local subsidiaries on Twitter
advertising is scarce. Although Samiee, Jeong, Pae and Tai (2003) researched the advertising
standards of multinationals and their subsidiaries, the use of Twitter as a platform for
advertising was not investigated in their study. There is therefore a need for research to compare
the strategy at a global and local level as well as how their messaging affects each other.
Scholarship on multinational brand advertising has become more important because brands
keep expanding out of their home regions and therefore in-depth research from scholars will
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give a better understanding of global standardisation of advertisements and localisation of
advertisements. The study hopes to find out which strategy a successful company like Coca-
Cola works with for the benefit of researchers, scholars, and organizations. The study brings to
light what will be best practice on Twitter advertising for a multinational. In scholarship, the
study looks at the conversation of standardisation and localisation of advertisements in the
African landscape. In practice, players in industry can determine efficiency of advertisements
using reviewed models in this study. Ultimately, this study is looking at Twitter advertising by
multinational brands and their local subsidiaries with a focus on Coca-Cola.
1.3 Research Objectives
The overarching objective of this study is to investigate Twitter advertising of CocaCola
and its local subsidiary in Ghana. The following research objectives will guide the study:
i. To investigate how Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication;
ii. To analyse the similarities and differences between Twitter advertising of Coca-Cola
Company limited and Coca-Cola Ghana limited.
iii. To investigate how Twitter advertising by Coca-Cola affect their local subsidiaries.
The objectives set above will reveal how social media, such as Twitter works to help in advertising
multinational brands.
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions seek to meet the objectives of the study:
i. How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication?
ii. What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola
Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited?
iii. In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local
subsidiaries?
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By answering the research questions above, this study will expose the relevance of social
media, such as Twitter to multinational brands. The responses will add to scholarship on how
multinational brands when faced with the multiple routes of advertising can select the route
which works well, using recommendations from this study that address their specific situations.
1.5 Organisation of Work
This work comprises five chapters. The first chapter gives a perspective and background
to the study, states the problem of the study, and articulates the research objectives and research
questions. The chapter also gives the significance of the study as well as the delimitations of
the study. In the second chapter, related literature reviewed and articulates the theoretical
framework. The third chapter introduces the methodology and how data were collected for the
research. The data collected are analysed in the fourth chapter, with chapter five presenting a
summary of findings, conclusions, limitations of the study, and recommendations for future
study.
1.6 Significance of Study
This study, which sought to explore multinational and local brand advertising on social
media, is of importance to scholars, researchers, and industry players. Ayivor (2015) argues
that research on brand advertising on social media should be expanded to create a well-rounded
perspective on how brands use social media. Thus, the study adds to research on the analysis
of Twitter advertisements by multinational brands and their Ghanaian subsidiary. This research
employs the uses and gratification theory, thereby contributing to the application of the theory
for researchers. Twitter advertising is quite different from mainstream (traditional) advertising,
due to Twitter’s bi-directional and interactive communication. The study therefore adds to
communication scholarship by demonstrating that Twitter is an effective medium for
advertisements, and Twitter advertisements in multinational branding requires a different
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approach from single brand advertisements. Marketing or advertising units in multinational
organisations may engage this work in decision-making for Twitter advertising for global
brands and local subsidiaries.
1.7 Delimitations of Study
This study is limited to Twitter as the medium for advertising by multinational brands
and their local subsidiary because out of the top ten social media applications ranked by
Statista in 2019, Facebook, Whatsapp, QQ, WeChat, QZone, Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter,
Google+ and Baidu, four of them (QQ, WeChat, QZone and Baidu) are widely used in China
but hardly used outside China and as such, will not be useful for this study. Instagram and
Tumblr are media sharing social media sites which are structured purposively for media sharing
and captioning. Instagram and Tumblr are not ideal for this study because the advertisements
may sometimes be text-based and not limited to media. Google+ and
WhatsApp were eliminated from the study due to matters regarding accessibility. Without a
Google account, it is impossible to get a Google+ account, and individuals cannot follow
businesses on Google+. WhatsApp was ruled out since it is not a public social media
application. WhatsApp is encrypted from user to user making it more convenient for
conversation than advertising.
Facebook, which is closest to Twitter was however ruled out from this study because
Facebook has had security issues in recent times. In 2018 Cambridge Analytica illegally
harvested Facebook users’ data for political advertising (Cadwalladr & Graham-Harrison,
2018), making Facebook a target for political attacks and data manipulation. Therefore, the
research eliminates Facebook based on security interferences and privacy breech. Twitter
however has verification devices, both text and multimedia messaging capacities, as well as
user-friendly features, making it ideal for this study.
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The brand in focus for the study is Coca-Cola, from the Coca-Cola Company Limited
and its Ghanaian subsidiary. The choice of Coca-Cola is due to its popular worldwide, as it is
sold in every country but Cuba and North Korea making Coca-Cola an epitome of multinational
brand.
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CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter reviews literature relevant to the study and the theory underpinning this
study, the uses and gratification theory, will be examined.
2.2 Review of Related Literature
This section reviews scholarly works concerning social media and multinational brands.
The review has been organised under three themes, multinational brand advertising, social
media in multinational brand advertising, and brand engagement on social media.
2.2.1 Multinational Brand Advertising
For multinational brands, international advertising comes as a necessary consideration
in decision-making as it holds the power to target audiences beyond one country
(Athapaththu, 2015). Related studies (Schmid & Kotulla, 2011; Wang & Yang, 2011 Matricano
& Vitagliano, 2018) reveal that when multinational brands decide to advertise, the brand may
opt for either standardising the advertisements or adapting the advertisement to the local
market. In standardising the advertisement, the advertising strategy used is the same globally;
mostly through the same delivery routes and sometimes executed by the same advertising
agency worldwide. Adapting the advertisement to suit local markets, gives each subsidiary of
the multinational brand tailored advertising routes which suits the market situation of the given
region.
Kanso and Nelson (2019) revealed in a research about decision-making in international
advertising that despite existing literature arguing that advertisements are gradually being
localised rather than sticking to the multinational’s standards, the practise on the ground is
different. Although localising advertisements give multinational brands the power of being
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culturally sensitive, Kanso and Nelson (2019) discovered advertising practitioners are only
influenced by culture when it comes to the creative message while other parts of the strategy
are left to international standards. Then again, the creation of regional headquarters
decentralises a number of decisions taken by multinational brands including advertising
campaigns. This procedure puts in a bit of adaptation into the campaign because advertising
directives may come from a much closer administrative level.
