In modern world, social media plays an important role and have changed the way people communicate, search information about products or services, find media content. This development has changed the way businesses are promoted. This article is going to provide a basic understanding of social media concept, evaluate the role of social media in promotion of a FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) brand in the Russian market utilizing the case of Company X.

Authors: Tamara Vladimirskaia and Marja Viljanen

Social media as a marketing tool

Social media are online tools and platforms that allow internet users to collaborate on content, share insights and experiences, and connect for business or pleasure (Strauss & Frost 2009, 329). Social media includes social networks, blogs, microblogs, photo, and video host services, forums blogs. Most of them have a unique, recognizable interface and work on a set of different technologies that make a certain website a unique communicational tool. (Neyaskin 2010, 7). There are several significant issues that distinct social media from traditional ones: the ability to share information immediately, less censored content, ability to edit and publish any kind of the material. Hence, many companies nowadays have shifted to social media instead of the use of television, newspapers, radio and magazines as marketing channels.

Social media marketing (SMM) is the complex use of social media websites and social networks to promote a company’s products and services. SMM is used to increase sales, brand awareness, attract new customers and partners, analyze the market and search for new opportunities for a business. The main channel in SMM promotion is promotion via social networks. Social networks are websites or apps that unify different people and provides an opportunity to communicate, share media, discuss opinions and search for information. Different social networks could be utilized for different purposes of the company.

Social networks and social media marketing in Russia

In Russia, social networks are popular among people of different ages, nationalities and social status. According to the latest statistics provided by State Statistics Service of Russian Federation (2018), 71.5% of the population in Russia aged 15-72 are active Internet users. Currently, 45% of citizens of the Russian Federation over 18 years old are currently using at least one of the social networks almost every day, 62% – at least once a week. Therefore, there are unlimited opportunities for different companies to use social media as a marketing tool. This is applicable to different types of business, including fast-moving consumer goods brands (FMCG). In the Russian market, the most popular social networks are YouTube, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Instagram and Facebook. VKontakte and Odnoklassniki are Russian-based social networks, launched by Russian web-developers in accordance with customer needs and preferences in the specific market.

Currently, social media are used by different size companies for their promotion. This usage is applied to convey the market position, become more customer-friendly and customer-oriented. (Saravanakumar & SuganthaLakshmi 2012). For an FMCG brand, such as Company X, social media practices are an excellent opportunity not only to attract new customers and increase sales but to create a channel to receive feedback, respond to comments and communicate directly with the consumer. For an FMCG brand, the recommendations for SMM strategies are the following:

• Strategy planning for social media campaigns, clearly stated goals and prepared plan for tools utilization;
• Content planning with proper media content that shows values of the company and specially designed for each publication;
• Involving users of social networks and customers of a brand in a content creation to increase loyalty for a brand;
• The diversity of the content used in promotional campaigns;
• Budget planning for digital marketing activities in accordance with the needs of the company.

Research and findings

The empirical research done for the case Company has shown several significant issues that could be utilized by an FMCG brand. The empirical research was based on the analysis of the case company social media marketing activities, the survey of the customers and the interview with personnel. Even thought the research was conducted especially for the case company, the results are applicable to other companies in Russia in order to improve SMM activities.

The first key finding was a demand to improve the strategic planning. This includes the need to plan and schedule publications, the budget planning for tools and resources used and the general concept for the promotional plan, content plan development. Second, the content planning requires more attention. There are variety of media types that could be utilized to diversify the content in social networks. This may attract new customers and help to avoid user fatigue from brand content in social networks. Third, due to the specifics of Russian market the focus should be shifted to the social networks that are the most popular in this country. These social networks are YouTube, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Instagram and Facebook. All these networks have their own features, different audiences and user interfaces. Therefore, different groups of the target audience might be covered via diverse marketing channels. Furthermore, the implementation of contests and giveaways on a regular basis might stimulate users to create user-generated content and positively influence on the brand image. Finally, the utilization of different SMM tools, such as target advertising, advertising via influence agents, hashtags implementation, execution of pixels of the social network to the website, attracting traffic from the communities bring significant results.

The research results showed that the strategic planning, content planning, different social networks utilization, use of the diverse SMM tools could work in compilation for the stable and ongoing results. Social media is a great tool for promotion, attracting new customers and maintaining existing one. The Russian market with its own specific characteristics is a perspective for FMCG brands further development.

References

Neyaskin G. 2010. Social media influence on business communication. Dialog communication in business. Moscow: High School of Economics.

