Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.2 Instagram
and Karjaluoto, 2008). It was defined as consumers’ own willingness to pull information or brand related content to themselves through “trigger media” on mobile devices (Leppäniemi and Karjaluoto, 2008). Marketers are now trying to “earn” consumers’ attention by “pull”
advertisements (Hopkins, 2014; Persaud & Azhar, 2012). They want consumers to engage with them voluntarily. Modern mobile devices help marketers to engage with consumer in a brand new way. Although these mobile devices are smaller in screen size, they have other mobile phones (Ipsos MediaCT, 2013). In social mobile applications, posts can go viral just within hours with word-of-mouth effect. In addition, the large number of users makes social network an influential place for companies to deliver marketing communication. There are more companies who incorporate mobile marketing in social media as one of their marketing strategies (Morrison, 2014).
Instagram, an image-intensive social mobile application, became the second largest social network in the US in 2014 (eMarketer, 2015). It became one of the social network platforms for brands marketing. Their user populations in Taiwan are increasing, especially among younger populations (Insight Xplorer, 2013). It is expected to become the focus for brand advertisements in the near future.
2.2 Instagram
Instagram is a social mobile application which users can share photos and videos with others.
It was established in 2010 and purchased by Facebook in 2012 with one billion US dollars (Carlson, 2012). When Facebook has slowed its overall growth in its users in 2013-2014, Instagram on the contrary, has significant growth in almost every demographic group (Duggen, Ellison, Lampe, Lenhart, & Madden, 2015). The users of Instagram in America grew from 27 million (2012) to 64.2 million (2014) just within two years (Kosoff, 2015;
eMarketer, 2015). Instagram has surpassed Twitter to become the second largest social media in the States in 2014 (eMarketer, 2015). International users are also growing. Instagram has 300 million users worldwide, more than 70 percent of its users are outside of United States
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advertising. Fashion and retailer brands are the most popular brand sector to use Instagram (Pinson, 2014). Brands that use Instagram have a 278% increase in followers in 2014 (YesMail Interactive, 2015). On average there is an 8% increase per month, which is twice the rate of other social media platforms (YesMail Interactive, 2015).More brands are adopting Instagram in hopes of turning followers into future customers. For example, The New York Times. The audiences of New York Times’ are shrinking both on web and on smartphone apps while their competitors’ are growing. New York Times saw a massive migration to social media even though they had redesigned their homepage. Two third of their users access the New York Times’ website through other doorways. New York Times began to adopt Instagram in 2015, and hoping to raise brand awareness and build relationships with potential customers (Moses, 2014). According to Smith (2014), 90% of Instagram’s user in 2014 is below 35 years old. In the U.S., over half of the population between age 12-24 owns Instagram account (Blattberg, 2015). Instagram also reached 83% of U.S. teens in wealthy households that are characterized as young, urban, wealthy and highly engaged (Blattberg, 2015). They are 18 times more engaging with Instagram than with other social media platform (Blattberg, 2015). The majority of Instagram users are Millenniums (born between 1977-1994) and Generation Z (born 1995-2012) (Rhone, 2015). They tend to be device dependent, emotionally connected, crave for information, and have more trust on digital content (SapientNitro, 2014). Their use of technology is also part of their self-image (SapientNitro, 2014). They want to have a more transparent and authentic relationship in all aspects of their lives and also with brands (SapientNitro, 2014).
Moreover, Instagram users in Taiwan are rapidly increasing since 2012 (Insight Xplorer, 2013). Instagram has the highest reach rate among all other foreign social media except for Facebook (Insight Xplorer, 2013). It also has the broadest and youngest user base, 56.5% of its users in Taiwan are 15-24 years old (Insight Xplorer, 2013). From the above information, Instagram users are mainly young population throughout the world. Therefore, these user traits and usage patterns make Instagram users attractive to many brands, such as apparel, entertainment, media and other brands (Smith, 2014).
Similar to other popular social apps, Instagram also have a reverse chronological timeline, liking and commenting features, as well as follower relationships. Users can take
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What makes it special is that after taking a photo, they crop the image into a square and users can apply filters to adjust the photo and make it beautiful. After that, they can share it on Instagram or on other social network. The style of Instagram photos is very visually appealing. The composition, the shape, and the vibrant color of Instagram photos make viewing Instagram feed a pleasing experience. With the magic of filter functions on Instagram, users can also transform their photos into something aesthetically pleasing. Most of the Instagram photos are coherent in styles and supreme in quality. Its visual-heavy nature makes it a perfect platform for advertisers. Instagram stated, “We want these ads to be enjoyable and creative in much the same way you see engaging, high-quality ads when you flip through your favorite magazine” (Instagram Business, 2014).
Aside from being aesthetically pleasing, Instagram is also a platform that facilitates influencer marketing and word-of-mouth viral marketing (Goor, 2012). Besides sharing users’
own photos, they can also follow other people and check out their life with the photos they share. Brand will work with popular users to push sponsor ads. Startup brands would also use Instagram for marketing to reach more people. Creative marketing also emerged, for example, the Warby Parker. It’s a prescription eyewear company. They gave out their eyewears on loan and encourage people to take photo with it around the city (Goor, 2012). Brands are engaging with their target audience with fun and interactive marketing activities. Which makes Instagram a very addictive and habit-forming app (Baer, 2014b). Most of the successful apps are habit-forming, they share similar usage patterns, from Trigger, Action, Reward, to Investment (The Next Web, 2014). Take Instagram for example, its simple filter function helps users to create better photos. It became a trigger that encourages users to take photo with Instagram. With better photos, users are more likely and willing to share it.
Therefore induced the Action of sharing. Once they share it, they will get instant Reward from friend’s comment or likes. This instant gratification brings users back to the platform where they continue to Invest and create more contents to enrich their profiles. And eventually, Instagram became psychologically attractive and addictive as well. These usage experiences would gradually form habits (Baer, 2014b), and a habit-forming app is a success at “pull” marketing.
Instagram is trying to create a new way of advertising without being intrusive. They try to earn consumer’s attention by creating valuable contents that are sharable, by engaging with influencers, and by gradually forming usage habits. Consumers are actively seeking, and being attracted to or “pulled” by these advertisements instead of being “pushed” to see
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interruptive and unappealing advertisements. On Instagram, brands and users enjoy the same privilege. Brand’s Instagram profile is the same with user’s Instagram profile. There is a follower relationship. Only when your Instagram profile is being followed, that your posts would appear on these followers Instagram feed. However, when a friend tagged the brand with tags or hashtags, users can link to the brands’ Instagram page or the database with user generated content about the brand. Consumers would not be forced to receive advertisements;
instead, they have to be willing to connect with brands and take action by searching for brands, connecting to brands through tags or hashtags, or “follow” the brand to receive brand contents.
Instagram is still a new social network environment for consumers in Taiwan.
However, there is a gradual increase of Instagram adoption among younger people. This study seeks to understand how brands’ Instagram content influence senior high school students. Explore whether Instagram advertisements would contribute to a more positive brand experiences or advertisement effectiveness.