Hatzithomas, Fotiadis, and Coudounaris (2016) in their study of Vodafone’s social
media communication in the United Kingdom and Greece concluded that the decision of
multinational brands to either standardise or localise their advertisements which has gone on
for the past five decades can be resolved with four new strategies. The researchers posit that
multinational brands must personalise their social media communication using “global, glocal,
local, or single case strategy” (Hatzithomas et al., 2016, pp. 1104).
The global strategy dates back to a 1983 Harvard Business Review article authored by
Theodore Levitt entitled “Globalization of Markets.” In the article, Levitt (1983) introduces a
market where there is uniformity in products and services worldwide, as consumers were
moving to a “convergence of tastes.” However, globalisation did not address matters
concerning economic differences, as well as the socio-cultural setting of the markets, leading
to a shift from “global” to “glocal” (Grigorescu & Zaif, 2017). Grigorescu and Zaif (2017),
assert “glocalisation” emerged from Japanese scholarship with import given to incorporation
of both global and local market structures. “Glocalisation” encourages a global offering with
consideration to local issues related to the offer. Dumitrescu and Vinerean (2010) define local
strategy as “thinking locally, acting locally” (Dumitrescu and Vinerean, 2010, p. 149). This
definition shows that the local strategy confines itself to existing protocols and culture of a
specific market. Finally, single case strategy takes creativity at a local level while executing
with international standards (Wei & Jiang, 2005; Hatzithomas et al., 2016). However, for social
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media strategy, Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro (2012) believe that power is transferred
from multinational brands to the consumers’ hands, making standardisation hard.
The literature reviewed in this section recommends classical four strategies for
multinational brand advertising: global, ‘glocal’, local and single case. The reviewed also
introduces as a fifth strategy which is personalising the four classical strategies. The gap in
literature however, is how multinational brands and their local subsidiaries execute these
strategies. Coca-Cola is a popular multinational brand and as such research should be done on
how such powerful brands execute their advertising.
The next section discusses how social media plays a role in multinational brand
advertising.
2.2.2 Social Media in Multinational Brand Advertising
Okazaki and Taylor (2013) in their study on social media and international advertising
found three “key theoretical perspectives,” namely, “networking capability, image
transferability, and personal extensibility” (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013, pp. 59-67) that give a
relatively better understanding of social media as well as the potential of value creation with
social media in the context of international advertising.
Network capability, in creating value with social media, is the ability of social media to
transfer information from one point to another, surpassing geographical and cultural limitations
while maintaining its social networking (Okazaki & Taylor, 2013, pp. 59-61). The network
capability perspective helps multinational brands implement standardization across all markets.
Social media makes it ideal for multinational brands to implement network capability as a
brand’s Twitter post sent from one country carries the same message to recipients globally in
real time.
Furthermore, the image transferability perspective, according to Okazaki and Taylor
(2013), posits that through social media, advertisers can build their brand with a bigger market.
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The advertisers can reinforce the image of their brands globally with their customers, because
social media allows mass communication from brand to consumers. Enforcement of brand
image can be done through the use of famous celebrities who can advertise the brand to make
the brand go viral.
Finally, the personal extensibility perspective explains how social media has added
flexibility to communication. Leveraging social media’s ability of feedback mechanism,
Okazaki and Taylor (2013) suggest multinational brands can take advantage of consumers’
desire to interact with the brand to get feedback from the consumers through social media.
Consumers are able to interact with brands at any time, or place regardless of their culture.
The literature reviewed above shows how social media is useful to multinational brands,
however the key theories reviewed are all biased towards standardisation of multinational brand
advertisements. This reveals a gap for the need to expand the three theoretical perspectives to
include localisation, glocalisation and single case strategizing of advertisements. However,
other studies such as Kaur (2008) also encourage the use of social media in multinational brand
literature.
Kaur (2008) in studying why some brands use social media to advertise in the Irish
footwear industry discovered that brands that do social media advertising mostly do it because
target customers spend most of their time on social media. The study further revealed that social
media is a cost effective platform for advertising. Related studies such as Ayivor (2015) asserts
that social media helps brands to direct traffic to their actual websites. This attribute of social
media makes it easier to bring the consumer directly to what the brands have to offer beyond
what is seen on social media.
Kaur (2008) also deduces that social media are user-friendly to brands; thus handlers of
social media accounts for brands can easily navigate through, as compared to traditional
advertising which requires some level of experience. According to Kaur (2008), social media
are convenient and easier to make edits as compared to traditional media advertising. The study
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found that more online advertising was done in the footwear industry than billboards however,
Majeed and Sriram (2019) refuted the claim.
Majeed and Sriram (2019) found in their research that Indian footwear companies still
had majority of their ads on traditional media. Therefore, Majeed and Sriram (2019) rejected
Kaur’s (2008) findings that suggested that the brands that do social media advertising mostly
do it because target customers spend most of their time on social media. Majeed and Sriram
(2019) argued that findings in Kaur (2008) may work for Ireland but cannot be generalised.
Although Ireland may have a vibrant social media usage, India, according to Majeed and Sriram
(2019), still has television as a dominant medium and is only gradually warming up to social
media. For the purpose of this study, Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their local
subsidiary: a study of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana, the reach of social media is on the high
side, with the proliferation of mobile phone usage (Kemp, 2019).
In the case of Ghana, a number of traditional media (television and radio stations) in
addition to their conventional services have introduced online streaming of their content in
order to reach their target who have moved away from traditional media to social media.
Social media such as Facebook live, Instagram live, and Periscope/Twitter live video are
engaged to broadcast traditional media content online. Kemp’s 2019 digital report revealed
that, as of January 2019, the mobile phone usage in Ghana was 130% as juxtaposed to the total
population of Ghana (Dubras, Nazir, & Oxford, 2019).
Literature reviewed in this section gives a perspective on social media usage in
multinational branding. Some researchers (Kaur, 2008; Okazaki & Taylor, 2013; Ayivor,
2015) proved social media’s utility to multinational branding with the tenets of convenience,
user-friendliness, as well as popularity worldwide, nevertheless Majid and Sriram 2019
subjected popularity to differ from region to region. However, the reviewed literature in this
section lacks instances of local subsidiaries. The next section discusses how brands like Coca-
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Cola engage on social media, taking a cue from Kaplan and Haelin (2010) challenges and
opportunities social media present.