Saravanakumar M., SuganthaLakshmi T. 2012. Social Media Marketing. Life Science Journal 9(4):4444-4451. [Cited 23 Nov 2018]. Available at: http://www.lifesci-encesite.com/lsj/life0904/670_13061life0904_4444_4451.pdf

State Statistics Service of Russian Federation. 2018. Use of the Internet by Population of Russian Federation. Tables 3.1, 3.11. [Cited 25 Nov 2018]. Available at: http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/business/it/fed_nabl-croc/PublishData%5CRe-ports%5CReports_2016.html

Strauss J. & Frost R. 2009. E-marketing. 5th edition. USA, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Vladimirskaia, T. 2018.  The Role of Social Media in Promotion of the Fast-Moving Consumer Good Brand in The Russian Market. Case: Company X.  Bachelor’s thesis. Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management. Lahti. [Cited 11 Dec 2018]. Available at: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2018120520277

Authors

Tamara Vladimirskaia has studied Business and Administration at Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management at Lahti University of Applied Sciences and has graduated and received a BBA degree in December 2018.

Marja Viljanen works as a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Hospitality Management, Lahti University of Applied Sciences.

Illustration: https://pixabay.com/en/social-social-media-communication-3064515/  (geralt/CC0)

Published: 12.12.2018

Reference to this publication

Vladimirskaia, T. & Viljanen, M. 2018. Social media as a marketing channel for FMCG brands in Russia. LAMK Pro. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2018/12/12/social-media-as-a-marketing-channel-for-fmcg-brands-in-russia/

Nordic Game Conference in Malmö has grown to be the most significant game industry professionals gathering in Europe during its 15 years. In 2018 over 2000 game industry professionals and students enjoyed presentations by over 178 speakers at Nordic Game 2018 (NG18). This year’s NG18 had an Impact track, which caught the eye of GameChangers –project as the sessions promised to make us think more deeply about the impact of the games and how we create them has on the world. The track was put together by Kate Edwards and Tsahi Liberman, who are both active advocates for diversity and inclusiveness in the games industry. The Impact track had eight sessions including a workshop and a seminar during the three conference days. The Impact track was a welcome addition to the conference program and its influence potential was huge. In this article, we will share some ideas and insights the Impact track sessions but also commenting on a few other talks about diversity.

Authors: Ria Gynther & Essi Prykäri

Game industry and stereotypes

The game industry has a reputation for being bro-club; the reputation is unfortunately not entirely unfound. According to International Game Developers Association (IGDA) video game industry is still predominated by young, heterosexual, white males (Gosse, Legault, O’Meara & Weststar 2016, 6-10, 38). IGDAs international survey data indicates that 74% of game developers are men, 21% are women and 5% identified themselves as transgender or other (Weststar, O’Meara & Legault 2017, 11).

Carolyn Petit and Anita Sarkeesian are spokespersons of inclusive and representative media landscape and they both work with Feminist Frequency, a not-for-profit educational organization. They held a workshop to give game designers concrete tools for creating compelling and diverse characters in their games. Workshop started with analyzing characters from well-known games. As stated earlier, most of game designers are young, white and men, this is also true when we take a closer look on most famous video game characters for example Nathan Drake from Uncharted and Link from the Zelda series.

During the workshop, the participants were encouraged to think about diversity from different angles, not just gender and race, but also about sexual orientation, cultural background, able-bodied vs. disability and age. Carolyn and Anita also challenged the participants to think about how these different qualities are portrayed, for example: is the Asian person a math genius in the game, do the women have agency or are they just tropes, are all heroes young and male. Does the portrayal or the characters enforce stereotypes or try to change them?

PICTURE 1. Carolyn Petit and Anita Sarkeesian talking about positive character examples at Nordic Game 2018.

Luckily, the industry has woken up to the issue and there are several initiatives to help diversify the industry and there are more and more playable female characters for example Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, Ellie from Last of Us II and Jesse from Control.

The Path to Impact

Kate Edwards gave a very empowering talk about making a change in the games industry. Game industry, particular in the US, is at the moment unappreciated. For example, 40% of the US citizens believe that games are linked to violent crime in US and 60% believe that games are mostly played by men. Misconceptions about the people working within the industry include statements such as ”they are people who can’t get a real job” and ”they are only motivated by money”. These types of stigmas are hard to break and are one factor that prevents game industry to grow to be more inclusive.

