#SpeakBeautiful: One company’s efforts to change the narrative about body perception on social mediaMatt Tidwell, APR and Roseann PlurettiWilliam Allen White School of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsUniversity of Kansas27th Annual ConferenceMid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture AssociationAtlantic City, NJNov. 5, 2016

Introduction

Common for companies to engage with customers around a social topic or a charitable cause

In 2015, Dove launched #SpeakBeautiful to engage customers and others in conversation about body shaming on social media

Literature Review

Much research on how media promotes a physical body “ideal” Kilbourne (2005) Merskin (2004)

Historical research has linked negative body perception to major health consequences including eating disorders Coughlin & Kalonder (2006) Frederickson & Roberts (1997)

Literature Review Company-stakeholder partnership research

Gummesson and co-creation of value (2011) Two-way symmetrical communications theory (Gruning,

2001) Asymmetrical: one party’s interests dominate Instead, two-way symmetrical communications aims for

alignment to get to a mixed motive, “win-win” zone Mutual “issues arenas” (Luoma-aho & Vos, 2010) “Balance zone” where dialogue, collaboration and

negotiation exist to satisfy mutual interests (Flynn, 2004)

Literature Review Research Questions

1] How and in what ways do customers interact with an expansive social media campaign designed to raise awareness about a social issue?

2] Does Dove’s #SpeakBeautiful campaign exemplify elements of contemporary stakeholder engagement as articulated in two-way symmetrical communications and other theories?

Methodology

Qualitative content analysis Matrix 100 tweets examined Twitter Advanced Search March, 2015 and October, 2016 Constructed week, systematic random sampling Thematic analysis, axial coding

Observations Building a “platform for

the positive”: The campaign appears to have succeeded in fostering inspirational messages and feelings about body image, either expressed by the participant or directed at an individual/group (RQ#1)

Observations A shared “issues arena”: Campaign participants echo

the company’s rhetoric that body shaming is negative and can be destructive (RQ#2)

Observations Observed level of interactivity between company and

campaign participants (i.e. praise for the effort, mentioning other initiatives, etc.) (RQs 1 & 2)

Observations

Questioning Dove’s motives/sincerity: Media attention calling Dove’s motives intro question brought out discussion (and defense of the company) (RQ#2)

Hashtag confusion: The hashtag was hijacked by some other movements like “eliminate the R-Word” and other activist causes

Discussion Defining an “issues arena”

Stakeholders enthusiastically embraced the inspirational tone envisioned at the campaign’s launch

Drive to satisfy mutual interests Social media allows for rich dialogue between an

organization and its stakeholders; helps companies arrive at that “win-win” zone

These campaigns can draw high scrutiny

Limitations / Future Research Drew observations from a limited number of Tweets Only looked at Tweets using #SpeakBeautiful Looked at original Tweets only (not retweets) Used Twitter’s advanced search function which has

limitations Future research can:

Look at retweets, Dove’s responses and viral spread to better assess interactivity

Our themes could guide codes for quantitative analysis of themes across a larger sample size

Questions?

Thank you!