2.2.3 Brand Engagement on Social Media
Kaplan and Haenlein (2010) recommend that if a brand still needs time to operate its
core mandate, the business entity cannot participate in all social media because there are a
whole lot of social media platforms, hence the need to carefully choose the specific media that
suit advertising needs of a brand. A specific target will have a medium that gratifies that target’s
communication needs, making it easy for brands to reach them. For instance, social media users
who are interested in video contents may often visit YouTube and thus will be available to
receive advertising that comes in video forms. In the same light, photo advertisements may be
more suitable on social medial sites like Instagram for target audiences that pay attention to
photo content on social media.
Whiting and Williams (2013) in a study to understand uses and gratifications that
consumers get from social media discovered ten themes that are uses and gratifications of social
media, which had been articulated in earlier works by Palmgreen and Rayburm (1975),
Korgaonkar and Wolin (1999), Papacharissi and Rubin (2000) and Ko, Cho and Roberts (2005).
The themes found were, “social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment,
relaxation, communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information
sharing, and surveillance or knowledge about others,” (Whiting & Williams 2013). Conversely,
in a quantitative approach by Rohm, Kaltcheva, and Milne (2013) in finding which needs
brands can gratify consumers, respondents revealed that consumers of brands go on social
media to gratify the need for entertainment, engagement, information, and promotions and
other incentives.
The review of literature brought to light themes of multinational brand advertising,
social media in multinational brand advertising and brand engagement on social media.
Multinational brand advertising theme revealed that advertising for multinationals brands and
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local subsidiaries open a discussion on whether multinational brands should stick to a
standardised strategy or localise the strategy to suit the subsidiary. Secondly, the theme of social
media in multinational brand advertising engaged literature that discovered merits of social
media for multinational brands when advertising. Social media offers a new dimension to
advertising due to features such as the ability to surpass geographical barriers while maintaining
messaging strategy put in place by the brand. Social media further leverages human’s desire to
communicate to thrive, thus consumers are able to give feedback to multinational brands
through social media. Finally, on the theme of brand engagement on social media, literature
articulates that social media gratifies consumers’ media needs. Therefore, multinational brands
can engage consumers by satisfying the consumer’s needs. Based on this knowledge, brands
understand what consumers use social media for, yet there is ample evidence that Coco-Cola
Ghana, for example, uses Twitter to advertise and communicate with stakeholders. What we
do not know is how the company’s communication behaviour meets the needs of its
stakeholders. This study is being embarked upon to find an answer to this question.
2.3 Theoretical Framework
This study is underpinned by the uses and gratifications theory propounded by Katz and
Blumler in 1970s. The theory is audience-centered, as such, it can be used by brands to
understand why audiences actively seek specific media to satisfy their exact needs.
2.3.1 Uses and Gratifications Theory (UGT)
Uses and gratifications theory (UGT) is an audience-centred theory propounded by Katz
and Blumler in the 1970s. The theory focuses on what people do with media, rather than what
media does to people. UGT seeks to understand why people seek out media and what they use
them for. McQuail, Blumler, and Brown (1972) proposed four uses of media as “diversion,
personal relationships, personal identity, and surveillance” (McQuail, Blumler, and Brown,
1972, pp. 512-513)
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The main tenets of the theory are, first, the audience are assumed to be active with a
goal-oriented media use. Secondly, the initiative in linking need gratification to a specific
medium choice rests with the audience member. Further, the media compete with other
resources to satisfy needs. The theory posits that people have enough self-awareness of their
media use, interests, and motives to help researchers get a vivid description of that use. Also,
value judgments of media content can only be assessed by audiences. In addition, the media
compete against each other as sources of gratification as well as satisfy the needs of the
audiences (West & Turner, 2007). These needs that audiences use media to gratify include their
quest to be informed or educated, entertained, interact, relate to characters of the situation in a
media environment or escape from real life’s daily stresses (McQuail, 2010).
UGT, according to David (2016), has more significance now more than ever, especially
when it comes to explaining how consumers interact with technology, prominent of which is
the internet. Studies into mobile phone usage regarding uses and gratifications theory have
revealed that consumers seek gratifications from their mobile phones. Implicit in this finding
is the assumption that social media usage can be motivated by such reasons as the need to vent
feelings, the need for recognition and other cognitive needs (Leung, 2013). With such power
in the hands of the consumer, this research seeks to find out how brands engage their consumers
on Twitter to satisfy their needs. Multinational brands as consumers of social media in this
research will be investigated to find how they use social media to gratify communications
needs.
2.3.2 Uses and gratification in this study
This study, which seeks to investigate Twitter advertising of Coca-Cola employs uses
and gratification theory. Traditionally, the theory is viewed from the audiences’ point of view,
however, content producers (in this case Coca-Cola) can take advantage of the existing
knowledge of gratifications sought by audiences to satisfy the audiences. Leung (2013) puts
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social media gratifications into five categories namely; social purposes and seeking affection,
the need to vent feelings, the need to be recognised, to be entertained, and finally other
cognitive uses.
Isba, Woolfe, & Hanneman (2016) acknowledge humans as social beings with a
motivation to belong, through establishing and keeping interpersonal relationships. As such,
social media presents a front for audiences to relate to other users. The users here may be
persons or brands providing social relations to other accounts. All accounts on social media
form the ecosystem in which users can use to relate to each other. Multinational brands can
take advantage of this ecosystem to provide social relations with clients, hence gratifying their
existing need to socialise.
Social media users according to Leung (2013) gratify their need to vent through social
media. The feedback mechanism incorporated into most social media platforms makes it
possible for multinational brands to gratify the audiences’ need to vent. To motivate the use of
the brand, multinational brands gratify their audiences giving an attentive ear to the audiences.
Using social media to gratify the need to be recognised, Gangi & Wasko (2016)
acknowledge this need when some of the subjects in their study felt involved in the
multinational brand Facebook’s processes. Facebook invited users to vote in polls to select a
new look and feel of the social networking site. A number of participants felt important being
recognised to take a decision on behalf of the brand. Facebook at that instant gratified the need
of the users, assuring them of a level of loyalty.
Multinational brands can also take advantage of social media to entertain audiences.
Bartsch & Viehoff (2010) regard entertainment as essential motivation for media usage.
Entertainment varies in forms, making convergent media such as social media suitable to host
it. As an already existing hub for entertainment, multinational brands can put their content on
social media to gratify their audiences.