In the light of recent studies, game industry itself is also filled with cultural norms, biases and distorted gender beliefs towards women in video game industry. Due to these, women are marginalized even more by being categorized only to certain roles, instead of seeing the full potential or expertise behind their gender (Harvey & Shepherd 2017, 494; Styhre et al.2016, 1-2.)

Kate Edwards addressed similar issues in her sessions, but also reminded us that they can be easily overcome. She encouraged us all to become Creator-Advocates, and speak for diversity. We cannot change the world alone, but we can make a small change for the better.

PICTURE 2. Kate Edwards talking about becoming a Creator-Advocate.

Luckily strong speeches advocating the need and the power of diversity we’re also given outside the Impact track.  Robin Hunicke’s Experimental Game Design – the next five years was one of the most influential speeches during the conference and the only one of the track that was held in main stage. Another powerful talk on the main stage was Angie Smets’s talk Horizon Zero Dawn – a studio’s perspective, which also served as a good reminder that successful games can also have female protagonists. Both sessions are available on Nordic Game’s YouTube channel.

Diversity and women in and behind the games were not absent from the social events at the conference. The gala dinner was followed by the joyful Marioke [karaoke songs rewritten about video games and game development] where the disco hit It’s raining men turned into an ironic take on men explaining first person shooter games to female players. Explaining men, Hallelujah! Explaining men!

Afterthoughts

Games are powerful and unique medium; they are both products of culture as well as create culture (Deuze et al. 2007, 345). This is one of the main reasons why tracks like these are important. Idea behind the NG18 Impact track was to encourage games industry professionals to think deeply about the impact their games have on our world, and how the way games are made contribute to this. We believe this was achieved, but in a much smaller scale than what could have been possible. Only one of the tracks speeches was presented on the main stage and in some cases the amount of interested participants exceeded the capacity of the chosen seminar rooms. Also, most of the participants seemed already interested on these subjects or represent the minorities in question. Unfortunately, the lack of stereotypical game designers was evident, these are the groups that would benefit the most from the eye opening talks and workshops such as presented within this track.

It is crucial to show that women, and other minorities, can be and are an important part of the games industry, that it is not just a ”bro-club”. Diversity and inclusiveness create better teams, give people new ideas and widen horizons. This is something we’re also aiming to do in the GameChangers – Women in the Game Industry project.  Start making a change!

References

Deuze, M., Martin, C. & Allen, C. 2007. The Professional Identity of Gameworkers. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. [Electronic journal]. Vol. 13(4), 335-353. [Cited 10 Jun 2018]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856507081947

Gosse, C., Legault, M-J., O’Meara, V. & Weststar, J. 2016. Diversity in the Game Industry Report.  [Online document]. Toronto: IGDA : Developer Satisfaction Survey Resources. [Cited 10 Jun 2018]. Available at: https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.igda.org/resource/collection/CB31CE86-F8EE-4AE3-B46A-148490336605/IGDA_DSS14-15_DiversityReport_Aug2016_Final.pdf

Harvey, A. & Shepherd, T. 2017. When passion isn’t enough: gender, affect and credibility in digital games design. International Journal of Cultural Studies. [Electronic journal]. Vol 20 (5), 492 – 508. [Cited 10 Jun 2018]. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877916636140

Styhre, A., Remneland-Wikhamn, B., Szczepanska, A-M. & Ljungberg, J. 2016. Masculine domination and gender subtexts: The role of female professionals in the renewal of the Swedish video game industry. Culture and Organization. [Electronic journal]. Vol 24(3), 244-261. [Cited 10 Jun 2018].  Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2015.1131689 

Weststar, J., O’Meara, V. & Legault, M-J. 2017. Developer Satisfaction Survey 2017. [Online document]. Toronto: IGDA. [Cited 10 Jun 2018]. Available at: https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.igda.org/resource/resmgr/2017_DSS_/!IGDA_DSS_2017_SummaryReport.pdf

About the authors

Ria Gynther works as a project coordinator on the GameChangers –project at Lahti University of Applied Sciences and is a student in the Internet and Game studies master’s program at University of Tampere.

Essi Prykäri works part-time as a project advisor on the GameChangers –project at Lahti University of Applied Sciences. She is a keen gamer and a feminist.

Pictures: Essi Prykäri

Published 27.6.2018

Reference to this publication

Gynther, R. & Prykäri, E. 2018. Making the game better at Nordic Game Conference in Malmö. LAMK Pro. [Electronic magazine]. [Cited and date of citation]. Available at: http://www.lamkpub.fi/2018/06/27/making-the-game-better-at-nordic-game-conference-in-malmo