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The internet over the years have proven itself as a body of knowledge through countless
entries by diverse users. Social media allows users to upload content for other users to see, as
such, cognitive needs are gratified. Maslow (1981) puts cognitive needs as knowledge and
understanding, curiosity, exploration, need for meaning and predictability. Social media has
become a one-stop shop for satisfying curiosity, users go on to various platforms online to
explore and understand happenings. Multinational brands can take advantage of this need to
gratify curious audiences with explanations and meanings.
From the above, uses and gratification theory stands as a theory that can be used to
predict what multinational brands can do on social media for their clientele.
2.4 Chapter Summary
This chapter has reviewed literature and has identified the following as key themes that
frame the scholarship, multinational brand advertising, social media in multinational brand
advertising, and brand engagement on social media. These themes provided an understanding
of what exists in literature, therefore, this research seeks to fill the gap of Twitter advertising
by Coca-Cola, a multinational brand and its local subsidiary. Following the review of literature,
the chapter examined the uses and gratifications theory as the theory that guided the study. The
theory articulated how multinational brands can use social media to gratify the needs of
consumers.
The following chapter discusses the approaches and techniques used to conduct this
study.
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CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction
This chapter explains the methodology used in this study as well as how the population
and sample were arrived at. As mentioned in previous chapters, the research is a study of the
Twitter advertising of the multinational brand Coca-Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary. It is
underpinned by the uses and gratifications theory (Katz et al, 1974). The study employed a
qualitative research approach to investigate how Coca-Cola uses Twitter for advertising.
McKenna, Myers, and Newman (2017) recommend the use of qualitative method for studies
that use social media as primary data.
First, the structure of the research is explained in the research design subsection. The
next subsection describes the population and setting of the study. The subsection following the
population and setting discusses how the sample was arrived at, revealing the unit of analysis.
Finally, the method of analysis is explained.
3.2 Research Design
This study adopted the qualitative research approach, which is used for non-measurable
data. In order to assess the use of Twitter as an advertising platform for multinational brands
and to explain how Coca-Cola uses social media as an advertising medium, content were
retrieved from the (relevant) Twitter pages and typed out into a text document.
The tweets gathered this study were obtained from Twitter in June 2019 through the
help of Hootsuite, a social media marketing and management service. The tweets were selected
from the year 2009, the year Coca-Cola opened a Twitter account, to 2018, the year before this
study begun. Twenty tweets were conveniently sampled from the multinational account of
Coca-Cola (@cocacola) and the Ghanaian subsidiary (@cocacola_GH). This reason is due to
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the readily available data on the Twitter pages. The tweets were written in text, defining emoji
and describing media elements where available. The texts were put in a word processing
document.
3.3 Setting and Population
Coca-Cola’s popularity worldwide and its reputation as the world’s best soda make it
an interesting brand to use for this research. Raj (2016) noted that as far back as 1985, CocaCola
pulled a marketing wonder by being the first soda to be consumed outside the planet earth.
Coca-Cola, using its messaging through integrated market communications, has been
associated to gratify thirst (Dudovskiy, 2015).
The setting for this study is the Twitter pages of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana.
Compared to other social media platform Coca-Cola uses, Twitter has a media-sharing ability
with restricted text input of 280 characters. The limited number of characters make Twitter an
interesting choice to use for advertising, as it can limit free expression but at the same time is
reliable for quick reads. Twitter posts by @cocacola and @cocacola_GH form the population
of the study. @cocacola is the official Twitter handle of the multinational brand Coca-Cola.
@cocacola_GH is the official Twitter handle for the Coca-Cola subsidiary in Ghana. This
research uses Ghana as the local subsidiary because of proximity of the researcher. The choice
of Ghana helps in the analyses of the contents in case there are cultural or linguistic expressions
that require decoding, the researcher being a native of Ghana can note and decipher.
This research takes a slightly different approach in studying Twitter advertising by
Coca-Cola. Advertisements come in different forms on Twitter. Advertisements may be
targeted adverts, which employ algorithms that monitor users’ demographics, psychographics,
and online behaviour to advertise suitable products for the user (Jansen, Moore, & Carman,
2013). Advertisements may also come in the form of simple tweets that carry out the messaging
the account owner wants to convey. For the purpose of this study, targeted adverts have been
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eliminated to be able to look specifically at the offerings that Coca-Cola wants to position in
the minds of the audience without the influence of the consumer’s bio data. This study is
focused on posts generated on the pages of @cocacola and @cocacola_GH.
3.4 Sampling
As a qualitative study, Babbie (2012) recommends a non-probability sampling
approach. This sampling method fits the study because the study works with data that do not
use statistics. The method for sampling used in the study is convenience sampling. Wimmer
and Dominick (2011) recommend the use of convenience sampling where data is easily
accessible.
In this study, twenty posts on the pages of Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana were
conveniently sampled. This process was facilitated by recommendations from social media
management site Hootsuite. Through Hootsuites, tweets from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH
were derived from the first tweet each page posted to the last tweet of the year 2018. The units
of analysis for the study are all the individual tweets from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH
which have been converted to text format.
3.5 Data Collection
The data used in this study are primary data derived from the Twitter pages of Coca-
Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary. Hsei and Shannon (2005) explain three approaches to content
analysis namely, “conventional, directed, and summative content analyses.” Conventional
content analysis allows the researchers to immerse themselves in the data allowing new insights
to materialise from the data (Hsei & Shannon, 2005). The directed approach to content analysis
allows researchers to use predetermined codes from existing theories or previous literature
(Hsei and Shannon, 2005). Finally, summative content analysis identifies some words or a
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specific content in text with the intention of understanding the context in which the word is
used.
For the purpose of this study, the conventional approach was used. The data was read
through several times to highlight initial codes in the data. The initial codes which reflected
similar concepts were put together to form themes. These themes were used to draw a coding
guide where the themes were defined with subcategories stated. The themes observed were as
followed: pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotions and web
traffic.
3.6 Coding Technique
The contents of tweets were categorised with a coding guide based on, pop culture,
sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotions and web traffic. With these
categories, tweets were coded under a category definition that had been documented in the
guide.
3.6.1 Pop culture
Pop culture was defined with posts that denote germane concepts in society at the given
time (Storey, 2015). Pop culture: television, film, radio, music, entertainment, celebrities,
fashion, and art.
3.6.2 Sports
Sports, in this study referred to sporting and allied activities. The codes that guided the
theme were: football, games, quizzes, and matches.
3.6.3 Festivities
Festivities as a theme was defined surrounding holidays and commemorative days, the
codes were Christmas, Easter, Eid, Festivals, Independence Day, and weekend.
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3.6.4 Consumer interactivity
Consumer interactivity was defined with consumers’ involvement in the brand’s
conversation. Such data were coded with trivia, feedback, complains, enquiry, request, and
polls.
3.6.5 Promotions and web traffic
The theme of promotions and web traffic was defined with announcements, web links,
promo, raffle, offerings presented to consumers including links leading to other platforms
owned by the brand, and commercials.
3.7 Data Analysis
The data collected in the study are analysed thematically. Thematic analysis is a method
for systematically identifying, organising, and offering into patterns of themes across a data set
(Braun and Clarke, 2012). Considering the nature of tweets and their ability to contain text,
image, video, and web links, qualitative content analysis was ideal, because it seeks to derive
meanings from posts. The analysed themes are presented in a narrative form with meanings
drawn to answer the research questions of the study.
3.8 Chapter Summary
The chapter explained why the research used Coca-Cola to study Twitter advertising.
Coca-Cola was purposively chosen as the brand to study because it has stayed relevant for years
with a good track record of marketing. Coca-Cola’s Twitter was also chosen as the social media
for the study because Twitter allows quick reads for users. This research is qualitative in nature,
using content analysis as its methodological approach and analysed thematically.
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CHAPTER FOUR
PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Overview
This chapter presents findings from the research conducted on Twitter advertising by
Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited from March 2009 to June 2018.
While Twitter advertising has been researched by a number of scholars in Europe, Asia and the
Americas, there is not much scholarship on the subject in the African context.
The data for this study were obtained from Twitter pages of Coca-Cola Company
Limited from March 2009 to June 2018 and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited from March 2015 to
June 2018. This study answers the following research questions: how Coca-Cola uses social
media for advertising and communications, the similarities and differences in the Twitter
advertisements of Coca-Cola Company global and in Ghana, what ways Coca-Cola’s Twitter
advertising affect the advertisement of the local subsidiary, and how Coca-Cola engages
consumers on Twitter.
This chapter is divided into two major parts. The first part (4.2) describes the findings
of the research, under which the findings in relation to the theory and literature reviewed in
earlier Chapter two. The second part (4.3), discusses key findings from section 4.2. The
discussions are based on the research questions of the study.
The following section discusses the findings from the data collection and analyses carried out
in chapter three.
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4.2 Findings
After analysing the twenty posts from @cocacola and @cocacola_GH within the five
themes, it can be noted that both Coca-Cola Twitter accounts advertised and communicated in
text and image formats like photos, gifs and videos. Nonetheless, format in which the tweets
were posted, had text captions. The themes analysed: pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer
interactivity, and promotions and web traffic will be discussed in subsequent sections.
4.2.1 Pop Culture
Pop culture, or popular culture is defined by Storey (2018), as culture that is widely
favoured. Pop culture influences the lives of people in a society. In this study, pop culture was
observed through codes such as television, film, radio, music, art, celebrities, fashion and
entertainment. Popular culture themes that reflected in the data analysed showed that CocaCola
stayed up-to-date with trending pop culture. @cocacola tweeted a photo of a limited edition
Coca-Cola drink named ‘New Coke’ which had previously been on sale in April
1985. ‘New Coke’ had been rejected by consumers in 1985, forcing the company to go back to
the old formula within three months (Coca-Cola, 2019). To commemorate the supposedly
failed project, Coca-Cola in 2019 gave consumers a chance to relive history. The Coca-Cola
Company posted that the ‘New Coke’ will be launched again for a limited promotional period
in the season three premiere of a television show set in the summer of 1985 entitled Stranger
Things. This inclusion of television shows to market Coca-Cola is part of pop culture, as it
greatly impacts the daily lives of people in a particular society. The tweet, posted on May 29,
2019 said, “#Enjoy the retro flavor formula in a #LimitedEdition can! #StrangerThings3
#GiftWithPurchase”
Coca-Cola alongside other brands belonging to the Coca-Cola Company (such as Sprite
and Dasani) also joined in celebrating pop culture by tweeting that limited bottles of the drinks
had been customised for American movie franchise, Star Wars.
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Pop culture tweets posted by the Ghanaian subsidiary of CocaCola, @cocacola_GH
which fell under the pop culture ranged from videos or photos of musical artistes performing
to question and answer sessions with celebrities. Popular Ghanaian musician Stonebwoy was
introduced on November 4, 2016 in a tweet as a celebrity guest to answer fans’ questions using
the @cocacola_GH account the following day. Also, Coke Studio Africa, which is a music
programme run by the Coca-Cola Company, was promoted via tweets. In a tweet posted by
@cocacola_GH on December 19, 2016, there was a video of renowned Nigerian musician
2Baba.
Both @cocacola and @cocacola_GH tweeted the phrase ‘share a coke’ a number of
times. This viral phrase was to promote Coca-Cola by asking people to go out to buy CocaCola
which had common first names printed on the bottles.
The analysis of tweets under the pop culture theme revealed that both Coca-Cola and
the Ghanaian subsidiary tailored tweets to fulfil the gratification consumers sought through pop
culture. From the coding guide, entertainment is one of the anchor examples used to develop
the theme of pop culture. The theme therefore shows a level of consistency with
Rohm, Kaltcheva, and Milne’s (2013) as well as Whiting and Williams’ claim that one of the
gratifications consumers seek on social media is entertainment.
The next section discusses the second theme, sports, with regard to the findings of this
study and the uses and gratifications theory.
4.2.2 Sports
The theme of sports was read in the study through codes such as football, games,
quizzes and trivia. In the years 2014 and 2018, the FIFA World Cup took place in Brazil and
Russia respectively. The World Cup was touted in some tweets by @cocacola and
@cocacola_GH. Photos and other graphics, which were tweeted to promote the World Cup
usually had the Coca-Cola logo and tagline, Taste the Feeling’.
A number of Ghanaian football fans are big supporters of the English Premier League.
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Coca-Cola Ghana leveraged that to engage football fans. Consumers were asked by
@cocacola_GH to predict winners, answer trivia questions for Coca-Cola EPL branded
souvenirs and partake in contests like looking out for prizes beneath the crown corks of Coca-
Cola bottles. A sample tweet is @cocacola_GH ‘s post on May 22, 2019 that said: “How good
is your math? First five people to solve this win awesome EPL branded items from
Coca-Cola. Post your answer with the hashtag #MatchDeyCokeDey.” Winners of the grand
prize were also announced through a tweet on June 7, 2019 accompanied with a photo of a list
with the winners’ names. The tweet said: “Football never ends, but our EPL does! Thanks to
everyone for enjoying the games with Coca-Cola! And cheers to the winners heading to the
UK to watch next season's EPL with us.” The hashtags #matchdey #cokedey were also used to
emphasise that the EPL games go hand in hand with drinking Coca-Cola.
The sports themes in the study can be associated to McQuail’s (2010) assertion that audiences
relate to characters of a situation in a media environment to escape from real life and stress
(McQuail, 2010). In the case of this study, consumers immersed themselves in football banter
with Coca-Cola, as well as battle against one another to win prices from CocaCola.
Section 4.2.3 reveals the findings related to festivities, as well as the relation with uses and
gratification theory.
4.2.3 Festivities
The theme of festivities includes posts pertaining to holidays and commemorative days.
The category had the following codes: Christmas, Easter, Eid, festivals, Independence
Day, and weekends. Festivities such as Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and
Independence Day, among others are celebrated on the Twitter pages. @cocacola, being the
account for Coca-Cola worldwide wished a number of countries including their headquarters
the United States of America a happy Independence Day. Coca-Cola, towards the end of the
year 2018, used tweets to outdoor its Christmas packaging with hashtags like #BeSanta to
promote generosity in the season. This generosity was brand-specific; sharing Coca-Cola. On
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Valentine’s Day 2015, @cocacola tweeted about a discount using an Akan slang, dominantly
heard in Ghana, where @cocacola_GH operates. The tweet read: “Guys 'Ya te so' so no
swerving the ladies this Vals Day. Buy a bottle of Coke & say Happy Valentine Day with love.”
The phrase “Ya te so” means prices have been reduced. This trend seems to be quite common
as @cocacola also had some tweets in Arabic, Russian, Spanish and others.
Festivities connotes feasting, happiness, relaxation, holidaying and joy among others
which are feelings associated with Christmas, Easter, Eids, festivals, Independence Day,
weekends and other festive days like Valentine’s. Therefore, Whiting and Williams’ (2013)
themes from uses and gratification (pass time, relaxation, entertainment) fits in this category.
From the tweets reviewed, Coca-Cola used consumers’ sentiments of festivities to gratify
consumers through festive greetings and offerings.
In the next section, consumer interactivity with Coca-Cola’s tweets will be discussed
and linked to how uses and gratifications plays a role in the finding.
4.2.4 Consumer interactivity
Consumer involvement in brand’s conversation had the following codes: trivia,
feedback, query, polls. These codes formed the category consumer interactivity where
@cocacola and @cocacola_GH tweeted questions and other statements that encouraged
feedback from consumers including polls, trivia. Examples of such an enquiry include a time
(August 3, 2018). @cocacola pitched a business idea to the public to vote on: “New business
idea #TheGreatDebate #PeanutsandCocaCola Peanuts in Coke, awesome! Just Cherry or
Vanilla Peanuts on the side! Ice-cold is all I need”
This poll gave the audience a chance to vote on the new business idea, which resulted
in “Ice-cold is all I need” option winning with 52% with “Just Cherry or Vanilla” following
at 27%. “Peanuts in Coke, awesome!” and “Peanuts on the side!” followed with 11% and
9% respectively. Some other tweets gave followers tasks to fulfil after which winners were
rewarded by Coca-Cola. Twitter accounts of both Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Ghana were used
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to directly respond to Coca-Cola related inquiries. The data analysed revealed Coca-Cola
responded to the complaints of consumers by treating the complaint in private (direct message).
Twitter accounts therefore serve as customer service points.
Leung (2013) asserts that people use social media to vent feelings. If a brand needs
comments concerning operations, the brand may as well setup a feedback mechanism.
CocaCola allows consumers to tweet at the company, thereby gratifying several needs. Some
of the needs may be the need to vent, or the need to interact (Whiting and Williams, 2013).
The final theme, promotions and web traffic will be discussed in the next section, with
regard to uses and gratifications theory.
4.2.5 Promotions and Web traffic
Promotions and web traffic theme emerged in this study after the preliminary test of the
themes in the coding guide. Codes such as announcement, web links, promo, raffles, and
commercials were observed. The theme of promotion and web traffic dealt with tweet which
presented offerings to consumers and links leading to other platforms owned by the brand.
Both Twitter accounts of Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola Ghana direct traffic to related
pages or websites with web links in tweets. This ability gives network capability in creating
the value with social media, as Okazaki and Taylor (2030), and Ayivor (2015) discussed.
Ayivor (2015) noted in her study that social media helps brands to direct traffic to their actual
websites where products and other services are promoted. An example is an April 11, 2016
tweet from @cocacola_GH,
“Join @africashowboy and us put together all the great Ghanaian moments
#TasteTheFeeling youtu.be/qJK_n0eypoI”
This post has a link directed to Coca-Cola Company’s YouTube page to watch another
advertisement.
Coca-Cola uses Twitter to promote the brand. Announcements are made by CocaCola
via Twitter, keeping the audiences informed. One notable theme that run through uses and
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gratification literature engaged for this study was information. Scholarly works from far back
as Katz and Blumler (1974) to date assert consumers seek media to gratify needs.
The following section discusses the key findings paramount to the objectives of the
study.
4.3 Discussion of Key Findings
This section discusses key findings of this study. The discussions have been group based on
the research questions of the study.
4.3.1 How does Coca-Cola use Twitter for advertising and communication?
The first research question from the study sought to find out how Coca-Cola use Twitter
for advertising and communication. From the findings of the research, it was revealed that
Twitter helped Coca-Cola stay in touch with the target market. This form of contact works
regardless of time and day, as consumers can engage Coca-Cola’s Twitter handles anytime and
vice versa. Communication done through Twitter by Coca-Cola also reaches target wherever
they are through a variety of device, be it mobile phones, tablets or computers, unlike traditional
media which has a device for each medium. This form of connectivity is a practical example
of Okasaki and Taylor’s (2013) network capability theory of social media. From the data
analysed in this study, an example of number of tweets sent from @cocacola_GH were sent
after regular working hours of the company.
In answering the question of how Coca-Cola uses Twitter for advertising and
communication, data from the study show a number of ways which have been put under two
classes, delivery and purpose. In terms of delivery, Coca-Cola used Twitter with all of Twitter’s
delivery routes, that is, text, graphic interchangeable format (GIF), hyperlinks, images, and
videos to advertise and communicate with consumers. With these five formats, a matrix of
combinations of how Coca-Cola use Twitter to advertise and communicate can be explored.
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The text-based messaging used text characters to communicate. These include letters, numbers,
symbols and emoji. Text and media-based messaging had text supported with images, graphic
interchangeable formats (GIFs) and videos. Text and hyperlink-based messaging employed the
use of text and web links to send messages directing targets to external websites to access
further information. Finally, text, media and hyperlink-based messaging combines all three
formats to send a message. For instance, @cocacola’s tweet in the dataset from June 12, 2014,
had text, an image and a link happinnesflag.com. Other examples from the sample contain text
only, text and GIF, text and video.
Under purpose, it can be deduced from the data analysed that Coca-Cola communicated
by advertising the brand to consumers, responding to enquiries made by consumers and
beginning a conversation. How Coca-Cola is able to use Twitter to communicate and advertise
also stems from the use-friendliness of social media (Kaur, 1008; Okazaki and Taylor, 2013;
Ayivor, 2015) and social media’s ability of feedback mechanism that Okazaki and Taylor,
(2013) theorised as personal extensibility to suggest multinational brands can leverage
consumers’ desire of interaction to interact with consumers.
The next section deals with the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements
for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited.
4.3.2 What are the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-
Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola Ghana Limited?
The second research question from the study tried to find out the similarities and
differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola
Ghana Limited. From the data analysed, on one hand, Coca-Cola’s account @cocacola tweeted
chiefly to the American market (where it is headquartered), but at the same time, crafted
messages that that went out to the global market as well. Despite belonging to the bigger Coca-
Cola brand, the Ghanaian (local) subsidiary, @cocacola_GH, on the other hand kept all its
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messaging local. The farthest @cocacola_GH tweeted was for the African market which was
usually about Coke Studio Africa.
The data analysed show that both Twitter handles @cocacola and @cocacola_GH give
priority to Coca-Cola as the brand being promoted. Both Twitter handles are used to announce
messages, create brand awareness and perform online customer service functions.
On the other hand, the local account @cocacola_GH distinctively posted Ghanaian content as
opposed to the dominating global posts of @cocacola. These manifest similarities and
differences in the Twitter posts give rise to the next question of how the scholarly debate of
standardisation vs. localisation (Schmid & Kotulla, 2011; Wang & Yang, 2011; Hatzithomas
et al., (2016); Matricano & Vitagliano, 2018 and can be practicalised with Coca-Cola. The gap
in literature concerning how multinational brands and their local subsidiaries execute these
strategies seeks to be resolved.
4.3.3 In what ways do Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the ads of their local
subsidiaries?
Multinational brand advertising literature is split with the debate of on which strategy
works for advertising multinational brands and their local subsidiaries. In other words, what
the best choice is in terms of how the multinational brand affects the subsidiaries’ advertising.
Using Coca-Cola to answer how multinational brands’ Twitter advertising affect the
advertisement of their local subsidiaries, the findings of this study revealed that the tweets of
@cocacola do not necessarily affect advertising and communication of @cocacola_GH. There
was a low level of engagement when @cocacola tweeted in the Akan language with majority
of the likes and retweet from non-Ghanaian Twitter accounts. As of the year data were collected
for this study, which was four years after that particular tweet was posted, @cocacola_GH had
neither liked nor retweeted the post. Other posts by @cocacola targeted at the Ghanaian market
including share a coke bottle with Ghanaian names also saw very low engagements, some
without Ghanaians engaging.
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Hatzithomas et al., (2016) presented a personalised paradigm which from analysing the
data, Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising seems to practicalise. The Ghanaian subsidiary posted
items that are relatable to Ghanaian context and from close reading of the data, Coca-Cola
Ghana’s account was not obliged to engage with the multinational twitter account. The
Ghanaian subsidiary can safely be said to have localised their advertisements on Twitter. This
finding confirm Berthon, Pitt, Plangger and Shapiro’s (2012) assertion that multinational
brands find it difficult to standardise social media strategy across.
4.3.4 How does Coca-Cola engage their consumers on Twitter?
Evident from the themes discussed in section 4.2, Coca-Cola engaged its consumers by
gratifying the consumers’ needs via Twitter. The various tweets had corresponded to at least
one theme in the category on the coding guide. In an instance, a tweet from @cocacola that
read, “@stonebwoyb takes over our account tomorrow. With just a tweet you can know all
about his #CokeStudioGH experience. Join the fun!” the words “Stonebwoy,”
“CokeStudioGH” were coded as celebrity, music and entertainment, which fell under the pop
culture theme. “Join the fun,” was also coded as a request which fell under the theme consumer
interactivity. By closely reading the above, it is evident that the post followed the themes of
pop culture and consumer interactivity to gratify the entertainment and information needs of
consumers. This reveals Bartsch & Viehoff (2010) assertion of entertainment being huge
motivation for media usage and gratification true in practice. This finding is consistent with
Okazaki and Taylor (2013) that social media gratifies consumers’ needs.
4.4 Chapter Summary
The findings in this study informs that Coca-Cola engages consumers as well as gratify
the needs of these consumers through Twitter. The outstanding similarity between the
multinational account and the subsidiary account is how both accounts prioritise the brand
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Coca-Cola over the others (ie. Fanta, Sprite). The major differences between both accounts are
firstly, the targets. The mother company targets the American audience and next global
audience while the Ghanaian subsidiary advertised to mainly the local target.
The findings move issues relating to Coca-Cola advertisements from anecdotal to research-
backed.
This chapter presented data obtained from a content analysis and thematic analysis of
Coca-Cola’s worldwide and Ghana’s Twitter accounts. Data collected were grouped under
themes of pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, and promotion and web traffic.
The next chapter takes a look at summary, conclusions, and recommendations of the study.
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CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5.1 Introduction
The study set out to investigate Twitter advertising by multinational brands and their
local subsidiaries, using Coca-Cola. The study content analysed tweets from Coca-Cola’s
Twitter page and Coca-Cola Ghana’s Twitter page through a directed content analysis
approach. Subsequently the study was analysed thematically.
This final chapter begins with a summary of the study, concludes the discussion on the
findings of the study. The subsequent sections focus on the limitations of this study and gives
recommendations for further research. Finally, the chapter ends with a chapter summary.
5.2 Summary of the Study
The study began by taking a look at how multinational brands have gained interest in
new media. The phenomenon has sparked debates in scholars for a long period because of how
local subsidiaries of these brands are affected by the advertisements multinational brands put
on social media. The study used Coca-Cola and its Ghanaian subsidiary to investigate the
matter, with Twitter as the social media to that respect. These research questions were asked to
help meet the objectives of the study, how Coca-Cola uses social media for advertising and
communications, the similarities and differences in the Twitter advertisements of Coca-Cola
Company global and in Ghana, what ways Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising affect the
advertisement of the local subsidiary, and how Coca-Cola engages consumers on Twitter. The
study employed a qualitative approach, using directed qualitative content analysis as the
method. A coding guide drawn from previous studies by Cox (2010); Pegoraro (2010) and
Ayivor (2015) was used to generate codes and themes.
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The themes of pop culture, sports, festivities, consumer interactivity, promotions and
web traffic. The frames under pop culture were television, film, radio, music, entertainment,
celebrities, fashion and art. Under the theme of sports, the following frames were coded,
football, games, quizzes and matches. For festivities, the codes were Christmas, Easter, Eid,
Festivals, Independence Day and weekend. Consumer interactivity was coded with trivia,
feedback, complains, enquiry, request and polls. Finally, promotions and web traffic had the
codes of announcement, web links, promo, raffle and commercials.
5.3 Conclusions
Pertaining to the objectives of this study, conclusions were drawn by analysing
implications presented by the key findings of the study. The study revealed that Twitter
performed an important role in advertising and communicating for Coca-Cola. First, the
findings of the study revealed that Coca-Cola uses social media to reach out to their customers
regardless of time of day and location. This implies that multinational brands that use the
standardization strategy in advertising should use social media like Twitter to reach consumers
worldwide.
In addition, the finding of the study indicate Coca-Cola’s Twitter advertising did not conform
to standardisation nor localisation. Coca-Cola’s multinational Twitter account used a
personalised strategy, combining global, local and ‘glocal’ strategies. On the other hand, the
subsidiary account for Ghana used a strictly local approach. These advertising strategies put
together by both parties show a glaring difference between the multinational’s advertising
versus the subsidiary, thus resolving research objective three which looks at the similarities and
differences in the Twitter advertisements for Coca-Cola Company Limited and Coca-Cola
Ghana Limited. As such, the findings imply that for multinational brands to advertise well, the
strategy should be personalised. What fits for one brand may not necessarily fit other brands
(Hatzithomas et al., 2016, pp. 1104). Further, as Okazaki and Taylor (2015) indicated, social
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media has the ability to gratify media needs of consumers. This study which was underpinned
by the uses and gratifications theory, proved that multinational brands can use consumers’
needs to satisfy the consumer by using already determined needs from the uses and
gratifications theory to satisfy the consumer. The next section discusses the limitations of the
study.
5.4 Limitations of the Study
The research was limited to a single brand in the soft drink industry. As such, findings
and conclusions are based on the brand Coca-Cola. Therefore, the results of this study are
neither representative of the soft drinks industry nor multinational brands. The study is
qualitative; therefore, findings cannot be generalized.
Furthermore, despite having vibrant public communication on Twitter, there was a lack
of views from the Coca-Cola Company and Coca-Cola to help understand their communicative
behaviours. The direct messaging buttons on both @cocacola and @cocacola_GH were not
responsive enough for interviews on the matter. At the time when interviews were needed,
@cocacola’s DM was closed. The closest account, @CocaColaCo referred questions to the
Africa branch in Nairobi, Kenya. The next section makes recommendations for future studies.
5.5 Recommendations
Based on findings of this study, it is recommended that multinationals consider social
media as part of their advertising strategy. From the first finding of this study, Coca-Cola use
Twitter to advertise without regard for format. The content by virtue of being on social media
is retrievable at any point in time regardless of geographical boundaries.
Moreover, the second finding revealed Coca-Cola as a multinational brand personalised
its advertising strategy on Twitter and has worked well as Coca-Cola stands with a huge
following on Twitter. Multinational brands are as a form of recommendation advised to draw
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personalised advertising strategy on Twitter, because a standard or local strategy may not fit
perfectly.
The theory of underpinning the study, uses and gratification, offers a number of reasons for
which consumers use social media. The reasons or needs are social purposes and seeking
affection, the need to vent feelings, the need to be recognised, to be entertained, and other
cognitive uses. It is hereby recommended from this study that should a brand need to gratify
media needs of their consumers, social media is a safe bet.
Future studies should look beyond Coca-Cola; other brands can be used to replicate the
study. Better still, multinational brands in Africa could be examined in this light. Studying
African multinational brands would expand literature on African multinational branding.
Future research can be conducted using different methods. The emphasis could be on
one-on-one interviews if there are means to connect with both the multinational brand and their
local subsidiary. A qualitative study can be conducted altogether to bring different perspectives
to the study.
Other social media platforms can be used in subsequent studies. Media sharing
platforms such as Instagram can be used to explore the intricacies of media usage in
multinational and local brand advertising. The next section concludes the study with a
summary.
5.6 Chapter Summary
Innovation brought by Twitter to multinational brands has revolutionised market
communications. Due to this revolution, more multinational brands are creating accounts for
their local subsidiaries. As the brand tries to appeal to its local market, there are a number of
factors the brand must look out for; the nature of engagements of the targets as well the targets’
responsiveness to messaging are all factors to be considered. This research is to begin the
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conversation on social media usage for market communications of multinational branding in
the global south as the dawn of ‘glocalisation’ advances.
This study has researched Twitter advertising of multinational brands and their local
subsidiaries, using Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola in Ghana. This chapter summarised the study,
drew conclusive discussions on the key findings, and articulated the limitations of the study as
well as recommend for future researchers.
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APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: CODING GUIDE FOR TWEETS
Table 1 Coca-Cola on Twitter: Category Definitions
Pop Culture Posts that refer to popular culture; relevant concepts in society at the given time:
● television
● film
● radio
● music
● entertainment
● celebrities
● fashion
● art
Festivities Posts surrounding holidays and commemorative days
● Christmas
● Easter
● Eid
● festivals
● independence day
● weekend
Sports Posts that refer to sporting and allied activities:
● football
● games
● quizzes
CATEGORY DEFINITION
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● matches
Consumer Interactivity Consumer involvement in brand’s conversation:
● trivia
● feedback
● complains
● enquiry
● request
● polls
Promotions and Web
Traffic
Posts which presents offerings to consumers including
links leading to other platforms owned by the brand:
● announcement
● web links
● promo
● raffle
● commercials
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